The Discursive Representation of Companies in Malaysian Business Magazines

This article studies the portrayal of companies in malaysian business magazine articles. 8 articles were selected from business today and malaysian business and they were analyzed using fairclough’s 3-dimensional critical discourse analysis (cda) model. this entailed an analysis of text, discourse practice and social practice. text analysis employs transitivity from systemic functional linguistics (sfl) to focus on processes and participants. certain processes relate a particular experience about companies. companies are shown to have positive social agency because they manage their context to ensure profitability through material process while their positive traits are shown through relational (attributive and identifying) process. the discourse practice analysis covers intertextuality and interdiscursivity. studying intertextuality reveals 2 dominant voices, the writer and spokesperson, where the writer quotes the spokesperson using mental and verbal processes. quoting the spokesperson enables the writer to substantiate his opinions, which makes his writing seem credible. studying interdiscursivity reveals 2 dominant discourses, journalistic and public relations, where public relations discourse is conveyed through the reputed objectivity of journalistic discourse. both text and discourse practice analyses construe a ‘world’ where everything revolves around companies for their benefit to garner economic capital, which implies the social practice of the articles in business today and malaysian business.