Study On Discursive Legitimation Strategies Of Petroleum Companies Against The Background Of Ecological Crisis

As global warming intensifies and the idea of sustainable development spreads,oil companies are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the sustainability of their businesses.Sustainability reports provide a way to solve this problem.Sustainability reports are to justify organizations’ activities so as to help them obtain social legitimacy.The current linguistic researches on legitimation mainly focus on some controversial social issues.Although people are more and more interested in corporate discourse practices,linguists seldom pay attention to the legitimation of corporate discourse.Therefore,the 2019 Sustainability Reports of the three international oil companies,namely Exxon Mobil,BP,and Royal Dutch Shell,are analyzed to explore how oil companies deal with the tension between seeking benefits and sustainable development in discourse.In the context of the ecological crisis of global warming,oil companies adopt a series of discursive strategies to gain legitimacy.Based on van Leeuwen’s legitimation strategies and legitimacy theory,this study reveals what discursive legitimation strategies are used by oil companies in their sustainability reports and how these discursive legitimation strategies are realized.The study finds that petroleum companies used four discursive legitimation strategies: “authorization”,“moral evaluation”,“rationalization” and “hypothetical future” in their sustainability reports.In terms of authorization,oil companies establish their legitimacy positions by invoking individual authority and institutional authority.And production activities of oil companies are justified by market rules and economic rules.In terms of moral evaluation legitimation strategies,oil companies use words with positive evaluation to legitimize oil companies’ behaviors by reference to morals.In terms of the rationalization strategies,in order to maintain their leading positions in the industry,the three oil companies issue carbon emission targets that are consistent with the Paris Agreement.Oil and natural gas is regarded as a means to improve people’s living standards.Technology and cleaner natural gas are considered as solutions to climate change.Oil companies make the public full of confidence in future sustainable energy by predicting about future performance.