An Interpretation Of Steve Jobs From The Perspective Of Engagement Resources In The Appraisal Theory

In recent years, the biographical literature develops prosperously. The study of biography is mainly carried out from the perspective of literature. However, the development of the linguistic study of biography is rather slower. So it is necessary and meaningful to carry out the study of biography from the linguistic aspect. The Appraisal theory formulated by Martin is the new explanation and development of the interpersonal meaning based on the Systemic Functional Grammar. As one of the three sub-systems of Appraisal theory, engagement system adjusts and negotiates speaker/writer’s attitude and viewpoint. The engagement system aims at the construction of the relationship between writer and putative readers. Influenced by the notion of dialogism and hetroglossia put forward by the Soviet Union scholar, Bahkin, the role of readers is considered much more important, and the text is considered to negotiate meanings with the putative readers. With the engagement resources, the writer actively constructs the interaction with the putative readers.The present thesis aims at analyzing the engagement resources in Steve Jobs, investigating the distributions and frequencies, and major features of these engagement resources in Steve Jobs, and further exploring the construction of the interaction between biography writer and putative readers. In order to make the research more manageable and due to the limited time and space, three chapters nearly of the same length are selected from Steve Jobs as the corpus of this research. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are employed in this study. The quantitative method is applied to the analysis of the distributions and frequencies of the engagement resources in the corpus. For the quantitative analysis, it is basically manual but computer-assisted, where the latest linguistic software, namely, UAM Corpus Tool v2.7will be adopted in this analysis. The qualitative method is applied to the analysis of the major features of engagement resources in the corpus and the construction of the interaction between the writer and putative readers.Through the study above, the present thesis concludes that in the selected chapters, the writer employs all the engagement resources in constructing the text, and the dialogic expansion resources are much more preferred than the dialogic contraction resources, accounting for53.99%and46.01%in the whole system respectively. Within dialogic expansion, entertain is much more preferred than attribute by the writer. Within dialogic contraction, disclaim is much more preferred than proclaim by the writer. When the writer uses the dialogic expansion resources, the dialogic space is open. The writer invites the putative readers into discussion with him. When the writer uses the dialogic contraction resources, the dialogic space is closed down. The writer excludes any dialogic alternatives and aligns the putative readers into his value position. Whether the dialogic space is open or closed down, the writer is trying to construct the interaction with the putative readers. It is concluded that this biography writer does not present his authority to the putative readers and align the putative readers into his value positions all the time. Instead, the biography writer tries to express that he’s honest and reliable, and that he likes to have discussion with the putative readers. And by doing so, the writer hopes that he is closer to the readers, is accepted and supported by the putative readers, and finally makes Steve Jobs popular and easy to understand.