| Appraisal Theory,as a further development of Systemic-functional Grammar,has enriched the ways of linguistic realization of interpersonal function.Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin is divided into three subsystems: Attitude,Engagement and Graduation.Among them,the Engagement System is a series of language resources,it is concerned with the ways in which resources such as projection,modality,polarity,concession and various comment adverbials position the speaker/writer with respect to the value position advanced and with respect to the potential responses to that value position —— by quoting or reporting,acknowledging a possibility,denying,counting,affirming and so on.Biography is a way for people to interpret important figures.Researches at home on biography in recent years are mainly conducted from the perspective of literature,while the researches of biography in the field of linguistics are relatively few.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct an in-depth study on biography from the perspective of Engagement.This thesis is intended to make an analysis of Engagement resources in The Snowball:Warren Buffett and the Business of Life,and it is aimed at answering the following questions:First,what is the distributions and frequencies of engagement resources in the biography?Second,what effects do the engagement resources have on the dialogue standpoint and interaction constructed by the writer and reader?The thesis adopts the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods,the quantitative research uses linguistics software Ant Conc3.2.0 and manual mark to analyze the frequency of engagement resources in the text;the qualitative research analyzes the characteristics of the text and the construction of the relationship between writer and reader.The thesis analyzes the engagement resources of The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life in the following procedures: First,the thesis analyzes the distribution and the frequency of engagement resources in the discourse,and then it discusses the interpersonal function expressed by the writer when narrating the story of the hero of the biography,namely,how the engagement resources establish the interactive relations between writer and reader.Data analysis indicates that the dialogic expand resources account for 63.11% and the dialogic contract resources account for 36.89%,it is obvious that the expand resources are much more frequently used than the contract resources.Among the dialogic expand resources of entertain and attribute,the percentage of entertain is higher than that of attribute,and among the dialogic contract resources of disclaim and proclaim,the percentage of disclaim is more than that of proclaim.When the writer uses the expand resources in biography,she opens her own dialogue position and lets the readers discuss with her.When the writer uses contract resources,she closes her dialogue position and tries to make the readers accept her views.As the writer prefers to use the expand resources,it shows that the writer wants to get close with readers.Appraisal Theory has powerful influence on discourse analysis,and it enriches the research methods of biography.It also has great significance to grasp the writer’s writing characteristics,and it provides a certain reference for the discourse writing and expands the study area of Appraisal Theory.The tentative study of this thesis hopes to provide certain help and enlightenment for the future studies of Appraisal Theory based on Engagement System. |
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