Annual Reports Readability From Linguistic and Communication Perspectives: Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This research presents a new theoretical framework through assessing readability research based on the linguistics and communication perspectives to determine the obfuscation probabilities and how to mitigate them. Therefore, this systematic literature review analyzed 219 papers using the SCOPUS and Web of Science databases. Findings show that in every language approach, there is an obfuscation level for annual reports, depending on the weakness of a particular component of the text communication process, starting from the use of a complex writing style and ending with the imposition of specific methods of presentation, while suggesting ways to mitigate the obfuscation.