Accounting conceptual frameworks and metaphors of vision

Taylor, Ryan Campbell (2019) Accounting conceptual frameworks and metaphors of vision. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

The aim of the research was to analyze the evolving particularly subconscious conceptual metaphor in Western society: Vision as Knowledge amidst the post-modern turn. This is done in a selection of accounting conceptual frameworks from 1978 to 2015. The motivation for analysis was first to discover what visual knowledge was like in accounting conceptual frameworks. Vision is a metaphor that functions largely unrecognizably in accounting, as well as other, discourse (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999, Sweetser, 1990, Gibbs, 2017). By isolating these sunk vision metaphors, the thesis attempted to see if the metaphor, vision as objective knowledge, had altered amidst the postmodern turn. Since the research approach here is a corpus analysis of submerged vision metaphors in conceptual frameworks, the methodology employed sought to isolate, select, and categorize vision metaphors in a longitudinal study of conceptual frameworks over the periods of 1978 to 2015.
The thesis’s contribution concerns the submerged character of vision metaphor that pervades everyday language. Vision is largely unrecognizable as a metaphor for conceptualizing objective knowledge in Western society. And so, in order to understand vision metaphor’s transition from modernity to postmodernity and what this may mean in relation to accounting knowledge, a method is used to extract vision metaphors. A method is developed to study vision periodically in order to study how accounting regulation has evolved metaphorically over the last few decades. The results from the thesis demonstrates that vision as knowledge is conceptualized differently over time in accounting conceptual frameworks. From an absolute viewing perspective concerning the mind (Vision as Mind) where primacy is attributed to the intellect, to a much more embodied, human, situated perspective, the thesis informs the construction of vision as knowledge in terms of the body (Vision as Body). What the implications of this shift may mean for accounting is discussed later in the thesis.
The thesis follows a conventional structure. It begins with a review of the accounting literature, followed by a theoretical overview, and an exploration of the empirical site that is chosen for such an analysis. A methodology and methods chapter follows, and then finally a key findings and related discussion chapter is provided. To recapitulate, the main aim of the thesis is to understand the transformation of the Vision as Knowledge metaphor over the period of conceptual frameworks chosen in this study. The main findings from the thesis is that the Vision as Knowledge metaphor has typological frames in accounting conceptual frameworks, which shows the gradual deconstruction of a strong representational mode of thinking in accounting regulation overall.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Keywords: Vision, metaphor, accounting conceptual frameworks.
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > Adam Smith Business School > Accounting and Finance
• Supervisor's Name: McKernan, Professor John Francis and Favotto, Doctor Alvise
• Date of Award: 2019
• Depositing User: Mr Ryan Taylor
• Unique ID: glathesis:2019-74293
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 17 Jul 2019 15:16
• Last Modified: 05 Mar 2020 21:19
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.74293
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/74293