A Corpus-based Study On Energy Crisis Discourse

Energy is the foundation and motive force in the progress of human civilization,which is related to the national economy,people’s livelihood and national security.The current energy crisis first occurred in Europe and then affected the global energy market.In this crisis,the influence scope is larger and the degree is deeper than before.Energy is the blood of cities,which provides power for the operation of the city.Generally speaking,the higher the degree of modernization,the more dependent it is on energy.Among all the affected countries,the United Kingdom,as a developed capitalist country,is one of the first and most affected countries.Natural gas is the largest energy source in the UK and is bound up with the electricity price.The importance of gas to the UK is self-evident.Therefore,some scholars also call this energy crisis in the UK a(natural)gas crisis.The Parliamentary system is the core and main symbol of Western democracy.Parliament originated in the UK.In the UK,Parliament is the central stage of politics and the highest legislative organization.Because of the importance of parliamentary debate,it is studied by many disciplines.In linguistics,critical discourse analysis,corpus and rhetorical analysis are applied to study language characteristics,debating strategies and how parliamentary debate promote students’ second language learning and critical thinking.However,using Appraisal Theory to study parliamentary debate is relatively less.This paper investigates three questions based on a small self-constructed corpus of UK parliamentary debates on energy crisis(UKPDEC)by using Wmatrix 5 and UAM Corpus Tool.The three questions are as follows.(1)What themes are discussed in the UK parliamentary debates on the gas crisis?(2)What are the distribution features of appraisal resources in the UK parliamentary debates on the energy crisis in order to achieve the effectiveness of persuasion to the opponent MPs and the audience?(3)What debating strategies are employed in the UK parliamentary debates?The research findings show that the main topics are:the current energy situation in Britain,the causes of this crisis,government actions,assisting with the vulnerable and reducing external energy dependence and green issues.In the aspect of appraisal resources,appreciation resources account for 40.8%,judgment resources 31.4%,and affect resources account for 27.8%.As to engagement resources,monogloss accounts for 19.2%and heterogloss accounts for 80.8%,of which expansion accounts for 67.7%and contraction accounts for 24.3%.In the aspect of debate strategy,it mainly involves three strategies,namely,cooperative strategy(regulatory,strategy,informative strategy,consolidating strategy),conflict strategy(declarative strategy,confrontational strategy,argumentative-critical strategy)and rhetoric strategy(metaphor,irony,parallelism).This study has certain reference value for the study of parliamentary debate.At the same time,due to China’s energy situation,namely "more coal but less oil and gas",China is highly dependent on external energy.The energy demand is rising further in step with our economic development.If left unattended,the degree of external dependence will deepen.With the acceleration of China’s energy reform,natural gas,as a clean and vital transitional energy,will play an increasingly important role in China’s energy system.By studying the UK’s energy crisis or gas crisis,it is instructive for China to know why the UK got into this crisis and the measures they adopted to get rid of it.Among all the initiatives,there are three methods that we can learn from,developing shale gas mining technology,diversifying the energy supply and increasing investment in new energy.