A practitioner commentary: Flowerdew, J. and Wan, A. (2010). The linguistic and the contextual in applied genre analysis: The case of the company audit report. English for Specific Purposes 29 (2010), 78–93

This commentary reviews Flowerdew & Wan's 2010 research article, in which a genre analysis of finished audit reports is combined with an ethnographic investigation into the context of their production within the Hong Kong accounting and audit community. The process whereby an audit report is created is observed from start to finish, with elements of both intertextuality and interdiscursivity (as well as L1 use) noted. Meanwhile, a sample of 25 authentic auditors' reports is examined, with examples involving "original" (as opposed to boilerplate) language being subjected to a move structure analysis. It is concluded that the approach embodied by this study is useful in two main ways. It makes it possible to identify a range of competencies that tax accountants and auditors need to be able to write an audit report in a specific workplace and cultural context. However, it also illustrates how combining both information sources and research methods can yield insights that can inform Business English or ESP training.