BRIC by BRIC. The CorSus of Corporate Social Responsibility. A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of Sustainability Reports

The thesis analysed the discourse of Corporate Social Responsibility reports issued by oil and electric companies operating in emerging and industrial countries. Through a combined quantitative and qualitative approach, the research attempted to reveal how linguistic and textual choices are used by firms to build trust and reputation and to pursue their business interests. More specifically, it aimed at identifying common discourses arising within the emerging countries, which could suggest a possible distinction between a 'developing' and a 'developed' environmental ethics.