Contribution of Frequency and Types of Lexical Choices to the Expression of Evaluative Language in Mission Statements: Evidence from Selected Public and Private Corporations in Kenya

Abstract

Despite growing scholarly interest in corporate discourse, limited research has examined how lexical patterns contribute to the construction of evaluative language in mission statements within the Kenyan context. This study examined how lexical frequencies contribute to evaluative language in mission statements of the selected public and private corporations in Kenya. The study adopted a Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis (CADS) approach informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics and Appraisal Theory. The study corpus comprised mission statements from thirty purposively selected Kenyan corporations, consisting of fifteen public and fifteen private organizations drawn from diverse sectors of the economy. Data were analyzed using AntConc Version 4.3.1 through frequency, concordance, collocation, and lexical density analyses, complemented by qualitative discourse interpretation. The findings revealed distinct lexical orientations between public and private corporations. The study further established that the repeated use of lexical items intensified evaluative meanings by foregrounding desirable organizational values. Differences were also observed in verb choices and modality patterns, with public corporations emphasizing stewardship and responsibility, while private corporations projected transformation and stakeholder benefits. Furthermore, both sub-corpora exhibited high lexical density, although private corporations recorded slightly higher lexical density than public corporations. The study concludes that mission statements are highly evaluative texts in which lexical choices and thematic organization are strategically employed to construct favorable organizational identities, enhance institutional legitimacy, and shape stakeholder perceptions.