Mitigation Strategies in South African English Corporate Communication

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Introduction

Conflict and disagreement are not exceptional in corporate communication. They are built into many of its most visible genres, particularly those that place senior executives in direct interaction with evaluative audiences. Board meetings, investor briefings, regulatory hearings, and media interviews all create conditions in which organisational decisions are questioned, defended, and re-justified in real time [1]. In such settings, disagreement is a predictable feature of institutional talk.

Earnings calls are a clear example. In the question-and-answer (Q&A) sections of these events, analysts and investors often return to the same pressure points, questioning strategic choices and pressing executives to account for performance or to clarify what lies ahead. These exchanges are public, time-constrained, and consequential for how the organisation is perceived by markets and other stakeholders [2]. Executives are expected to respond substantively, remain accountable, and keep the interaction moving forward, even when questions are sceptical or persistent [3]. The management of disagreement in this genre is therefore a practical necessity rather than a peripheral concern.

Linguistic research has long acknowledged that such interactional pressure is handled through mitigation. Available studies have described a range of linguistic resources that speakers draw on when addressing potential conflict, including modal verbs, epistemic markers, conditional formulations, and forms of collective reference [4–7]. In business and corporate communication, these resources have been linked to accountability management, reputational risk, and the need to respond to challenge without escalating tension [8–11]. More recent studies of financial communication treat earnings calls as interactional events in which questioning, justification, and stance-taking are negotiated turn by turn [12–14].

Despite this growing body of work, research on mitigation in earnings calls shows two recurring limitations. Empirically, most studies rely on a narrow range of English varieties, with British, American, or broadly defined international English serving as the default point of reference. Analytically, mitigation is often discussed in general terms, with attention focused on forms or broad pragmatic functions rather than on how mitigation operates within particular institutional varieties of English. As a result, established corporate varieties outside the Anglo-American core are seldom examined as empirical sites in their own right.

South African English occupies an ambiguous position in this respect. It is a long-standing institutional variety used in corporate governance, finance, and public communication [15], yet it remains underrepresented in interaction-based studies of corporate communication. While its phonological and lexical features are well documented, far less is known about how conflict and disagreement are managed in high-stakes corporate genres when South African English is the medium of interaction. In particular, earnings-call Q&A conducted by South African executives addressing an international audience has received little focused linguistic attention.

The present study addresses this gap via an examination of mitigation strategies in the Q&A sections of corporate earnings calls produced in South African English. The focus is deliberately narrow and empirical. The study does not aim to characterise South African English as a communicative style, nor to compare it explicitly with other varieties. Instead, we treat South African English as the linguistic material through which a well-defined corporate genre is realised, and ask how mitigation is used within that genre to manage conflict as it arises in interaction.

The study pursues two closely linked aims. It identifies and categorises mitigation strategies employed by executives when responding to conflict-relevant questions during earnings-call Q&A, and it assesses the effectiveness of these strategies by examining the immediate interactional development in the turn that follows. Effectiveness is understood in strictly local terms, based on whether a challenge is accepted and closed or whether pressure is renewed.

Accordingly, the study addresses the following research question: Which mitigation strategies are employed in South African English earnings-call Q&A, and how effective are they in containing interactional conflict at the level of the immediate exchange?

Literature Review

Conflict in corporate communication rarely takes the form of overt confrontation. More often, it emerges through questioning, through demands for explanation, or through the repeated return to issues that have not been settled to an interlocutor’s satisfaction [16]. Earnings calls make this especially visible. In the Q&A sections, senior executives are placed in direct exchange with analysts and investors whose task is evaluative by design. Questions press on strategic choices, performance figures, or future direction, and they do so in a public setting where responses are recorded, circulated, and weighed carefully. Under these conditions, dealing with disagreement is a routine part of how the interaction is expected to unfold.

Linguistic research on mitigation offers a useful point of entry for understanding how speakers deal with moments of pressure in interaction. Mitigation is commonly treated as a range of linguistic practices through which commitment is adjusted and responsibility is managed when interaction risks becoming contentious [9]. Early pragmatic studies linked mitigation closely to politeness and face management, paying attention to how speakers soften potentially problematic utterances through devices such as hedging, modal expressions, or various forms of distancing [17—21]. Although this work was not concerned with earnings calls or corporate communication as such, it provided a descriptive vocabulary that still underpins analyses of how linguistic choices influence the subsequent development of an exchange.

More recent research places mitigation squarely within the study of corporate communication. Research on meetings, executive talk, and financial reporting shows that mitigation is used repeatedly in situations where speakers are expected to account for their actions while remaining careful about how commitments are phrased [8; 11; 22–26]. In these studies, mitigation is less about interpersonal courtesy and more about managing exposure and responsibility in public-facing interaction. Linguistic choices reflect the fact that statements about strategy, performance, or future plans can carry tangible institutional consequences, which makes caution a routine part of how executives speak.

Earnings calls have drawn increasing attention within this line of research. They are often described as mixed-purpose events, combining the presentation of financial information with ongoing interactional work, most visibly in the Q&A sections where analysts’ questions can be sceptical, persistent, or openly pressuring [27]. Corpus-based studies note that executive responses in these moments make extensive use of modal verbs and other epistemic devices, allowing speakers to answer while limiting exposure to reputational or regulatory risk [14; 28–32]. Other research has noted that executives often rely on inclusive reference and collective formulations. These formulations present decisions as belonging to the organisation rather than to the individual speaker, which matters in settings where responses are public and closely watched [33; 34].

Despite these developments, research on mitigation in earnings calls remains uneven in its empirical coverage. Most studies draw on data from Anglo-American corporate settings or rely on loosely defined corpora labelled as “international English”. As a result, earnings calls are often treated as pragmatically similar across contexts, with little attention given to how mitigation practices might pattern in established varieties of English used outside the usual centres of corporate communication. This does not undermine the value of existing findings, but it does limit the range of settings in which they have been tested.

South African English stands out as an underused empirical site in this respect. It is a long-established institutional variety, widely used in corporate governance, finance, and other forms of public-facing communication. Sociolinguistic work has described its phonological, lexical, and stylistic features in considerable detail, situating it within a multilingual and historically layered setting [35–37]. By contrast, pragmatic research on South African English has tended to concentrate on everyday interaction, educational environments, or intercultural encounters  [38–41], leaving high-stakes corporate genres largely unexamined.

Existing work on corporate communication in South African English has tended to focus on written material or on broad rhetorical patterns [42], with far less attention given to interaction-based genres such as earnings calls. As a result, little empirical work has examined how conflict and disagreement are handled linguistically in the Q&A sections of South African English earnings calls, or how mitigation functions when executives respond to an international audience under sustained evaluative pressure. This gap is all the more noticeable given the global reach of South African corporations and the public visibility of their earnings calls as moments of corporate accountability.

The present study addresses this gap through an analysis of mitigation strategies in the Q&A sections of earnings calls conducted in South African English. Rather than seeking to identify variety-specific traits in a typological sense, the study treats South African English as the linguistic medium through which a well-defined genre of corporate communication is realised. Attention is directed to the mitigation practices that recur in conflict-sensitive moments and to their immediate interactional consequences, as displayed in the turns that follow executive responses.

The study brings together research on mitigation and work on earnings calls, extending the empirical base of both strands to South African English. In doing so, it offers a closely delimited account of how disagreement is managed in a corporate genre where public scrutiny and accountability are built into the interaction itself.

Materials and Research Methods

Data and Material

The empirical material for this study consists of transcripts of publicly available earnings calls produced by Naspers Limited and its international subsidiary Prosus. The dataset includes two types of events that are central to executive–stakeholder interaction: a CEO transition earnings call and an earnings results webcast. Both events involve sustained Q&A sequences between senior executives and external interlocutors, primarily institutional investors and financial analysts.

The first text is the Prosus CEO Transition Conference Call held on  18 September 2023 (approximately 4,500 words). The second is the FY2025 Results Webcast conducted in November 2024 (approximately 8,000 words). The corpus thus amounts to roughly 12.500 words. These materials were selected for several reasons. First, they represent naturally occurring corporate communication with minimal editorial intervention, preserving the sequential organisation of turns and the interactional contingencies of live communication. Second, the topics under discussion (leadership change, capital allocation, long-term strategy, and financial performance) are intrinsically sensitive and frequently give rise to disagreement, scepticism, or pressure for justification. Third, the events are dominated by South African executives addressing an international audience, making them suitable for examining pragmatic practices associated with South African English in earnings-call Q&A within a global corporate setting.

No modifications were made to the transcripts apart from the removal of irrelevant procedural segments (opening remarks, technical announcements) that did not contain interactional material.

Analytical Orientation

The analysis is grounded in linguistic pragmatics, understood here as the study of how speakers use linguistic resources to act in interaction and to manage meaning in relation to specific communicative situations. This orientation treats utterances as contributions to an unfolding exchange in which participants orient to one another’s roles, expectations, and prior turns [43].

A pragmatic perspective allows attention to how the same linguistic forms contribute differently to an interaction depending on where they occur and what they respond to. This view assumes that linguistic resources do not have a single, fixed interactional role when considered in isolation — their relevance emerges from how they are used in response to challenge, how they adjust degrees of commitment, and how they position the speaker in relation to other participants. This is particularly evident in earnings-call Q&A as a genre of corporate communication, where speakers are required to handle pressure while remaining publicly accountable.

The analysis remains interaction-oriented without extending to full conversation-analytic modelling. Attention is restricted to local developments that can be observed directly in the transcript, without reference to inferred intentions or longer-term strategic outcomes.

Identification of Conflict-Relevant Turns

Conflict is not treated as overt confrontation but as interactional tension arising from diverging evaluations, expectations, or interests. Such tension is identified independently of mitigation effectiveness and prior to any coding of responses.

Conflict-relevant turns are identified on the basis of analyst or investor questions in the Q&A sections of earnings calls that introduce or sustain pressure on the executive speaker. These include sceptical questioning, requests for justification, challenges to decisions or projections, and reformulations that signal dissatisfaction with a prior answer. Identification relies on the wording and positioning of the question, interpreted with reference to the immediately  preceding talk.

This broader sequential view is used only to establish that a given executive response is conflict-relevant. It does not enter the analysis of effectiveness and is not itself evaluated.

Units of Analysis and Coding

The analysis is turn-based. A turn is understood in the standard interactional sense as a continuous contribution by one speaker bounded by a change of speaker [11; 44; 45]. In the transcripts used here, turns are clearly delimited by speaker attribution and sequential order.

Two turns are examined for each case. The first is the response turn: the executive’s turn produced in direct response to a conflict-relevant question in the earnings-call Q&A. The second is the follow-up turn: the next turn produced by the questioner (or another external interlocutor) immediately after the response. The response turn is used to identify and code mitigation practices. The follow-up turn is used only to assess what happens next interactionally; it is not coded for mitigation.

Mitigation coding is manual and based on linguistic evidence in the response turn rather than on inferred intention. Response turns were read closely to identify linguistic resources associated in the literature with mitigation in corporate communication, including modalisation, epistemic marking, conditional constructions, and choices that adjust alignment (e.g., inclusive reference). No fixed typology was imposed at the identification stage. Where a response turn contained more than one mitigation practice, each instance was coded separately. Ambiguous cases that could not be assigned consistently on the basis of linguistic form and local sequential placement were excluded from quantitative counts.

Effectiveness Criterion

Effectiveness is assessed through what the interaction does immediately after the response turn, using the follow-up turn as the observable indicator. This restriction is deliberate. In corporate Q&A, sufficiency or insufficiency of a response is typically displayed right away: the interlocutor either treats the answer as adequate and moves on, or treats it as inadequate and keeps pressure on the same point. Four follow-up patterns are distinguished: (1) acceptance, i.e. acknowledgement, thanks, or explicit confirmation that treats the response as sufficient); (2) topic shift, i.e. movement to a different issue without returning to the contested point; (3) reformulation — the same challenge is re-raised in altered wording, and (4) renewed pressure — repetition, insistence, or escalation focused on the same issue.

Acceptance and topic shift are treated as effective, since they close the issue locally and allow progression to a new matter. Reformulation and renewed pressure are treated as ineffective, since they show that the response has not been accepted as sufficient and the point remains interactionally active.

This criterion keeps the evaluation of effectiveness tied to visible interactional development rather than to inferred success, intention, or longer-term consequences.

Results

Overview of the Dataset

The analysed dataset comprises 78 executive response turns produced in reply to conflict-relevant questions posed by analysts or investors during two corporate communication events. Each response turn directly addresses a challenge, request for justification, or sceptical evaluation identified in the preceding question turn, in line with the criteria set out in the Methodology section. All response turns contain at least one mitigation instance. In total, 78 primary mitigation instances were identified, with some response turns containing additional embedded instances. Where multiple mitigation practices occurred within a single response turn, each instance was recorded separately.

Across the dataset, mitigation instances fall into three analytically defined groups identified during coding: non-confrontational hedging, collaborative problem-solving, and combined use of both within the same response turn.

The distribution is as follows:

• non-confrontational hedging: 37 instances (47%);
• collaborative problem-solving: 30 instances (38%);
• combined use: 11 instances (15%).

Non-confrontational hedging is the most frequent pattern when mitigation occurs in isolation. Collaborative problem-solving is slightly less frequent but remains a stable and recurrent practice. In 11 response turns, both practices occur together, either in successive stretches of the same turn or in overlapping form.

Other mitigation practices identified during initial reading occurred only sporadically (fewer than five instances each) and did not recur with sufficient consistency to warrant separate quantitative reporting.

Response turns classified as non-confrontational hedging rely primarily on modal verbs, epistemic adverbs, and conditional constructions. Modal verbs occur in 33 out of 37 instances (89%). The most frequent modal verb is would (34 occurrences), followed by can (28), will (21), and might (12). Multiple modal verbs often appear within the same response turn. Epistemic adverbs such as perhaps, certainly, and generally co-occur with modal verbs in 61% of hedging instances. Conditional constructions, including if-clauses and hypothetical framing, are present in 43% of cases. In many response turns, hedging devices appear early, preceding evaluative statements or explanatory content. In several cases, hedged formulations are followed by explicit statements of institutional position or justification within the same turn.

Collaborative problem-solving is realised through inclusive reference and collective framing. Inclusive pronouns (we, our, us) occur in 93% of instances classified under this category. Across the 30 response turns in this group, we appears 127 times and our appears 43 times. These response turns frequently include references to shared objectives, joint responsibility, or future-oriented collective action. In 24 out of 30 cases (80%), at least one formulation presents the issue as a shared task rather than as a contested point. References to continued engagement, reassessment, or joint review occur in 18 response turns. Collaborative problem-solving appears both in responses to external pressure and in exchanges involving speakers of comparable institutional standing.

In 11 response turns (15%), non-confrontational hedging and collaborative problem-solving co-occur. These cases typically involve a hedged formulation followed by a shift to collective framing, or the embedding of modalised statements within inclusive constructions. Response turns in this group are generally longer and contain a higher density of mitigation markers. Within a single turn, shifts in speaker positioning are observable as speakers move between cautious formulation and collective positioning.

Distribution and Interactional Outcomes

The distribution of mitigation practices varies with interactional configuration. In response turns addressing questions from external interlocutors in positions of evaluative authority, non-confrontational hedging accounts for 62% of mitigation instances. In exchanges among speakers of comparable institutional standing, collaborative problem-solving is more frequent, accounting for 67% of instances in that subset. Combined use occurs in both configurations but is slightly more frequent in response turns addressing repeated or sustained questioning.

Interactional outcomes were assessed on the basis of the follow-up turn immediately after each response turn. Outcomes are classified as acceptance, topic shift, reformulation, or renewed pressure, as defined in the Methodology section. The distribution of effective outcomes (acceptance or topic shift) is as follows:

• non-confrontational hedging: 31 out of 37 cases (84%);
• collaborative problem-solving: 27 out of 30 cases (91%);
• combined use: 10 out of 11 cases (95%).

Non-effective outcomes involve reformulation of the challenge or renewed pressure on the same issue. These occur most frequently in response turns relying exclusively on hedging, particularly where the initial question is repeated or intensified.

The results thus show that mitigation in the analysed interactions is concentrated around two recurring practices, with a smaller but consistent set of response turns combining both. These practices differ in frequency, linguistic composition, and immediate interactional outcome.

The observed distributions provide an empirical basis for addressing the research question concerning how disagreement is managed through mitigation in earnings-call Q&A within corporate communication. An overview of the identified mitigation practices, their linguistic realisation, distribution, and interactional outcomes is presented in Table.

Discussion

Mitigation Strategies in Earnings-Call Q&A

The findings show that mitigation in South African English earnings-call Q&A relies on a limited and recurrent set of practices. Across the response turns analysed, most mitigation work is carried out through non-confrontational hedging and collaborative problem-solving, with a smaller but stable group of responses combining both within a single turn. This concentration reflects the interactional constraints of the genre, where executives are required to respond to evaluative questioning in real time, under conditions of public accountability and limited opportunity for repair.

Mitigation Practices in Executive Response Turns 

Strategy	Attribute	Description
Non-confrontational hedging	Frequency	37 instances (47%)
	Linguistic realisation	Modal verbs (would, can, might), epistemic adverbs (perhaps, generally), conditional constructions
	Typical setting	Executive responses to analyst or investor questioning
	Illustrative features	Early modalised framing followed by institutional justification
	Effective outcomes	31 / 37 (84%)
Collaborative problem-solving	Frequency	30 instances (38%)
	Linguistic realisation	Inclusive pronouns (we, our), collective goals, future-oriented formulations
	Typical setting	Both asymmetric and symmetric exchanges
	Illustrative features	Framing issues as shared tasks or joint review
	Effective outcomes	27 / 30 (91%)
Combined use	Frequency	11 instances (15%)
	Linguistic realisation	Co-occurrence of hedging and inclusive framing
	Typical setting	Responses to repeated or sustained questioning
	Illustrative features	Modalised statements embedded in collective formulations
	Effective outcomes	10 / 11 (95%)

 Source: compiled by Elena N. Malyuga & Maria P. Malkina.

Previous studies of earnings calls have described similar patterns in Anglo-American and international English data. Modalisation, epistemic caution, and calibrated formulations have been repeatedly identified as routine features of executive responses to analyst questioning, particularly in moments of scepticism or pressure [2; 3; 13; 46]. In the South African English data, executives make frequent use of cautious, qualified formulations. This mirrors what has been reported for earnings-call Q&A elsewhere and suggests that the mitigation practices observed here are part of the ordinary communicative work of the genre.

What is notable is the narrowness of the repertoire actually used. The response turns examined here return to the same practices with notable regularity. Mitigation appears to draw on a small set of forms that have become interactionally recognisable within the genre of earnings calls. As a result, it appears predictable in form even as the substantive content of questions varies. Executives seem oriented less to selecting among alternatives and more to producing answers that conform to established expectations about how scrutiny is to be handled.

This pattern is visible across different levels of pressure. The same resources recur in responses to brief clarification requests and to more sustained questioning. What varies is the amount of mitigation and its placement within the turn, not the type of practice itself. In this sense, mitigation functions as a stabilising feature of earnings-call interaction, providing a familiar way of managing exposure across a range of topics.

Notably, general pragmatic research on mitigation has long emphasised the diversity of linguistic resources available to speakers across interactional settings. Studies grounded in politeness theory, stance, and interpersonal pragmatics describe mitigation as an umbrella term covering a wide range of devices, from modalisation and epistemic marking to reformulation, distancing, vagueness, and shifts in footing. This body of work is primarily concerned with mapping what speakers can draw on in principle, across genres and institutional environments, and it therefore tends to foreground the breadth of the repertoire rather than its patterned restriction in any one setting.

Work that takes earnings calls as its object of analysis paints a more delimited picture. Research in this area repeatedly notes that, despite the theoretical availability of many mitigating options, executive responses in earnings-call Q&A tend to rely on a small number of recurrent practices. Modal verbs, epistemic qualifiers, and collective formulations appear with high frequency, while other potential resources described in the mitigation literature occur rarely or not at all. This concentration has been linked to the institutional design of the genre, where responses are produced under time pressure, recorded for public circulation, and evaluated by both the immediate interlocutor and a wider, unseen audience. Within these conditions, linguistic variability appears constrained by expectations of recognisability and procedural adequacy rather than expressive range.

For example, Alanko’s [47] analysis of persuasion in earnings calls provides a clear illustration of this point. The author uses a large corpus of calls across companies and reporting periods and shows that executives routinely recycle the same interactional techniques to produce responses that are structurally and pragmatically similar even when the substantive content differs. The genre emerges as standardised in its interactional solutions, as speakers orient to established ways of managing challenge and accountability. This observation builds on earlier descriptions of earnings calls as governed by a shared linguistic protocol [48], in which deviation from familiar response formats may carry interactional or reputational risk.

The South African English material analysed here can thus be viewed as aligning with genre norms: South African English earnings-call Q&A relies on the same limited set of interactionally established solutions that previous studies have documented in other settings.

Interactional Effectiveness and Local Containment of Conflict

The study assesses effectiveness through immediate interactional development, using the follow-up turn as the indicator of whether a response is treated as sufficient or remains open to challenge.

A long line of interactional research takes the next turn as the most reliable place to see how a prior contribution has landed. In conversation-analytic work, uptake is treated as something participants display to one another, often without comment or evaluation. A response that is taken as sufficient is allowed to recede, and one that is treated as lacking is brought back into focus, reformulated, or pressed again. This way of reading interaction does not depend on assumptions about intention or success. It rests on what happens next, and on how participants organise continuation or persistence in real time [49–51]. In institutional settings, where interaction is task-oriented and time-sensitive, this logic becomes especially visible. Progression itself does much of the analytic work.

Studies of workplace disagreement adopt this perspective with little hesitation. Handford and Koester [6], for instance, describe how contested matters remain interactionally active when interlocutors do not take up the direction implied by a prior response. Vine [52] makes a similar observation in her work on professional interaction, noting that agreement need not be declared for an exchange to move on. What matters is whether the issue is treated as closed for the purposes of the ongoing activity. Research on earnings calls follows the same reasoning. Analyses of analyst–executive exchanges read follow-up questions, acknowledgements, and topic shifts as displays of how an answer has been received under conditions of scrutiny and limited time [2; 3; 13; 48; 53; 54].

The present study stays within this tradition and treats next-turn behaviour as a narrow but grounded point of observation. It captures how mitigation works in the moment where an answer is either allowed to stand or becomes the basis for continued pressure. This criterion is intentionally narrow, but it is well suited to the genre under study. In earnings-call Q&A, acceptance, topic shift, reformulation, or renewed pressure are typically displayed without delay, which makes next-turn uptake a reliable site for assessing local containment of conflict.

The distribution of outcomes suggests that mitigation practices differ in their likelihood of closing an issue at the level of the immediate exchange. Responses built around collaborative problem-solving, either alone or in combination with hedging, are more often followed by acceptance or topic shift than responses relying exclusively on hedging. This does not imply that hedging is ineffective in general. In most cases, hedged responses still lead to local resolution. At the same time, hedging alone accounts for the majority of cases in which questioning persists.

Similar observations have been made in studies of workplace and institutional interaction, where continued disagreement is often traced to how a prior turn leaves the direction of the exchange insufficiently settled [6; 52]. Where a response moderates commitment without offering a shared frame for moving forward, the issue may remain interactionally active. Collective framing, by contrast, can recast the matter as institutionally managed or jointly addressed, thus reducing the relevance of further challenge even when disagreement has not been explicitly resolved.

The combined use of hedging and collaborative problem-solving appears particularly effective in this respect. In these response turns, modalised formulations regulate exposure while inclusive reference situates the issue within a collective remit. The two practices work together to produce responses that are cautious yet interactionally sufficient. The relatively high rate of immediate resolution associated with this pattern suggests that stacking mitigation resources within a single turn is one reliable way of containing sustained questioning in earnings-call Q&A.

What matters for the present analysis is how closure is achieved in practice. Work on cognitive engagement has shown that linguistic formulation affects how information is processed and whether further engagement is prompted [55]. A similar dynamic is visible in earnings-call Q&A, where mitigation appears to influence whether a response invites continuation or supports progression. In many cases, follow-up turns acknowledge a response or move the exchange to a new topic without any explicit statement of agreement. Progress becomes visible when a response provides a workable point from which the interaction can continue. Effectiveness, in this sense, is observable in how a response supports the onward movement of the exchange and allows the next turn to proceed without renewed focus on the same issue.

Differences between mitigation practices take on clearer interactional form when seen in these terms. Hedged responses frequently remain institutionally acceptable and defensible, and they often satisfy the immediate demand for an answer. At the same time, such responses may leave the future handling of the issue open. In cases where questioning continues, the response has typically managed commitment while keeping the issue available for further treatment. Collective formulations, by contrast, tend to present the matter as already situated within shared procedures or ongoing institutional work. This framing appears sufficient to support continuation of the exchange, even when specific points remain to be addressed later.

Using the follow-up turn as the point of observation also places clear boundaries on what the analysis can claim. The focus remains on immediate interactional development, without extending to later assessments or external consequences. Within this narrow window, responses either enable the interaction to move on or keep the issue in play. Across the material examined here, mitigation shows a consistent and limited effect at this level: it influences whether a point remains active in the exchange or recedes enough for the interaction to proceed. This form of local containment is a routine feature of earnings-call Q&A, where time constraints and public exposure favour progression over extended dwelling on a single issue.

South African English as Empirical Material

The study was not designed as a comparative investigation of pragmatic variation across Englishes, and the findings do not support strong claims about variety-specific mitigation strategies. The practices identified here are well attested in earnings-call research more generally. What the analysis demonstrates is that these practices are also central in South African English earnings-call Q&A and that they function in comparable ways when executives address an international evaluative audience.

This observation matters because South African English has rarely been examined as an empirical site for interaction-based research on earnings calls. Existing studies overwhelmingly rely on Anglo-American data or on mixed corpora labelled as international English, often treating the genre as pragmatically uniform. The present findings do not challenge those accounts, but they extend their empirical base by showing that the same mitigation practices are integral to South African corporate communication in this genre.

At the same time, the results caution against attributing the observed patterns to national or cultural communicative styles. The strategies identified here are best understood as responses to the interactional organisation of earnings-call Q&A rather than as markers of South African English in the abstract. The contribution of the study lies in documenting how mitigation operates in this material, not in claiming pragmatic distinctiveness.

Scope of Contribution

The scope of the study is deliberately limited. The dataset comprises two events from a single corporate group, and the analysis focuses on turn-level developments visible in transcript data. Within these boundaries, the study provides interaction-based evidence of how mitigation strategies are deployed in South African English earnings-call Q&A and how they relate to immediate interactional outcomes.

The contribution is therefore empirical and descriptive. It adds underrepresented material to earnings-call research and demonstrates a clear link between mitigation practices and local containment of conflict. It does not attempt to generalise across varieties of English, to model long-term persuasive effects, or to account for prosodic and multimodal resources. Future work can extend this line of inquiry via broadening the dataset, incorporating audio data, or placing South African English earnings calls alongside other varieties in a comparative design.

Conclusions

This study examined how executives manage interactional tension in the Q&A sections of earnings calls conducted in South African English. Focusing on conflict-relevant questions and on what happens immediately after executive responses, the analysis traced which mitigation strategies recur in this genre and how they function at the level of the local exchange.

The findings show that mitigation work in this material is concentrated within a small and stable set of practices. Non-confrontational hedging and collaborative problem-solving account for most executive responses to pressure, with a smaller group of turns combining both within a single response. These strategies recur across events and are deployed systematically in moments where questions introduce scepticism, demand justification, or return to unresolved issues. In this sense, mitigation appears as an ordinary part of answering in earnings-call Q&A.

Assessment of immediate interactional uptake indicates that mitigation strategies differ in how effectively they contain tension at the next turn. Responses framed through collaborative problem-solving, particularly when combined with hedging, are more likely to be treated as sufficient and followed by acceptance or topic shift. Hedging on its own often succeeds in closing an issue, but it also accounts for most cases in which pressure is renewed. This suggests that containment of conflict in earnings-call Q&A depends both on regulating commitment, and on how responses position the issue within a shared institutional trajectory.

Although the study does not intend to compare varieties of English, its findings remain relevant for work on South African English in corporate communication. The mitigation practices observed here are well documented in earnings-call research based on Anglo-American data, yet they have rarely been examined in South African material. The analysis shows that executives using South African English rely on the same interactional resources when addressing an international evaluative audience, and that these resources function in comparable ways at the level of immediate exchange. At the same time, the data do not warrant claims about distinctive national styles. The observed patterns are better understood as responses to the interactional organisation of earnings-call Q&A than as properties of South African English in the abstract.

The study is necessarily limited in scope. It draws on two events from a single corporate group and relies on transcript data, which means that prosodic and multimodal resources remain outside the analysis. Its contribution lies in close, interaction-based observation rather than in generalisation. Future research could extend this work through an examination of a broader range of South African firms, incorporating audio data, or placing South African English earnings calls alongside other varieties in a comparative design. Such work would make it possible to see whether the patterns described here recur in other corporate settings, without losing sight of how conflict is handled turn by turn.

About the authors

Elena N. Malyuga

RUDN University

Author for correspondence.
Email: malyuga-en@rudn.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-6935-0661
SPIN-code: 8612-2186
Scopus Author ID: 56587911800
ResearcherId: J-8927-2017

Dr. Sc. (Philology), Professor, Head of Foreign Languages Department at the Faculty of Economics

6 Miklukho-Maklaya Str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198

Maria P. Malkina

Moscow State Linguistics University

Email: maria020602@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0009-0003-4854-5034
SPIN-code: 2628-3691
Scopus Author ID: 58193066600
ResearcherId: JJE-2633-2023

Senior Lecturer

38 build 1 Ostozhenka Str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 119034

References

Supplementary files