| The thesis is aimed to analyze dialogicality of radio English news reports on the grounds of discourse semantics. Naturally,"dialogicality" and "radio English news" will be the most crucial words running throughout the study.Dialogicality is the term used to refer to certain properties pertaining to dialogue, which is then interpreted as essential in human cognition, verbal communication and even in all human activities. According to Bakhtin’s Dialogue Theory, there is a basic need for people to be socially interrelated in order to acquire self-identification, sense of belonging, experience and development, the need made possible through the process of interaction or negotiation of dialogue in heteroglossic realities. The long history of radio English news has witnessed its immediacy and flexibility as an important subtype of the mass media news. Popularity and the distinct features of radio English news compared with print news justify its being chosen as the object of study here. Thus the focus on dialogicality converge with the interest in radio English news in the thesis to analyze the conduct of dialogue between the textual voice from the news author and alternative voices from outside sources.For theoretical basis, the study draws on the significant thoughts of dialogue of the Bakhtin Circle and exploits Systemic Functional Grammar and the Appraisal framework. Particularly the Engagement system of Appraisal values is elaborated and largely relied on to explore the linguistic resources to realize dialogicality in radio English news texts, their verbal expression and functionality. The division of hereroglossic resources in the Engagement system between two broad categories of dialogically expansive and dialogically contractive points the way the following analysis goes.The research is based on five VOA hard news reports covering world affairs of different subjects and happening in disparate areas. Within the Engagement scheme, the study first differentiates the textual voice from alternative voices of others; and then finds out all the wordings in the radio English news texts that to a greater or lesser extent, address or acknowledge points of view either agreeing or disagreeing with those of the author; after that, these dialogic wordings are grouped in categories of Engagement resources and analyzed in terms of the way the textual voice engages with alternative voices and deals with them. It is shown that radio English news texts are heteroglossic in nature; various attitudes, opinions and values interact or negotiate with each other by dint of the dialogicality-realizing resources. All these Engagement resources serve the purpose of the news author to advocate the textual standpoint and to influence the audience either directly or implicitly, regardless of whether these resources open up the dialogic space for alternative values or close it down.The thesis contributes a theoretically motivated illustration of the dialogic nature of radio English news texts and at the same time gives a hint of a range of strategies employed by the author to maintain solidarity with the audience while meeting the demand of "objectivity". |
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