This paper analyses letters to shareholders by bank presidents in the ten years after the financial crisis to establish whether apologies for corporate wrongdoing and mismanagement are present, and if not, how these negative aspects are communicated. Apologies and quasi apologies are shown to be part of a wider repertoire of strategies including alignment with those affected, disassociation from negative events, scapegoating of perpetrators, and promises of future good conduct. These findings are discussed in terms of the banks’ ongoing relationship (...) with shareholders, and their wider reputation management endeavours. (shrink)

The world financial crisis of 2008 reached a head in the Eurozone in 2012, when major problems became apparent affecting several countries in Southern Europe. During this time, the British press focused particularly on Spain, watching the potentially volatile political situation with interest, and documenting the negotiations between Spanish and European leaders. This article considers how this situation was reported in two British newspapers, The Guardian and The Independent, applying corpus linguistics techniques to identify salient aspects of the crisis and (...) to detect patterns in language use that had an ideological dimension. The 2012 crisis emerges mainly as a political issue, and the reporting focuses on solutions rather than causes or effects. However, even though these two publications are not noted for Euroscepticism, they both show a strong tendency to group South European countries together within a negative frame, collectivizing them and establishing a dichotomy with Northern Europe. (shrink)

Recent discourse research has examined the rise of right-wing populism. Yet the predominant focus on political parties and politicians means that we know less about how right-wing identities are performed among ordinary people with different degrees of political engagement. This paper examines reader comments pages in three British newspapers, analysing how participants perform, defend and reinforce their political identities in online fora. It traces how supporters of the far-right United Kingdom Independence Party perform collective identities and enact political antagonisms. The (...) conclusions emphasise how online media particularly propitiate the blending of personal and societal discourses, and suggest that the internal dynamics of affordances such as comments pages propel conflict escalation and heighten antagonism. (shrink)

Though still relatively infrequent, the issuing of dissenting and concurring opinions is becoming more common in international investment arbitration. This paper reviews the reasons for delivering separate opinions envisaged in the bibliography on investment arbitration, comparing these with practices in the related area of commercial arbitration. Fourteen recent separate opinions appended to ICSID arbitration awards and decisions are then analysed to determine how the arbitrators themselves explain why they have taken the drastic step of issuing a separate opinion. Potential areas (...) of convergence between investment arbitration and commercial arbitration practice will be addressed. (shrink)