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Translation and Foreign Language Learning

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ArticleInterdisciplinary Studies of Translation http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.12.025

A Self-compiled Corpus of New Energy Discourse in Engineering Universities: Distribution and Usage of Modal Verbs

Xin Li, Zhongshan Tian*

Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot 010000, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China.

*Corresponding author: Zhongshan Tian

Fundamental Research Funds for the Directly Affiliated Universities of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Project: A Practical Study on the Construction of an Energy Discourse Corpus in the New Inner Mongolia Free Trade Zone.
Published: December 31, 2025

Abstract

Taking modal verbs as the research object, this paper systematically investigates their distribution patterns and pragmatic functions in new energy discourses of engineering universities. Under the background of accelerating global climate governance and implementing China's dual carbon strategy, this study focuses on the key position of scientific and engineering institutions in building new energy discourse, and highlighting the growing importance of self-compiled corpora in specialized discourse analysis. Firstly, this paper introduces the theoretical basis and empirical results of modal verbs research at home and abroad, and summarizes the existing results from three aspects: semantic classification, interpersonal function and corpus-based empirical research. This paper investigates the present situation of vocabulary research in new energy discourse at home and abroad. The review focuses on elaborating the empirical study conducted using the self-compiled new energy discourse corpus from Inner Mongolia University of Technology (IMUT for short here after).

Keyword

Modal Verbs; New Energy Discourse; A Self-compiled Corpus

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Copyright

© 2025 by the author(s).
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not modified or adapted.
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How to cite this paper

A Self-compiled Corpus of New Energy Discourse in Engineering Universities: Distribution and Usage of Modal Verbs

How to cite this paper: Xin Li, Zhongshan Tian. (2025). A Self-compiled Corpus of New Energy Discourse in Engineering Universities: Distribution and Usage of Modal Verbs. Translation and Foreign Language Learning1(5), 893-897.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.12.025