Identity construction and its collocation networks: a cross-register analysis of the finance domain

Abstract This study investigates the use of explicit manifestations of authorial identity (namely self-mention pronouns) and their collocation networks in academic and workplace written texts. Based on a purpose-built corpus of research articles and the Hong Kong Financial Services Corpus (HKFSC), this study used Antconc and Graphcoll to extract and analyze the pronouns and their collocation networks. The statistical analysis shows that the academic register contains significantly more self-mention pronouns than the workplace corpus, which can be attributed to a stronger tendency towards self-positioning. We also identified significant register-specific semantic features of the collocation networks of self-mention pronouns. These findings contribute to our understanding of how self-mention pronouns operate in tandem with their surrounding context in register-specific discourse. Pedagogically, the findings can be useful for workshop-based training for finance students and early-career professionals in this domain to support the development of the discipline-specific writing skills needed for careers in academia and industry.