1 | Page Emotional Discourse Analysis Emotional Code Beirut Port Explosion- A Case Study Ahmed Kassem October 2021 Abstract This paper investigates the use of emotional code as a model of emotional discourse analysis on the reactions of Lebanese public figures to the incident of the Beirut explosion on August 2020. The paper concludes with the relationship of power and level of authority on the one hand with the emotional code on the other hand. Despite the fact that this model is used on presidential speeches and discourse of war in general, the paper concludes with its extension to discourse of crisis and disasters. 1.Introduction 1.1.Beirut Catastrophe A massive amount of ammonium nitrate stockpiled in the Port of Beirut in Lebanon's capital city exploded on August 4, 2020, killing at least 218 people, injuring 7,000 people, causing $15 billion in property damage, and displacing an estimated 300,000 people. After being captured by Lebanese officials from the abandoned ship MV Rhosus, a cargo of 2,750 tonnes of the chemical (equal to about 1.1 kilotons of TNT) had been stored in storage without sufficient safety procedures for the previous six years. The explosion was preceded by a fire in the same warehouse, although the exact cause of the explosion is still unknown. The explosion appalled Lebanon as a whole. It was felt more than 240 kilometers and is regarded as one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history. In reaction to the accident, the Lebanese government issued a two-week state of emergency. Protests against the government for failing to prevent the accident took place across Lebanon in return, joining a broader series of protests that have been taking place across the country since 2019. 1.2.Emotional Code The experiences of emotion require cognitive appraisals and cognitive appraisals involve symbolic codes and their accompanying emotion codes. Yet there are many, often conflicting, systems of socially circulating ideas; social actors do not understand these ideas in the same ways, and ideas are simply resources that, on a case-by-case basis, might be used, transformed, or simply ignored. This is the theoretical backdrop to the question of how rhetoric might be emotionally persuasive to large numbers of people in diverse populations.