Abstract

This paper focus on the stock issues in the Whip Speeches of Academic British Parliamentary Debate. Topic-Flow-Tool was used to analyze the whip speech from three debates written by international renowned debaters, including Yoni Cohen-Idov, William Bernard Jones and Suthen Thomas. It is concluded that prestigious debaters are more likely to present a biased summary of the major clashes in the debate; that the summary usually deals with three key issues, including justification, effectiveness and consequences. Justification focus on the moral and principal part; effectiveness deals with the usability of the model or plan; consequences covers benefits or harms.

Key Words:  Topic-Flow-Tool  whip speech  clash  Academic British Parliamentary Debate

摘 要

本文旨在探究英国议会制辩论中党鞭演讲中的论辩要素。文章运用话题链工具分析三位国际知名辩手的党鞭辩论稿。结果发现国际辩手在党鞭演讲中倾向于总结整场辩论的主要冲突点。这些冲突点一般会掩盖三个要素，包括正义性，有效性和后果。正义性指相关政策是否存在道义或原则问题；有效性指相关政策出台是否能够有效地解决问题；后果指相关政策是否会带来更多的好处或坏处。

关键词： 话题链工具 英国议会制辩论 党鞭发言稿 论辩要素

1. Introduction
1.1 Introduction to Academic British Parliamentary Debate
This paper intends to analyze the stock issues in the whip speeches of Academic British Parliamentary Debate (ABPD thereafter). ABPD is “a competition” aimed to provide an education opportunity for the participants to develop their orally and reasoning skills and display their thoughts in these areas. Therefore, it is “a competition of ideas and requires a good command of language skills, thinking skills and rhetorical or persuasive skills”. (Fan Qiqing, 2013)
Before any novice gets to know what parliamentary debate is, it’s better to clarify in the first place that: any academic debating is nothing more than a game of knowledge and logic, which ultimately leads to the fact that almost any knowledge could be false and almost any logic could go wrong. Thus, a debater doesn’t need to resolve his or her attitude or fundamental belief once for all. Instead, a debater is an actor, in a sense, to argue from the point of view of a randomly-chosen affirmative or negative.