Jane Davinson 2011 Emerald Article Barthesian Perspectives On Accounting

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal
Emerald Article: Barthesian perspectives on accounting communication and

visual images of professional accountancy
Jane Davison
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Jane Davison, (2011),"Barthesian perspectives on accounting communication and visual images of professional accountancy",
Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 24 Iss: 2 pp. 250 - 283
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AAAJ
24,2 Barthesian perspectives on
accounting communication and
visual images of professional
250
accountancy
Jane Davison
School of Management, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine Barthes’ influence on, and potential for,
accounting communication research; and to apply Barthes’ principles to visual images of professional
accountancy.
Design/methodology/approach – The study seeks to provide: a synthesis of prior accounting
research that has drawn on Barthes’ work, followed by an overview of Barthes’ work in both its
rational, structuralist, phase, and its more sentimental, post-structuralist, phase, that identifies strands
of interest to accounting communication; and Barthesian semiotic interpretations of visual images of
accountancy portrayed in the annual report front covers of a major UK accounting firm through their
linguistics (anchorage and relay), denotation and connotation.
Findings – Barthes’ work has been surprisingly little used in accounting; a number of aspects of
Barthes’s work could be more fruitfully exploited, especially those from his later post-structuralist
phase; a Barthesian approach assists in reading the dual portrayal of accountancy as both an art and a
science, and as business-aware as well as traditionally professional.
Research limitations/implications – The theoretical section is limited to a broad overview of
Barthes’ very extensive work; the empirical section provides a detailed analysis of one organization. It
would be useful to extend the research to more extended analyses based on Barthes’ prolific work, and
to many aspects of accounting communication.
Practical implications – The analysis may be of interest to all accounting researchers,
practitioners, trainees and auditors, since communication is central to accounting.
Originality/value – The paper adds to theoretical work in accounting communication, to the
empirical literature on the interpretation of verbal and visual signs in accounting and accountability
statements, and to understanding of the external images of professional accountancy.
Keywords Communication, Narratives, Visual media, Accountancy
Paper type Research paper
Roland Barthes is one of the great figures of late twentieth century French philosophy
and critical theory, a writer of gargantuan appetite for inquiry, encompassing
linguistics, semiology, structuralism and post-structuralism, and its manifestations
across a broad range of media, from verbal text to visual image and music, and from
classical literature to architecture, film, fashion and advertising. His work is largely
concerned with the philosophy of communication, and not only ranges across a broad
Accounting, Auditing & spectrum of communicative media, but also moves between opposite poles of scientific
Accountability Journal rationalism and creative pleasure.
Vol. 24 No. 2, 2011
pp. 250-283
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0951-3574
The author is grateful for helpful comments from the following: the guest editors, Richard Baker
DOI 10.1108/09513571111100708 and Eve Chiapello, the anonymous reviewers, and Chris Nobes and Len Skerratt.
Communication is central to accounting (Parker and Guthrie, 2009), and so it is Perspectives on
surprising that Barthes’ name is not better known in accounting research, even though accounting
his thinking has provided major contributions to the theories and philosophies that
have come to enrich understanding of accounting. The discipline of accounting is also communication
broad, ranging from the provision of financial statements, to concepts of governance
and accountability, to stakeholder theory and social and environmental reporting. It
similarly encompasses a broad range of means of communication, from numbers, 251
tables and graphs, to formal and informal written narratives, oral testimony, web
pages and visual media such as pictures, photographs and video presentations. While
accounting educational curricula are developing programmes in communication, there
is a perceived lack of sufficient communication skills among entrants to the accounting
profession (Arquero et al., 2007). Courtis (2002, p. 446) outlines the growing
sophistication of perception engineering, and argues that communication issues are “in
the bailiwick of accounting”, just as the International Federation of Accountants
emphasises the need for the finance officers of the future to possess strong
communication skills (IFAC, 2002).
Interdisciplinary research, such as that drawing on French critical theorists, often
meets with resistance; indeed Barthes himself describes interdisciplinarity as “not the
calm of an easy security” (Barthes, 1971c, see also Barthes, 1977a). Barthes’ influence in
accounting has not been one of intellectual decoration, but of contributing to rethinking
the fundamentals of communication. In this aim, one of Barthes’ strengths lies in the
provision of universal models and ways of thinking that may be fruitfully exploited in
many domains, especially since they often take the form of loose frameworks and
pointers rather than prescriptive guidelines. Some of these ways of thinking,
particularly from his more rational, structuralist phase, have featured in interpretive
accounting research:
.
Barthes’ work (for example, Barthes, 1953, see also Barthes, 1967a) formed part
of the “linguistic turn” which saw language as constituting reality rather than
being a transparent medium.
.
Barthes’ language of binary opposition and associated models, such as
“denotation” and “connotation”, or “studium” and “punctum” have informed the
analysis of both text and visual images.
.
Barthes’ (1971c) notion that “text” worthy of analysis may be found in all manner
of everyday communication, and not just in “high” art has contributed to the
interpretation of a variety of accounting-related documents as text.
.
Barthes’ (1984a) formulation of the “death of the author” and associated “birth of
the reader” and notions of intertextuality and plurality have given more weight
to user studies and reader response literature.
Other Barthesian ways of thinking (that have become fairly current in organization
studies or behavioural finance) are starting to infiltrate accounting:
.
the storytelling properties of accounting narratives;
.
the importance of the body, the senses and pleasure in intellectual
understanding; and
. the presence of emotion and irrationality in accounting and accountability.
AAAJ The contribution of the current interdisciplinary paper is twofold. First, the paper
24,2 seeks to provide a brief synthesis of the major directions of accounting research that
have drawn on Barthes; this is followed by a broad overview of Barthes’ work that
expounds both its rational, structuralist, phase, and its more sentimental,
post-structuralist, phase, and selects a few strands of Barthes’ thought which are
useful with regard to accounting and communication. Secondl, the paper provides
252 verbal and visual semiotic “readings” of the annual report front covers of a major
accounting firm, guided by elements of Barthesian thought, and shows how the front
covers, imaginative and carefully constructed artefacts that are important sites of
image construction directed at a wide readership, reflect and promote accountancy, and
tie in with the firm’s arts philanthropy. Dual messages are highlighted of a profession
portrayed as simultaneously an art and a science, creative and measured, both
business-aware and traditionally professional (Carnegie and Napier, 2010).
Accountancy is not often regarded as a “people business”, yet the intangible values
of people, while excluded from the financial statements (Friedman and Lev, 2001) are
fundamental to accountancy.
Barthes and prior accounting research

If not as prominent as it might be, Barthes’ name is nonetheless known in accounting
research through scattered references to his work in diverse aspects of accounting
research literature over many years. Various forms of research using discourse
analysis have been enriched through the reading of Barthes’s work, and they have
tended to concentrate on texts from Barthes’ structural phase of systematisation. For
example, Barthes’ (1957, see also Barthes, 1972) Mythologies has informed work on
“true and fair” as Saussurian signs, where the signified is capable of carrying several
layers of secondary connotations (Walton, 1993), and it has informed comment on the
“mythology” of the profit announcement (Cooper, 1995). Cooper (1992) makes passing
reference to Mythologies in connection with feminine studies in accounting, and Cooper
and Puxty (1996) to Barthes’ (1981) “The discourse of history” in their Marxist-inspired
account of the proliferation of accounting (hi)stories. Walters-York’s (1996) work on
metaphor refers to Barthes’ notion of multiple points of view and the lisible (“readerly”,
fluent, or user-friendly) text expounded in S/Z (Barthes, 1970a, see also Barthes, 1975a,
see also Barthes, 1977b). Llewllyn and Milne (2007) refer briefly to Barthes’ “La mort de
l’auteur” (Barthes, 1984a, see also Barthes, 1977c).
The scant research into aspects of the visual in accounting has also drawn on
Barthes, and has briefly engaged with his more creative post-structural texts as well as
his structuralist pieces; again, references are scattered. In their analysis of pictures in
annual reports Graves et al. (1996) refer briefly in footnotes to Mythologies (Barthes,
1957), to the Barthesian notion of multiple points of view (Barthes, 1970a), as well as to
intertextuality from both Kristeva (1969) and a later post-structuralist work of Barthes
(1975b); while Preston et al. (1996) draw on Barthes’ analysis of the advertising image
in “Rhétorique de l’image” (Barthes, 1982a, see also Barthes, 1977d), and make brief
mention of his theorisation of denotation and connotation in “Eléments de sémiologie”
(Barthes, 1985, see also Barthes, 1967b). Davison (2002) takes the structure of antithesis
(Barthes, 1970b) to analyse discourse and visual images; McGoun et al. (2007) discuss
the metaphor of photography for financial statements in the light of Barthes’ essays,
while Davison (2008) draws on both structuralist-inspired essays, “Le message
photographique” (Barthes, 1982b, see also Barthes, 1977e) and “Rhétorique de l’image” Perspectives on
(Barthes, 1982a) and to the later more creative pieces, “Le troisième sens” (Barthes, accounting
1982c, see also Barthes, 1977f), “Droit dans les yeux” (Barthes, 1982d), “Le bruissement
de la langue” (Barthes, 1984b, see also Barthes, 1986) and Le plaisir du texte (Barthes, communication
1973, see also Barthes, 1976) to analyse repetition in accounting-related words and
pictures. Quattrone (2004) draws on Barthes’ analysis of the impulse of repetition and
obsession to be discerned in Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises in his post-poststructuralist 253
Sade/Fourier/Loyola (Barthes, 1971a, see also Barthes, 1977g) to discuss the accounting
and accountability practices in the Society of Jesus, and Quattrone (2009) returns to
Sade/Fourier/Loyola in analysis of the visualisation of the accounting book.
More extended references to Barthes’ texts are to be found in the following three
pieces of accounting research.
Cooper and Puxty (1994) provide an analysis of an accounting magazine article
using the lens of Barthes’ (1970a) S/Z. They argue that all accounting is text, from
financial statements, to discussion in the academic and professional press, and to
regulatory pronouncements; the essence of any accounting text takes on meaning
through its placement within this intertextual web of texts. Moreover, texts are open to
multiple interpretations where language itself is the medium to be analysed rather than
the assumed meaning of the author. In S/Z Barthes formulates a set of codes
(hermeneutic, semic, symbolic, action and cultural) with which to analyse a text, thus
giving the reader a central role; he then goes on to provide a lengthy and detailed
analysis of a literary text by Balzac using these codes. Cooper and Puxty use these
codes to give an extensive analysis of a text that appeared in Accountancy, the official
magazine of the largest UK accountancy body.
Macintosh’s (2002) Accounting, Accountants and Accountability. Poststructuralist
Positions is a wide-ranging book covering many aspects of structuralism and
post-structuralism, whose primary focus is on six theorists: Bakhtin, Barthes,
Baudrillard, Derrida, Foucault, and Lyotard. This book includes a portion of a chapter
on literary theory that is devoted to Barthes (Macintosh, 2002, pp. 32-41). The book
affords the greatest attention to Barthes’ (1970a) S/Z, its distinction between lisible and
scriptible, and its five codes, and to L’empire des signes (Barthes, 1970c, see also
Barthes, 1982e), Barthes’ interpretation, through 25 short narratives, of Japanese
society and culture as a world of empty signs. It also gives some thought to “La mort de
l’auteur” (Barthes, 1984a), and to Mythologies, and makes briefer reference to Le degré
zéro de l’écriture (Barthes, 1953), “Eléments de sémiologie” (Barthes, 1985) and Roland
Barthes par Roland Barthes (Barthes, 1975b). Le plaisir du texte (Barthes, 1973) is
fleetingly discussed in a footnote, largely to discount its application to accounting.
Macintosh draws the following lessons for accounting: the accountant is a bricoleur, an
artisan cobbling together rules and numbers, rather than an author; accounting
numbers may be viewed as signifiers; the meaning of accounting statements is derived
from the user/reader as well as the author; language and subjectivity are “all we have
in producing meaning” (Macintosh, 2002, p. 50); the production of financial statements
may be regarded as empty signs and ritual, whose ultimate drama is played out at the
annual shareholders’ meeting. In a rare exploration of literary theory in accounting,
Macintosh and Baker (2002) pursue some of this work, in arguing for analysis of
accounting reports as texts, and pursuing Bakhtin’s notion of the heteroglossic novel in
an empirical analysis of accounting reports of the oil and gas industry.
AAAJ Davison (2007) introduces Barthes’ (1980) La chambre claire (Barthes, 2000) to
24,2 accounting research, in order to analyse the front cover photograph of the annual report
of a not-for-profit charity from the perspective of accountability, and to give prominence
to some of Barthes’ more elusive and less scientific concepts. La chambre claire, like S/Z
(Barthes, 1970a), gives primacy to the interpretative acts of the viewer over that of the
creator, and it discerns two opposing impulses at work in photographs: the studium, or
254 realm of rational codes, and the punctum, or personal and indefinable element. Barthes’
Studium is useful in revealing the coded messages of Oxfam’s and tensions between the
corporate and the charitable and between the developed and developing worlds. The
notion of the Punctum provides insight into the manner in which the photograph arouses
the intangible quality and charitable instincts of compassion.
In summary, prior work drawing on Barthes takes two forms: first, scattered brief
references that enrich analysis of accounting discourse and the visual images of annual
reports; second, more extended work, such as: the coded analysis of an accounting
magazine article applying Barthes S/Z (Cooper and Puxty, 1994); a chapter on literary
theory and accounting which makes substantial reference to Barthes (Macintosh,
2002); and an in-depth analysis of the photograph of an Oxfam front cover guided by
Barthes’ La chambre claire (Davison, 2007).
Barthes: structuralism, post-structuralism and accounting

The following provides an overview of Barthes’ work which has not been previously
used in the accounting literature, illuminating his later “anti-scientific” phase as well as
his earlier scientific phase. A number of texts are introduced, drawing parallels with
accounting literature, and suggesting new approaches for accounting research.
In broad terms, Barthes’ work is driven by two main but contradictory impulses:
science and pleasure. The first phase of his work is largely devoted to demystification
and to a search for a science of communication, inspired by the linguistic enterprise of de
Saussure (1995, first published 1916), resulting in a formal semiology focusing on the
systems and patterns of structuralism. The later phase is paradoxically characterised by
a revival of hedonism which “seems to indulge in some of the mystifications he had
effectively exposed” (Culler, 1983, p. 99). This later phase also privileges pleasure and
creativity over scientific rationalism, in a movement known as post-structuralism.
Structuralism
A few key texts can be highlighted from the early years, when Barthes (1971b, p. 97)
described himself as having passed through a “euphoric dream of scientificity”[1], or a
“small scientific delirium”[2] (Barthes, 1975b). In a wide-reaching collection of essays,
Le degré zéro de l’écriture (Barthes, 1953), Barthes counters Sartre’s understanding of
prose (as opposed to poetry) as an “essentially utilitarian” and transparent tool that
represents an external reality (Sartre, 1948, p. 26). For Barthes, language is never
innocent, but is always imbued with signs. Writing is not at the service of thought;
there is no thought without language and the two are inextricably intertwined, with
style arising from the subconscious and inherited networks of words (Barthes, 1953,
pp. 12-16 and 59-61). This fundamental shift may be usefully compared to the debate
that has taken place in accounting as to whether accounting represents an external
reality, or whether it creates the features of an external reality which it purports to
represent (Shapiro, 1997).
Barthes (1985) establishes a more formal science of communication in “Eléments de Perspectives on
sémiologie”. Binary oppositions characterise much of Barthes’ work, and “Eléments de accounting
sémiologie” lays out the Saussurian dichotomy of langue (language), or the collective
social institution of language, and parole (speech), or the individual use of language. communication
Barthes provides examples, for example with respect to the language of food: langue is
equated with rules of exclusion (alimentary taboos), with conventions of menu order
and similar protocols; parole consists of all the personal (or familial) variations of food 255
preparation and practice. He observes that mass media, such as cinema, television and
advertising, make particularly interesting communicative studies, composed as they
are of a complex combination and interplay of words, sounds and images. Parallels
may be drawn with accounting, where langue may be equated with the systems of
accounting concepts, rules and conventions, and parole with individual events in the
production of financial statements; moreover, accounting is a medium composed of a
complex combination of multiple elements.
In “Eléments de sémiologie”, Barthes discusses the Saussurian concept of the
communicative signe (sign) as being dually constituted of the signifiant (signifier) and
the signifié (signified), an opposition that may be applied to any medium of
communication, whether language, music or visual images, or fashion, television or
advertising. In the case of accounting, the signes may be numerical, verbal, graphical or
pictorial; since in each of these “languages” the functioning of the signifiant and signifié
that transmit messages is different, this makes accounting communications
particularly complex for analysis.
Barthes also briefly considers, in “Eléments de sémiologie”, the opposition of
dénotation (denotation) and connotation (connotation), which are old terms in
scholastic philosophy. For Barthes, dénotation is a primary level of literal meaning,
whereas connotation is a secondary level involving suggestions, implications,
inferences, associations and symbols. He returns to this opposition in his thoughts on
visual images and photography (Barthes, 1982a, b). There is a range of analogical
reproductions of reality – drawings, paintings, cinema, theatre – where it is easily
grasped that straightforward dénotation is accompanied by coded connotations.
Photography at first sight seems more like dénotation; yet even a newspaper
photograph is chosen, composed and constructed, and is “read” in the context of a
traditional stock of signs and therefore connotations (Barthes, 1982a, b; Davison, 2008).
Accounting has always incorporated words as well as numbers, but the role of
narratives has increased substantially in recent years, whether through mandatory or
voluntary disclosures, and this has extended to social and environmental reporting; all
such narratives may be analysed for their denotations and connotations. From a visual
perspective, numerical financial statements may themselves be regarded as visual
artefacts which both denote and connote, but beyond the financial statements,
accounting and accountability reports incorporate an eclectic mix of graphs,
photographs and pictures, all of which entail rich connotations as well as denotation.
Barthes’ structuralist project continues in a number of essays published in various
places, some of which are brought together as Essais critiques (Barthes, 1964). In an
interview published in the Times Literary Supplement (Barthes, 1967c), Barthes defines
structuralism as a “way of analysing cultural artefacts that originates in the methods
of linguistics” (Culler, 1983, p. 78). This “linguistic turn” (Rorty, 1979) is one of the
major shifts in modern thought to which Barthes contributes, together with the
AAAJ resulting conclusions that signifying systems constitute reality in themselves and are
24,2 defined by networks of internal and external relations. Thus, the previous methods of
analysing texts by reference to historical sources and authorial biography are rejected
in favour of giving primacy to the text itself. This has a liberating effect on the
analysis, not only of literature, but also of any signifying system, including art theory,
which has had a tendency to be more closely conducted under the aegis of historicism
256 (Crary, 1990), and indeed of accounting.
“Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits” (Barthes, 1966) (“Introduction to the
structural analysis of narratives” (Barthes, 1977h)) is an extended effort to “sketch” a
“theory” of narrative, described by Barthes himself as “tentative” and “provisional”.
Barthes first demystifies and broadens the concept of narrative from a traditional
literary definition:
The narratives of the world are numberless. Narrative is first and foremost a prodigious
variety of genres, themselves distributed amongst different substances – as though any
material were fit to receive man’s stories. Able to be carried by articulated language, spoken
or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the ordered mixture of all these substances;
narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama,
comedy, (panto)mime, painting (think of Carpaccio’s Saint Ursula), stained glass windows,
cinema, comics, news items, conversation (Barthes, 1977i, p. 79, see also Barthes, 1966)
The storytelling properties of narratives are well accepted in organization studies
(Gabriel, 2000), and Barthes’ essay is, for example, quoted in Narrating the
Organization (Czarniawska, 1997). It is, however, surprising that research into the
numerous narratives associated with accounting has drawn little on Barthes’ various
narratological theories, nor those of other critical theorists. Indeed, given the very
derivation of “accounting” in the Old French “acconter”, meaning both “to count” and
“to recount”, and the storytelling inherent in giving an account, whether numerical,
verbal, or indeed graphical or pictorial, there would seem to be fruitful scope in
exploring such approaches in relation to accounting narratives. Barthes continues by
universalising the concept of narrative:
Moreover, under this almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in
every place, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and there nowhere is
nor has been a people without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their narratives,
enjoyment of which is very often shared by men with different, even opposing, cultural
backgrounds. Caring nothing for the division between good and bad literature, narrative is
international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself (Barthes, 1977i, p.
79, see also Barthes, 1966).
Barthes’ structuralist bent proceeds by asking how the many individualised varieties
of narrative may be mastered by reference to a common model, structuralism’s
constant aim being to master, in Saussurean terms, the infinity of utterances ( paroles)
by describing the language (langue) of which they are the products:
The analyst finds himself seeking to extract a principle of classification and a central focus
for description from the apparent confusion of the individual messages [. . .] There is a world
of difference between the most complex randomness and the most elementary combinatory
scheme, and it is impossible to combine (to produce) a narrative without reference to an
implicit system of units and rules (Barthes, 1977i, pp. 80-81, see also Barthes, 1966).
This bears close resemblance to the classification project in accounting, which has Perspectives on
spawned numerous theories and models (see, for example, Da Costa et al., 1978; Nobes, accounting
1992; Roberts, 1995). “A good accounting classification should provide a simple way of
describing and analysing complex phenomena” (Roberts et al., 1998, p. 99), of communication
describing and comparing different accounting systems, encouraging precision,
uncovering structures, and thus improving understanding and helping to shape
development (Nobes, 1992, p. 29). Just as Barthes observes that, “in order to describe 257
and classify the infinite number of narratives, a ‘theory’ is needed” (Barthes, 1977i,
p. 82, see also Barthes, 1966), so has Nobes (1992, p. 32) observed, in the accounting
domain, that “a classification is by no means theory-free”.
It is of interest that the title of one of the most comprehensive proposed accounting
classification systems, the Morphology of Accounting Systems (AAA, 1977) closely
resembles the Morphologie du conte (Propp, 1965, 1968) of the great Russian formalist
Vladimir Propp, an important influence on Barthes.
The point of distinction between Barthes’ clear structuralist phase and the later
post-structuralist phase is somewhat arbitrary, as some texts have characteristics of
both impulses. However, this swing towards what is termed post-structuralism in
Barthes’ thinking can be traced from the late 1960s.
Post-structuralism
Alongside the emphasis on language itself, the author naturally comes to be redundant
in construction of meaning. Barthes’ (1984a) “La mort de l’auteur” (see also “The death
of the author” (Barthes, 1977c)) is his famous exposition of this deep-seated change of
perspective in textual analysis, and a rebellious anti-authoritarian statement. Barthes
points out that the concept of the author is modern (that is, post-medieval), and
accompanies the progressive embourgeoisement of society and prestige of the
individual. Text for Barthes emanates from language rather than from individuals, and
is a web of intertextuality and multiplicity. Since there is no author-God, nor any single
“theological” meaning to be discovered at the root of a text, reading is not an act of
deciphering, but of disentangling:
A text is made up of multiple acts of writing, emanating from several cultures, and which
enter into dialogue, parody or contest with each other; but there is one place where this
multiplicity is brought together, and this place is not the author, as has been said up until
now, but the reader: the reader is the very space where are inscribed all the quotations which
go to make up a text; the unity of a text is not in its origin but in its destination.
The birth of the reader must be paid for by the death of the Author (Barthes, 1977i, p. 148,
see also Barthes, 1984a).
The concept of authorship is complex in many accounting texts, and notably the
annual report, which is the product of numerous accountants, draughters and
designers. There has nonetheless been a tendency to believe that there is a coherent
and single-minded purpose behind an accounting text, and that the main interpretation
of this message lies with the preparers. Barthes’ analysis is enlightening, in giving
primacy to the role of the users’ understanding and interpretation of these messages.
S/Z (Barthes, 1970a, 1975a) is a turning point, by celebrating the systematic
interpretation of text through codes, but at the same time emphasising the
multi-dimensional nature of this interpretation. Culler calls S/Z Barthes’ Summa, that
on the one hand displays a “powerful scientific and metalinguistic drive, breaking the
AAAJ work into its constituents, naming and classifying in a rationalist and scientific spirit”,
yet at the same time exploring difference, ambiguity and evasiveness (Culler, 1983,
24,2 p. 88). Cooper and Puxty (1994) provide a good exposition of the five codes identified in
S/Z and their application to an accounting text, as discussed above. The classification
into codes once again makes reading an active rather than passive exercise, and the
reader a producteur (“producer”) rather than a consommateur (“consumer”) (Barthes,
258 1970a, p. 10).
Research into accounting narratives has a strong tradition of analysis through
combinations of structured coding and interpretation, which bears comparison to
Barthes’ endeavours. As Beattie et al. (2004) indicate, research has incorporated
varying combinations of scientific objectivity and personal assessment, where
interpretation and subjectivity necessarily form part of the process. Methods have
included the Cloze procedure ( Jones, 1997), thematic content analysis ( Jones and
Shoemaker, 1994) classifying sentences into “good” and “bad” news (Clatworthy and
Jones, 2003), using linguistics-based indices (Sydserff and Weetman, 1999, 2002),
coding by reference to textual characteristics, such as verbosity, use of the active voice
and personal references (Clatworthy and Jones, 2006), or coding rhetorical strategy
(Masocha and Weetman, 2007). Others have extended coded content analysis to the
visual domain of photographs of accountants (Ewing et al., 2001), or to films depicting
accountants (Dimnik and Felton, 2006). As Llewellyn and Milne (2007, pp. 816 and 818)
argue in a special issue of AAAJ devoted to accounting as codified discourse, (which is
both “talk and text”, and might be codes of professional practice, codes of accounting
documents, or of associated organizational and societal contexts):
[. . .] codified discourses foster a rich research agenda [. . .] and the significance of codified
discourse is increasing and further work is called for to investigate its multifarious
dimensions. Accounting is an important example of a codified discourse as it has a profound
impact on both organizational and social practice.
Greater emphasis might be placed on Barthes’ distinction in S/Z between what he
terms a texte lisible (“readerly text”), and a texte scriptible (“writerly text”) (Barthes,
1970a, pp. 10-12). A “readerly” text is typically a classical text, or a text of mass
communication, one that complies with our expectations, whose meaning appears
straightforward, that uses conventions of time, place, character and plot with which the
reader is familiar, and which might therefore be termed “user-friendly”. A “writerly”
text, by contrast, is one whose meaning is evasive, and where the reader has to work at
making sense, in the manner of a puzzle, and sense that is multiple. An accounting text
might be termed simultaneously lisible (in being theoretically aimed at a mass
audience, and not deliberately seeking to be elusive or ambiguous), and scriptible (being
in practice, highly esoteric, and demanding active participation on the part of the
reader), and being open to different readings. The use of the research methods
described above, and others, such as readability indices (for example, Courtis, 1998),
gives some indication of the types of accounting narratives which might be termed
lisible as opposed to scriptible, in a narrow interpretation of Barthes’ terms.
Mention should also be made of “De l’oeuvre au texte” (“From work to text”,
Barthes, 1971c), a key essay in the development of Barthes’ concept of text (Culler,
2001). The essay starts out in praise of interdisciplinarity, which can only begin with a
breakdown of the old disciplines and a distrust of classification. He then lays out the
following principles: the Text is not to be thought of as an object that can be computed;
the Text does not stop at (good) Literature and cannot be contained in a hierarchy; it Perspectives on
may be approached through analysis of the sign; it is plural, meaning that it is not a accounting
co-existence of meanings but a passage or overcrossing, an explosion, a dissemination;
it is caught up in a process of filiation and network; whereas the work is an object of communication
consumption, the text “decants the work from consumption and gathers it up as play,
activity, production, practice” (Barthes, 1971b). This is important to an understanding
of accounting regulation, financial statements, annual reports, audit reports, indeed all 259
accounting-related communication as falling within the ambit of text, and therefore
susceptible to analysis using techniques developed for the examination of text.
A few later works constitute those that are generally considered to be Barthes’ fully
creative texts, where pleasure, the fragmentary and the irrational dominate over
science, systems and the rational: Sade/Fourier/Loyala (Barthes, 1971a), a treatise on
the nature of philosophical creation; Le plaisir du texte (Barthes, 1973), a theory of
textual pleasure; Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (Barthes, 1975b), Barthes’ (1977i,
see also Barthes, 1979) autobiography; Fragments d’un discours amoureux, an
examination of the language of love and romance; La chambre claire (Barthes, 1980), an
autobiographical essay on photography. There is a shift in these texts from
Cartesianism to an emphasis on the body, and to a materialist account of “reading” and
“writing”, whatever the medium of communication. Barthes’ work here coincides with
a general emphasis on the body in modernity, but one that has featured little in
accounting research, with a few exceptions, such as Jeacle’s (2003) work on the
standard body. Barthes’ reference to the body has specific functions: first, it produces a
salutary estrangement from the Cartesian cogito; second, it suggests a Chomskian
notion of language as a facility that develops within us almost subconsciously, and
physically as well as mentally; and third, replacement of “mind” by “body” accords
with Barthes’ emphasis on the materiality of the signifier as a source of pleasure,
whether in language, music or visual image (Culler, 1983, pp. 93-5).
An initial reaction might be that this later phase of Barthes’ work would be less
applicable to accounting. However, as has been mentioned above, an extended analysis
of photographic accountability (Davison, 2007) has used a theoretical framework taken
from La chambre claire (Barthes, 1980), to highlight the emotional aspects of charitable
accountability, and work on accounting and the Jesuits (Quattrone, 2004, 2009) has
used Barthes’ analysis of obsession and Loyola from Sade/Fourier/Loyala (Barthes,
1971a). Barthes’ point in Sade/Fourier/Loyola that modernity (as in post-medieval)
changed the hierarchy between sound and image, privileging the latter over the former,
is of general interest to accounting: firstly, the practice of audit, whose name stems
from the Latin audire, to hear, gradually altered from a medieval custom of hearing the
details of an account, in a society where illiteracy was standard, to a modern practice of
written records (Baxter, 1994, p. 225); second, accounting reports, like society at large,
have become embedded in an increasingly visual context (Lee, 1994; Hopwood, 1996).
It might be suggested that Le plaisir du texte also has points of interest for accounting.
There is a pleasure to be found in meticulousness, in an excess of precision, an almost
maniacal exactitude (Barthes, 1973, p. 44), where it is possible to discern the work of the
accountant; there is even pleasure to be derived in boredom (Barthes, 1973, p. 43), the
stereotypical view of the work of the accountant and auditor (Dimnik and Felton, 2006;
Jeacle, 2008a; Carnegie and Napier, 2010). Elsewhere Barthes writes of pleasure as a
principle of “apparition-disparition” or hide-and-seek (Barthes, 1973, p. 19), a technique
AAAJ sometimes exploited by annual report and web page designers; for example, Exel in their
24,2 Annual Report 2002 exploit a sense of intrigue through the use of silhouettes, where
information is partially concealed and partially revealed in a pleasurable game of
hide-and-seek (Barthes, 1973). Le plaisir du texte outlines another of Barthes’ oppositions,
here between plaisir (pleasure) and jouissance (ecstasy), that bears some comparison to
the differences between a text that is lisible and one that is scriptible. Barthes (1973,
260 pp. 35-8) defines pleasure as being found in that which is said, whereas ecstasy is read
between the lines; plaisir is more straightforward, whereas jouissance can approach
obsession, repetition and even delirium. Parallels may be drawn here with the
irrationality that has been identified in behavioural finance, but to a lesser extent in
accounting literature (McSweeney, 2009). Finance research has explored aspects of
irrationality such as the psychological contagion of irrational exuberance (Shiller, 2000),
manifest, for example, in the large market premium attached to the apparent glamour
inherent in changing a corporate name to incorporate “dotcom” at the height of the
dotcom bubble (Cooper et al., 2001). It needs to be better recognised too that accounting
functions in the wider context of organizations and society, and their traces and signals
(McSweeney, 2009) are to be found in and around the narratives and visual images of
accounting-related communications as well as in their numbers. Excessive repetition is
well acknowledged as having a dual association with stereotype and mundanity on the
one hand, but on the other hand with magic, obsession and pleasure (Barthes, 1973),
expression of the irrational (Jankélévitch, 1983) and compulsion (Freud, 2003); repetition
has been analysed as a rhetorical device in marketing (McQuarrie and Mick, 1996) and in
annual report words and images, that inter-relate with matters of accounting, especially
intangibles (Davison, 2008).
In sum, several strands of both the structuralist and post-structuralist phases of
Barthes’ thought are useful guides to the analysis of communication in accounting.
There follows a reading of a series of annual report front covers in the light of Barthes’
thought.
Barthes and visual images of professional accountancy

Ernst & Young’s front covers are stylised, imaginative and thought-provoking
artefacts deploying a combination of words, abstract art, paintings, cartoons and
photographs. The Barthesian framework assists in highlighting their antithetical
messages of accountancy as both an art and a science, as creative, dynamic and
business-aware yet simultaneously objective, balanced and independent. Accounting is
depicted as a “people business”, where the people are both youthful and fun-loving,
yet also professional, measured and quality-conscious. The annual report front covers,
placed prominently on web pages, are likely to be read by clients and potential clients,
by employees and potential recruits, by the general business world and the wider
public; they are therefore important sites of image construction. They also form part of
the firm’s arts philanthropy project.
A series of annual reports were chosen for analysis as prime documents of
accounting communication, and the front covers as the most conspicuous part of the
document, which acts as framing (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984; Tversky and
Kahneman, 1986) and interacts with the information contained inside the document.
The increasing importance of the verbal and visual material in which the financial and
other statements are embedded has for some time been recognised in accounting
research (Lee, 1994; Hopwood, 1996), but analysis of such visual material remains Perspectives on
scarce in journal literature. A few exceptions are studies that have highlighted rhetoric accounting
and design features from a variety of post modern and other perspectives (Davison,
2002, 2008; Graves et al., 1996; McKinstry, 1996; Preston et al., 1996), explored communication
globalisation in images (Preston and Young, 2000) examined gender and diversity
(Benschop and Meihuizen, 2002; Bernardi et al., 2002, 2005); explored religious imagery
(Davison, 2004); analysed the visual portrayal of intangibles in the charitable and 261
corporate sectors (Davison, 2007, 2009, 2010).
Such front covers clearly fall under the umbrella of what Barthes terms text
(Barthes, 1971c), and moreover they constitute a composite, and thus, a complex text,
made up of words, numbers, symbols and photographs (Barthes, 1964). They are also
in the spirit of Barthes’ (1957) Mythologies or Système de la mode (Barthes, 1967d see
also Barthes, 1990), familiar in everyday life, but nonetheless rich in signifying
structures, connotations and intertextuality. If annual reports as a genre constitute
langue or the system of annual reporting, each individual annual report is parole, or a
specific instance of that system (Barthes, 1985).
A professional accounting firm was selected as a case study of professional
accountancy. This has recently attracted increasing research interest (for example,
Carnegie and Napier, 2010; Dimnik and Felton, 2006; Ewing et al., 2001; Friedman and
Lyne, 2001; Jeacle, 2008a). As has been observed:
[. . .] an understanding of the external images of accounting and accountants is important to
an appreciation of the roles of accounting in a broader social context [. . .] Society’s perception
of the legitimacy of the accounting profession and its members is grounded in the verbal and
visual images of accountants that are projected [. . .] by accountants themselves (Carnegie and
Napier, 2010, p. 1).
Yet there has been scant research into such visual images, especially from a semiotic
perspective: Ewing et al. (2001) provide coded content analysis based on photographs
of accountants in a business magazine; Dimnik and Felton (2006) code 168 cinematic
portrayals of accountants into stereotypes, based on character rather than visual
analysis; Jeacle (2008a), in the light of Goffman rather than a detailed semiotic
interpretation, argues that the text and images of accounting recruitment literature
display a concerted effort “to camouflage the spectre of the stereotype” and “construct
an image of the fun-loving accountant” ( Jeacle, 2008a, p. 1296); Baldvinsdottir et al.
(2009) give interpretations of four pictures of accountants in software advertisements -
although they draw on Barthes, the primary focus of the analysis is sociological,
informed by Giddens, and shows the shifting reflections of wider society from the
1970s to the 1990s.
The present paper is therefore distinctive in providing a detailed Barthesian
perspective, and a detailed examination of the communication of professional identity
self-projected in a major accounting firm’s annual report front covers.
The case study is illustrative, in a tradition similar to those that have drawn on the
insights of social theorists, such as Foucault, Giddens and Habermas, but drawing
instead on philosophy and critical thought; it illustrates innovative practice and seeks
to expand our understanding of complex phenomena, rather than to simplify and
generalise (Scapens, 1990). Ernst & Young were chosen, first, as one of the “Big Four”
firms, and therefore synonymous with accountancy and accountants’ professional
identity; second, for publishing the longest time series (ten years) of annual reports on
AAAJ their web pages; third, for their evident interest in art and communication, both
through sponsorship (notably of the visual arts), including high-profile exhibitions,
24,2 and through commissioning artists’ work for their innovative reports.
Barthes’ rhetoric of the image: linguistics, denotation, connotation

Delving deeper into one of Barthes’(1982a) essays, “Rhetoric of the image”, we find
262 detailed navigational tools for the analysis of such images. “Rhetoric of the image”
concerns not fine art, but advertising images, of a similar genre to the promotional
images that frame annual reports. In offering guidance for the analysis of visual
images, Barthes (1982a, pp. 32-7) suggests a tripartite structure: linguistics, denoted
iconic image, connoted iconic image.
Linguistics (Barthes, 1982a, pp. 37-41) is, for Barthes, a prime element of visual
images in modern times. He reasons that, since the appearance of the book, few pictures
in contemporary civilisation are bereft of words, and the linking of image and text is
almost de rigueur. In mass communication, the linguistic message is omnipresent, as
title, caption, speech bubble and so on. The linguistic message has two functions with
regard to the (twofold) iconic message: anchorage and relay. Anchorage is an effort to
“fix the floating chain of signifieds” as images are always polysemous, and the reader is
able to choose some meanings and ignore others, text provides stability; it answers the
question “What is it?”, elucidates, illuminates, directs, reduces uncertainty, but also
reduces, controls and represses. Relay, more generally a feature of picture series such as
cartoons, rather than isolated pictures, advances the action, adds narrative and sequence,
and meanings that are not necessarily to be found in the image itself.
Barthes then divides the iconic part of the visual image into two signifying modes:
denotation and connotation, which are inextricably inter-linked.
Denotation (Barthes, 1982a, pp. 42-6) is the analogical representation of external
realities, their “natural being-there”, where the photograph comes the closest to providing
a literal imitation without transformation. The denoted image is descriptive and
dis-intellectualised. However, this notion of pure denotation remains largely an idealistic
aspiration, as even the denoted image is coded, by conventions (for example, perspective)
and choice (what is included and excluded), and can present a false innocence, such that:
The more technology develops the diffusion of information (and notably of images), the more
it provides the means of masking the constructed meaning under the appearance of the given
meaning (Barthes, 1982a, p. 46).
Connotation (Barthes, 1982a, pp. 46-51) is the realm of symbolic associations and codes,
which may, for example, be practical, national, cultural or aesthetic, terms that Barthes
does not define. The interpretation of these codes will vary according to the reader, but
there will be a body of recognisable signs and stereotypes. Barthes suggests that
rhetorical figures may be apprehended in the icon as formal relations of elements, of
which the most common could be said to be metonymy and repetition.
Ernst & Young annual report front covers

The following analysis is in two parts: first, a study of linguistics, denotation and
connotation in front covers 1998-2007 permits a generic study of the three aspects,
drawing examples from all ten annual reports; second, three front covers gives a
detailed examination of three reports, taking the front cover as the point of departure,
and permits a full study of the intermingled signals in each case.
Linguistics, denotation, connotation in front covers 1998-2007 Perspectives on
Linguistics. Ernst & Young’s annual report front covers all bear, without exception, one accounting
set of linguistic traces, namely a title and the name of the firm, thus unequivocally
anchoring the document as the firm’s annual report for a given year. From 2003 communication
(perhaps following the Enron scandal of 2001), all the front covers also carry the phrase
“quality in everything we do”, a clear message of quality professional work. There are,
however, more interesting facets to their linguistics. 263
At one extreme, the front covers are dominated by the linguistic. In 2002
(Figure 1), the front cover is entirely linguistic; a large caption informs the reader
“It’s a state of MIND”. “It” is not specified, thus allowing the phrase to float in an
ambiguous manner, the reader filling the gap with his or her own interpretations.
For a firm of auditors, “state of mind” is likely to lead to the concept of
independence, said to be an attitude of mind (for example, Lee, 1986), but such state
of mind debatably determinable, even as a social construct (Baker, 2005; Gendron
et al., 2001). “MIND”, deliberately capitalised, also arguably leads to the concept of
intellectual capital, the most important asset of a firm of accountants, but an
intangible that may not, under current accounting standards, be recognised in the
financial statements, a state of affairs that is robustly challenged (Lev, 2001); the
front cover allows this intangible asset to be emphasised.
Figure 1.
Ernst & Young Annual
Review 2002 front cover
AAAJ The inner pages of the document, in a relay function (Barthes, 1982a, p. 41) expand on the
24,2 meaning of the phrase, to signify “working together” (p. 1) in multi-discipline teams that
permit a scientific “objectivity and intellectual rigour” (p. 6). In 2003 (Figure 2), the
linguistic again dominates, in the caption “The art of bringing the right people together”,
the emphasis shifting towards the artistry involved in what is now presented as a
people-dominated business, where art has a relay narrative: the inner pages inform the
264 reader that this art involves “experience, relationships, chemistry and communication”
(p. 1) in addition to multi-discipline skills, and are richly decorated in visual portraits and
cartoons (Figure 3), suiting a firm that is “proud of the reputation [. . .] gained over the
past ten years as one of the leading supporters of visual art in the UK” (p. 26). A more
scientific objectivity (Ernst & Young, 2002) is thus placed structurally and antithetically
(Barthes, 1970b) in opposition to art (Ernst & Young, 2003).
At the other extreme, linguistic text, beyond the basic titular information, is absent.
In 1998 (Figure 4), the reader is initially unassisted in interpreting the images, but
might see the recognised accounting qualities of balance, measurement and harmony
in their geometry and abstraction. The colour-coded and shape-coded inner pages,
however, provide anchorage (Barthes, 1982a, pp. 40-41), inviting the reader to see
“knowledge capture”, “client focus”, “partnership with the client” and “measured
value-added” (inner front page) (Figure 5). In 1999 (Figure 6), no anchoring linguistics
are provided to interpret the front cover, even in the inner pages. Here, therefore, the
interpretation remains in a purely iconic realm, but where the pictures themselves
perform a relay narrative function into the inside pages (Figure 7). The inner pages
refer to the communication skills of Ernst & Young staff as a key focus (Ernst &
Young, 1998, p. 7), and note that “Ernst & Young has become the most consistent and
biggest sponsor of the visual arts in the UK” (Ernst & Young, 1998, p. 8). Here, the
apparent denotation of feathers conveys a lighter, more free-flowing, ink-blotted and
spontaneous creativity than the measured geometry of the 1998 cover.
Most commonly, however, linguistic text intermingles with iconic image, and
provides intellectual anchorage. Thus, in 2000 (Figure 8), the blurred and spinning
object we gather from the back cover to be a wheel, is presented as a juxtaposition of
two qualities: “Considered”, coloured in a muted blue, could be interpreted as the
measured, traditional, dispassionate accountant, contrasted with dynamic resonances
of “Action”, in luminous tones, projecting the contemporary image of an accountant
engaged in energetic activity (Jeacle, 2008a; Carnegie and Napier, 2010). The wheel
itself is a dual emblem of time-honoured reliability and efficiency, together with speed,
movement and energy.
In 2001 (Figure 9), the front cover image is annotated by “expect . . .”. The iconic
image is itself one of surprise and discovery, perhaps of hidden value in the hidden
faces of the canvases. The linguistic text reinforces this message of anticipation and
imagination, not only in the verbal denominator “expect”, but also in the “. . .” elliptical
punctuation that injects the mystery of unspecified things to come. Moreover, “expect”,
using the figure of repetition to provide emphasis and also indicate pleasure or
obsession (Barthes, 1973; Davison, 2008), appears, as the relay function, throughout the
inner pages, the ellipsis now completed with a variety of nouns that put creative skills
to the fore:
.
Expect to be surprised.
.
Expect originality.
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265
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Review 2003, pp. 8-9
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Figure 4.
Report 1998 front cover
Figure 5.
Report 1998, p. 13
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Figure 6.
Figure 7.
Report 1999, p. 7
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Figure 8.
.
Expect imagination.
.
Expect diversity.
.
Expect passion.
.
Expect to be challenged.
Again, the iconic images add to the relay function, and in a dual mise en abyme
(Dällenbach, 1977) of a picture within a picture, the reader sees the back of a spectator
regarding a picture, itself displaying the back of an artist traditionally working an
easel in a famous painting by Vermeer, subject of an Ernst & Young-sponsored
exhibition (Figure 10).
Denotation. All Ernst & Young’s front covers, with the exception of that for 2002
(Figure 1), bear some degree of iconic denotation. Denotation is at its strongest in the
photographic images which feature in most of the front covers, whether of objects or of
people; even here, however, the seemingly straightforward representation is often
artful (Barthes 1982a, b), as discussed later, with reference to the covers for 2005 and
2007 (Figures 12 and 14). Although further removed from reality, denotation is present
too in the coloured ink-spattered feathers of the 1999 cover (Figure 6), and the
unidentifiable objects used to form the patterns of the 1998 cover (Figure 4). These
iconic denotations place Ernst & Young among contemporary physical and social
realities.
Connotation. All these front covers also bear rich connotations. For example, the
photographic views shown in 2004 (Figure 11) display all the connotative codes
Perspectives on
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Figure 9.
Figure 10.
Review 2001, p. 3
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Figure 11.
mentioned (but not defined) by Barthes (1982a, p. 46). There are the practical
connotations that the view is of the City of London, geographical location of the firm’s
head office; the buildings shown, varying from the riverside warehouses of trade in
material objects to the urban offices whose business is in immaterial intellectual
capital, are likely to be representative of the variety of sectors serviced by Ernst &
Young. There are the national connotations of the UK financial sector, globally
distinguished at the time, and globally recognisable by its cityscape. There are the
cultural connotations of the City of London, one of the strongholds of western capitalist
society, and which cross-connect with the aesthetic architectural connotations of a
modern urban landscape. The scene is dominated by the “Gherkin”, a well-known
London skyscraper completed in 2003, fuelled by the dual UK property and financial
bubbles, of which it is emblematic, and with which professional accountancy was
inevitably associated, and whose codes combine Barthes’ four elements of the practical,
national, cultural and aesthetic. Towers have wide-ranging connotations, in the ancient
symbolic and mythical history attached to towers.
Three front covers: 2005, 2006, 2007

The following analysis takes individual front covers, rather than the generic elements,
as the point of departure, and provides a detailed study of their intermingled signals.
Annual Review 2005. Ernst & Young’s 2005 Annual Review front cover (Figure 12) is a Perspectives on
complex construction that lies between snapshot, studio photograph, documentary accounting
record, promotional image and work of art. Apart from the titular information, its
linguistics are twofold. A caption “WHAT PEOPLE CAN DO”, where “PEOPLE” is communication
highlighted in a different colour, underscores the role played by the firm’s human
resources, an invisible intangible in the firm’s accounts. Additionally, and more
interestingly, the cover deliberately retains the linguistic traces of mass-produced 271
Kodak film negative, with its brand-name, film type and numbering; while being the
carefully constructed photograph of photographs, and further example of mise en
abyme (Dällenbach, 1977) these traces convey an impression of untouched amateur
snapshot authenticity (Schroeder, 2007).
As photographs, there is a strong denotative element to the icons; they provide a
variety of visual portraits (faces, hands, upper torsos, full length), sometimes only
partially seen, sometimes singly, sometimes in pairs or threes, of mixed ethnicity and
carefully balanced gender, but exclusively of young people, in City garb or
conventional casual dress. From their poses, the photographs also denote movement
and enjoyment. Despite their verbal anonymity, the presumption is that they represent
the firm’s staff.
The connoted message is that the Ernst & Young workplace is dynamic, young and
presents equal opportunities. It is a cliché that the accounting profession has suffered
from a stereotypical image of dullness, parodied by John Cleese; research has
Figure 12.
AAAJ investigated the ways in which accounting firms and professional institutes have more
24,2 recently endeavoured in their recruitment literature to promote in its place an image of
the “trendy and fun-loving accountant” ( Jeacle, 2008a, p. 1296). The Annual Review
offers the opportunity of constructing just such a visual identity. Although the subjects
are anonymous, they are numbered, but in a sequence that is left incomplete, and infers
the existence of many more; they are members of a large team. There are intimations of
272 the photo-booth, and, like Identity (Rideal, 1985), the small images represent the kinship
of everyday life, while simultaneously demonstrating the individuality of members of
the group (Rideal, 2005, p. 10). At the same time, the presentation has resonances of
Evans’ (1936) earlier parody of the banality of the passport photo genre, entitled Penny
Picture. And yet the messages remain dual: the partying poses are tempered by the
conventional dress (the significance of dress in the workplace is well recognised – see,
for example, Rafaeli and Pratt, 1993); the spontaneity is countered by the catalogued
rows and the constructed nature of the image.
The front cover is moreover a metapicture, providing self-referential comment on
the photographic medium; such metacommentary, or what Barthes would term
metatexte, is a general feature of twentieth century art and literature. The presentation
of the photographic portraits adds to the connotations. They are in black and white, for
a long time considered to be the medium of art photography (Badger, 2007), and thus
indicative of higher artistic status and quality; at the same time, in the digital age, this
is an outmoded photographic form, yet one still used for high quality results.
Additional connotations therefore, are of tradition combined with quality.
The construction based in repetition, one of the iconic rhetorical figures put forward
by Barthes (1982a, p. 50) in “Rhetoric of the image”, is in the style of Warhol, whose
entire oeuvre is an extensive metacommentary on the art of the visual image.
Repetition provides emphasis and memorability, and in a photographic series injects a
temporal dimension into a static art form, thus supplying additional movement and
dynamism. As exemplified by Warhol, repetition calls into question the notion of the
copy, that lies at the heart of photography, and the boundaries between “high” art,
magazine or newspaper photographs and advertising.
Annual Review 2006. Figure 13 shows the photomontage that forms Ernst &
Young’s 2006 Annual Review front cover. Here the photographs, again in black and
white, again denote a gendered mix of young people, through visual portraits of the
face and upper torso. The emphasis on people is verbally articulated on the inner front
page, again making prominent use of repetition:
People who demonstrate integrity, respect and teaming.
People with energy, enthusiasm and the courage to lead.
People who build relationships based on doing the right thing.
Here, however, a word is centre-stage, and has become a visual artefact, an object in its
own right. Language is made visible, letters become images, but at the same time
photographs become letters, and thus the boundary between text and image is
disturbed (Barthes, 1982a; Mitchell, 1994). Behind the 11 letters of opportunity have
been transposed the portraits of seven individuals, sometimes straddling several
letters, sometimes including blank areas, resulting in a sense of fragmentation,
pluralism and multiple points of view. The fragmentation also infuses movement and
Perspectives on
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273
Figure 13.
contributes to a sense of narrative that overcomes the motionless nature of the

photograph. Yet, paradoxically, these “photo-letters” also have an air of frozen blocks,
a frieze that has been turned to stone.
Almost in the manner of Magritte’s Carte Blanche, the letters and portraits of the
Ernst & Young front cover play visual hide-and-seek with the spectator. Barthes (1973,
p. 19), whose Le plaisir du texte reminds readers and spectators of the sheer hedonistic
pleasure of text, insisted on the pleasure provided by intermittence:
It is intermittence, as psychoanalysis has noted, that is erotic [. . .] the staging of
appearance-disappearance.
The people and words denoted in this front cover have been fused to connote the
abstract and intangible quality of opportunity, which needs to be recognised by client
and professional advisor alike, thus stressing the business professional role of
accountancy (Carnegie and Napier, 2010). The photomontage has emphasised
opportunity, and simultaneously provided a visual metaphor of something that by its
very nature is only half-seen.
Ernst & Young’s 2007 Annual Review front cover (Figure 14) puts Barthes’
visual figure of metonymy to the fore in denoting two unassuming objects that are
connotative of the firm’s identity: a dark-coloured jacket hanging on a coat-hook
AAAJ
24,2
274
Figure 14.
2007 front cover
that is utilitarian in character. This bare scenario is everyday, and spare, indeed
spartan or even clinical. The connotations, however are again rich. Human presence
is once more indicated, although now indirectly through absence, and through a
male City dress code (Rafaeli and Pratt, 1993); as in the photographic work of
Walker Evans, garments epitomise their owners (Badger, 2007). Moreover, the jacket
and hook have the flavour of what the surrealists termed a “found object”, an
everyday thing that signifies beyond its immediate appearance, as in, for example
the repetitive stuffed suits and shop mannequins of Atget’s (1925) Magasin, avenue
des Gobelins.
The normality, security and stability of a reassuring and repetitive daily routine
is intimated; indeed the coat-hook is a familiar symbol of order and belonging from
early childhood schooldays. Repetition is associated with renewal, ritual and
regeneration (Davison, 2008; Eliade, 1965). Interplay with the caption “Another day at
the office . . . ” anchors and reinforces the notion of daily repetition from past to present,
strengthened still further by the ellipsis, which extends the routine into the future. The
photograph of a static moment is thus given a temporal dimension through the relay
function of a continuing narrative. The firm’s motto, stressing the intangible attribute
“Quality in Everything We Do”, is exemplified in this photographic depiction of routine
professionalism, that seems to revert to a traditional grey but trustworthy image of
accountancy.
Discussion and summary Perspectives on
These annual report front covers are a testament to the expressive powers of the visual accounting
image, and especially photography. Consistent patterns have emerged of antithetical
messages regarding accountancy, which is portrayed as simultaneously an art and a communication
science, creative and measured, dynamic yet reliable, spontaneous while constrained,
alert to surprise and opportunity as well as being grounded in well-worn professional
care and routine; it is shown as both business-aware and traditionally professional 275
(Carnegie and Napier, 2010). Accountancy is not often regarded as a “people business”,
yet people, and their intellectual capital and associated qualities are fundamental to
accountancy; the front covers of their annual reports have provided prime
opportunities to communicate such abstract intangibles that are excluded from the
financial statements (Friedman and Lev, 2001). The front covers also connect with and
form part of Ernst & Young’s corporate responsibility agenda, where arts philanthropy
is of prime importance: Ernst & Young have sponsored numerous high-profile
exhibitions since 1998, including Picasso, Rodin, Turner/Whistler/Monet and Vermeer
– the 2001 annual report incorporates The Art of Painting by Vermeer (Figure 10);
well-known contemporary artists have been commissioned to illustrate the annual
reports – Ray Smith in 1998, Alan Baker in 2003. “Business sponsorship of the arts
allows works to be shown to a wider audience than would otherwise have the chance to
see them” (Ernst & Young, 2010), and at the same time the messages of quality and
creativity implicit in these visual works come, by association, to be attached to Ernst &
Young.
Barthes’ broad framework has highlighted structures and patterns, codes and
connotations, the intertextual and metatextual nature of communication, and the
blurring of art and the everyday in such promotional images. The messages of Ernst &
Young’s front covers are sometimes straightforward and passively received (lisible)
and sometimes require the active engagement of the reader in being more enigmatic
(scriptible) (Barthes, 1970a). “Rhetoric of the image” has been more specifically useful in
steering an analysis of both linguistics and the iconic, and demonstrating their often
inextricable intermingling and interdependence, as the words provide anchoring and
relay to the more free-floating meaning of the visual. The notions of denotation and
connotation are useful, together with the seeking of codes, such as the practical,
national, cultural and aesthetic suggested by Barthes, together with the rhetorical
figures of metonymy and repetition. One weakness of Barthes’ framework is its silence
with regard to abstract, non-representational art. Overall, however, Barthes (1982a,
p. 51) helps us to see that such front covers, like works of mass communication:
[. . .] combine, through diverse and diversely successful dialectics, the fascination of a nature,
that of story, diegesis, syntagm, and the intelligibility of a culture.
Communication is central to accounting, as it is to the work of Barthes, and it is
therefore surprising that his work remains substantially unexplored in accounting
research, apart from a number of brief scattered references, and just three more
extended studies (Cooper and Puxty, 1994; Macintosh, 2002; Davison, 2007).
In broad terms, Barthes’ work is driven by two main impulses - science and artistic
creativity, and therefore well suited to analysis of accounting and professional
accountancy, which lies similarly between these poles. The first phase of Barthes’ work
is largely devoted to demystification and to a search for a science of communication,
AAAJ inspired by the linguistic enterprise of de Saussure (1995, first published 1916), and
24,2 resulting in a formal semiology and the systems and patterns of structuralism. Texts of
note from this period are: Le degré zéro de l’écriture (Barthes, 1953), where language is
seen as an autonomous medium imbued with signs; Mythologies (Barthes, 1957),
Système de la mode (Barthes, 1967d) and L’empire des signes (Barthes, 1970c), which
show that facets of everyday life are signifying systems; “Eléments de sémiologie”
276 (Barthes, 1985), “Introduction à l’analyse structurale des récits” (Barthes, 1966) and
parts of S/Z (Barthes, 1970a), that highlight the structures and patterns that may be
discerned in texts. “La mort de l’auteur” (Barthes, 1984a) famously promotes the
importance of the reader as the creator of the text at the expense of the author, who
cannot guarantee interpretation or meaning. Several essays (Barthes, 1982a, b, c, d)
consider how linguistic analysis may be extended to visual media. The later phase is
paradoxically characterised by a revival of hedonism that “seems to indulge in some of
the mystifications he had effectively exposed” (Culler, 1983, p. 99) and which privileges
pleasure and creativity over scientific rationalism, in the movement known as
post-structuralism. Thus, parts of S/Z (Barthes, 1970a) promote pluralism; Le plaisir du
texte (Barthes, 1973) shifts from Cartesianism to an emphasis on the body and a
materialist account of the pleasures to be derived from texts; La chambre claire
(Barthes, 1980) elucidates photography as a combination of rationalist interpretation of
codes together with a more elusive personal poignancy.
Several strands of Barthes’ thought are worthy of further exploration in relation to
accounting. The broadening of the concept of text and efforts of scientific analysis to
everyday communication may be extended to include accounting communication;
annual reports, web pages, corporate presentations and annual general meetings are
all regular events in the accounting calendar that may be analysed as everyday sign
systems (Hopwood, 1994; Jeacle, 2008b). Barthes’ shift in emphasis from the
examination of historical development to the analysis of structures and patterns,
codes and connotations is useful for study of accounting documents, and his
extension of linguistic-based semiotic analysis to encompass visual material is
apposite to the study of the composite elements of corporate annual reports. The
concepts of intertextuality and plurality are relevant to accounting, a system whose
signs derive from numbers, words and visual media, and are governed by a web of
interlinked regulation. Storytelling is a universal practice that may be discerned in all
manner of communications, including those of accounting. The shift in emphasis
from the intent of the originators of communication to the interpretation of its
recipients is important for accounting, where there is known to be a high level of
communication apprehension. Even the later, less scientific Barthes of more irrational
impulses is useful for points of analysis of accounting documents, especially as
behavioural finance increasingly recognises the irrational (Cooper et al., 2001;
McSweeney, 2009; Shiller, 2000), and accounting is acknowledged to be an art as well
as a science.
Notes
1. Author’s translation of “rêve (euphorique) de scientificité (Barthes, 1971b, p. 97).
2. Author’s translation of “Petit délire scientifique” (Barthes, 1975b, p. 148).
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About the author

Jane Davison is a Professor of Accounting at Royal Holloway, University of London and a chartered
accountant (ICAEW) with City of London auditing experience within a major firm. She also has
research interests in the fine arts. Jane Davison can be contacted at: jane.davison@rhul.ac.uk
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