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In Search of Meaning : Lessons, Resources and Next Steps for Computational Analysis of Financial Discourse

El-Haj, Mahmoud ; Rayson, Paul ; Walker, Martin ; Young, Steven and Simaki, Vasiliki LU (2019) In Journal of Business Finance and Accounting 46(3-4). p.265-306
Abstract
We critically assess mainstream accounting and finance research applying methods from computational linguistics (CL) to study financial discourse. We also review common themes and innovations in the literature and assess the incremental contributions of work applying CL methods over manual content analysis. Key conclusions emerging from our analysis are:(a) accounting and finance research is behind the curve in terms of CL methods generally and word sense disambiguation in particular;(b) implementation issues mean the proposed benefits of CL are often less pronounced than proponents suggest;(c) structural issues limit practical relevance; and (d) CL methods and high quality manual analysis represent complementary approaches to analyzing... (More)
We critically assess mainstream accounting and finance research applying methods from computational linguistics (CL) to study financial discourse. We also review common themes and innovations in the literature and assess the incremental contributions of work applying CL methods over manual content analysis. Key conclusions emerging from our analysis are:(a) accounting and finance research is behind the curve in terms of CL methods generally and word sense disambiguation in particular;(b) implementation issues mean the proposed benefits of CL are often less pronounced than proponents suggest;(c) structural issues limit practical relevance; and (d) CL methods and high quality manual analysis represent complementary approaches to analyzing financial discourse. We describe four CL tools that have yet to gain traction in mainstream AF research but which we believe offer promising ways to enhance the study of meaning in financial discourse. The four approaches are named entity recognition, summarization, semantics and corpus linguistics. (Less)
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author
; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Journal of Business Finance and Accounting
volume
46
issue
3-4
pages
265 - 306
publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
external identifiers
  • scopus:85064815401
ISSN
0306-686X
DOI
10.1111/jbfa.12378
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
b7001dde-f20e-4008-9a44-30b3af82d5a7
date added to LUP
2019-06-01 18:12:47
date last changed
2024-03-13 09:52:50
@article{b7001dde-f20e-4008-9a44-30b3af82d5a7,
  abstract     = {{We critically assess mainstream accounting and finance research applying methods from computational linguistics (CL) to study financial discourse. We also review common themes and innovations in the literature and assess the incremental contributions of work applying CL methods over manual content analysis. Key conclusions emerging from our analysis are:(a) accounting and finance research is behind the curve in terms of CL methods generally and word sense disambiguation in particular;(b) implementation issues mean the proposed benefits of CL are often less pronounced than proponents suggest;(c) structural issues limit practical relevance; and (d) CL methods and high quality manual analysis represent complementary approaches to analyzing financial discourse. We describe four CL tools that have yet to gain traction in mainstream AF research but which we believe offer promising ways to enhance the study of meaning in financial discourse. The four approaches are named entity recognition, summarization, semantics and corpus linguistics.}},
  author       = {{El-Haj, Mahmoud and Rayson, Paul and Walker, Martin and Young, Steven and Simaki, Vasiliki}},
  issn         = {{0306-686X}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  number       = {{3-4}},
  pages        = {{265--306}},
  publisher    = {{Wiley-Blackwell}},
  series       = {{Journal of Business Finance and Accounting}},
  title        = {{In Search of Meaning : Lessons, Resources and Next Steps for Computational Analysis of Financial Discourse}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jbfa.12378}},
  doi          = {{10.1111/jbfa.12378}},
  volume       = {{46}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}