ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the way people talk and think about how meaning is given and produced in narratives such as novels and accounting reports. It explores the possibility that understanding the nature of accounting reports and information might be enhanced considerably by treating them as texts or narratives and analysing them from the perspective of different genres of literary theory and criticism.1 The chapter draws out some parallels between developments in literary theory and those in accounting. In doing so it follows the linguistic turn taken in many of the social sciences and humanities in recent decades.2
