A Critical Contrastive Analysis Of Discourses On The Oil Spills In Mexico Gulf And Bohai Bay

The present thesis applies the strategy of predication, the strategy ofargumentation and the strategy of perspectivization of Discourse-Historical Approachto make a critical analysis of the relevant speeches of the CEOs of British Petrol andConocoPhillips China as well as the relevant reports by New York Times and ChinaDaily in the Gulf of Mexico and Bohai Bay oil spills. It intends to contrast thedifferences in the use of the discursive strategies in the above discourses and explorethe causes for their differences, which can help readers have a better understanding ofthe leaders’ speeches and news reports.The strategy of predication is to apply some modifiers of positive or negativetraits in the predicates to label social actors more or less appreciatively ordeprecatorily. The strategy of argumentation means that the discourse producers usevarious topoi to justify the positive or negative descriptions of the discourse. Thestrategy of perspectivization means that the speakers can express their opinionstoward the discourses by using some specific linguistic means in the reporting,description, narration or quotation of events (Wodak,2001:73).The research data include the speeches of the two companies’ CEOs Haywardand Storaker as well as the relevant reports by New York Times and China Daily afterthe two oil spills happened. The author chooses30extracts to make a contrastiveanalysis. Firstly, the author analyzes the speeches of the two companies’ CEOsrespectively and contrasts the differences in their use of the discursive strategies. Thenthe author analyzes the relevant news reports respectively and contrasts thedifferences in their use of the discursive strategies. Finally, the author explores thecauses for their differences. The research shows that the two companies’ attitudestoward the two oil spills are different and Chinese and American media’s supervisionof the two oil spills are different. The discourses are also different in the followingways: the employment of words, the choice of different topoi and the selection of theperspectives. The current study has some practical significance. Firstly, this research isbeneficial for people to have a better understanding of Discourse-Historical Approach.Proper use of the discursive strategies may increase people’s communicative ability.Secondly, this research may help improve readers’ critical awareness and deepen theirunderstanding of the latent ideology in leaders’ speeches and news reports. Finally,this research has some guiding significance for English teaching. The teachers canteach their students some discursive strategies of Discourse-Historical Approach toimprove their reading and writing skills.