Establishing legitimacy: persuasion and organisational identity

Abstract

Studies of institutions have shown that legitimacy and credibility are important aspects of institutional identity, particularly in the case of NGO. Given that identity is established and reflected largely through linguistic means, legitimacy and credibility are constructed and maintained through the discourse of an NGO. Thus the discourse of an NGO works to persuade readers’ of its legitimacy. Through a CDA based analysis of organisational newsletters, it is observed that two large and well-known NGOs, Open Society Institute and Amnesty International establish legitimacy through appeal to rather different qualities. In the former case, a subjective view is presented, with the institution’s attitude and opinion paramount in establishing legitimacy and credibility. In the latter case, that of Amnesty International, the institution is cast as legitimate and credible through appeal to objectivity. These differing approaches to establishment of legitimacy are manifested through different discursive patterns and devices. Hedging is a major feature of Amnesty International’s discourse, playing a central role in the establishment and maintenance of an objective stance. Meanwhile the discourse of Open Society Institute is characterised by a lack of hedges and indeed by boosters, creating their subjective route to legitimacy and credibility. Thus, the analysis indicates that differing distribution of linguistic features in the respective institutions’ newsletters are central to the construction of the two identities. Furthermore differing generic choices are also powerful in contributing to the divergent persuasive techniques employed by the organisations. In particular genre integrity and genre variation are powerful enactors of the respective organisational identities.