Connecting ‘talent’ meanings and multi-level context: a discursive approach

Abstract

Through an in-depth, multilevel case study of a professional services firm, this paper illuminates what stakeholders mean when they use the term ‘talent’. The paper underlines how various contextual factors including, workforce composition, ownership structures and individual perceptions influence talent meanings within an organisation. Our analysis of talent phenomena at a multiplicity of levels illustrates that it is not only about the words, phrases, and terms employed when talking about talent that requires examination. There is a need to deliberate on the meanings that underpin the talk because while stakeholders may talk the same way they may mean different things. The paper makes a key theoretical contribution through specific recognition of the importance of thoughtful reflection of how stakeholders discursively construct meanings because ‘talent’ is a concept, which requires translation via talk to become meaningful within the material world and these meanings are influenced by context. Thus, we cannot infer, that talent meanings radiate within organisations, nor across organisational boundaries, industries or countries because discourses arise and materialise within specific contexts and we must acknowledge that talent discourses can not be removed from the context in which they operate.     

All Myth and Ceremony? Examining the Causes and Logic of the Mission Shift in Microfinance from Microenterprise Credit to Financial Inclusion

This contribution assesses the shift in the mission of microfinance from providing small loans for entrepreneurship to the broader agenda of financial inclusion. Three leading organisations' publications inform a discourse analysis, which allows the strategic shift to be analysed using two theoretical frames from organisational sociology: instrumental rationalism and sociological institutionalism. The proclaimed shift in strategy is found to consist less of rational innovation towards the aim of poverty alleviation than of “myth and ceremony” for the sake of organisational self-preservation.     

谈主位推进模式在译语语篇中的再现——《匆匆》三个英译本的比较分析

功能语言学中的主位推进模式是语篇生成的重要形式手段,近年来,语篇在翻译中的重要性愈来愈得到重视。现把主位推进模式作为重要的参考依据,分析了朱自清名篇《匆匆》的三个英译本,可以看到,在译者组织译语语篇时,如果把握住主位述位之间的联系变化,则有利于更全面地再现原文的谋篇意义和交际意义。当译文与源语之间存在结构以及表达习惯等的差异和冲突时,应该做出适当转换和调整,既使译文符合译语的句法习惯,又使重建的主位推进模式能够再现原文语篇风格。     

Promoting Tourism,Projecting Power: The Role of Television Commercials

This paper analyzes television commercials (TVCs) launched by Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) from 1999 to 2012. By repeating shots of traditional and Korean popular (k-pop) culture, high-tech machinery, and sportsmanship, it is fair to say that Korean tourism TVCs both reflected and fueled the fad a target audience has for Korea. Hence the commercials not only promoted tourism, they were also projecting national power in general and cultural power in particular. It is surmised that through power projection the TVCs intend to create a country halo effect so that the country’s products and services may enjoy an aspired added value.     

谈联想在新闻报道中的应用

联想作为新闻工作者不可或缺的一种心理素质,贯穿在采访中的新闻敏感的产生、新闻主题的提炼与新闻写作的全过程。本文就联想在新闻报道中的应用进行了详细探讨。     

Seeking roots and tracing lineages: constructing a framework of reference for roots and genealogical tourism

This article examines the role of media in the construction of place within the context of cultural heritage and postmodern flows. Both physical and virtual place involve actors, objects and actions that establish subjectivity, encode time, and frame space. Both environments are dynamic and generate meanings that are relevant to the actor, contextualizing the spaces in which she/he acts. From a post-stucturalist perspective, place can be viewed as a composite of interwoven texts – each discursive, contingent, ambiguous and contested. It is argued that virtual place is constructed through the embodied subjectivity of the actor, grounded by inter-subjective discourse and the texts they form within and beyond the physical dimensions of place.     

中西文化心理差异与期刊论文摘要翻译中的语篇重构

汉英两个不同的民族,由于其地理生活环境,宗教信仰,生活方式的巨大差异,在漫长的历史发展过程中,逐渐形成了各自不同的思维模式。从期刊论文摘要的翻译来看,其最大的障碍就是思维差异所导致的语篇特点的不同。本文分析了中西思维模式的差异及其在汉英摘要语篇中的体现,包括语篇结构,语篇衔接手段和语篇的文体色彩三个方面,探讨期刊论文摘要翻译中语篇重构这一翻译方法,以期保证摘要译文的质量。     

从新闻报道的特点看英语模糊限制语及其功能

新闻报道的时效性、简明性、有效性、语言准确性等特点决定了英语模糊限制语在新闻报道中的存在,模糊语在英语新闻报道中的使用能增强报道的可信度,增强报道文本的活泼性,适应不同层次的阅读和认知需求,体现一定的社会保护功能。     

消息标题与导语写法探讨

消息是新闻最基本的、使用量最大的文体。好的消息具有很高可读性和强烈的吸引力。文章从消息的2个重要组成部分一标题和导语入手，探讨提高消息可读性的写作方法。标题写法主要从表现手法、风格、结构形式和句式特点等方面进行探讨；导语写法主要从叙述、提问和评议等方面进行探讨。     

On the Asymmetric Recognition of Good and Bad News in France, Germany and the United Kingdom

We investigate whether accounting systems recognise bad news more promptly in earnings than good news, where news is proxied by changes in share price. The analysis is based on a sample of firm/years drawn from France, Germany, and the UK during 1990 to 1998. These three countries are the originators of three distinct legal traditions. Previous studies have argued that asymmetric recognition, one manifestation of conservative accounting, is sensitive to legal background and history. We find that in all three countries the contemporaneous association between earnings and returns is much stronger for bad news (i.e. when price changes are negative) than for good news, and although the results are strongest for the UK, and then France, the inter-country differences are not statistically significant. The stronger reaction to bad news is more pronounced for firms with relatively low capitalisation. We also find that the relative persistence of profits and losses are consistent with asymmetric recognition in France and the UK, but not in Germany, and that the more timely recognition of bad news is maintained even when we control for earnings persistence. When we extend the model to include price changes from previous periods, we see that the stronger reaction to bad news decays over time. The results from this model also suggest that 'pervasive' conservatism, unrelated to news, is observed in Germany and France, but the UK results are consistent with optimism. Although asymmetric recognition is generally strongest in the UK and weakest in Germany, and this broadly conforms to our expectations, the differences are less clear than the results from earlier periods.