A Study Of Engagement Resources In English Newspaper Book Reviews

As one of subcategories of book reviews,the essence of newspaper book reviews is a process of dialogue and there will be plenty of evaluative resources in these persuasive discourses.These evaluative resources are not merely a means for the reviewer to make personal comments on books but rather can be regarded as a tool for the reviewer to establish interpersonal relations with readers.In recent years,the engagement system,which is a subsystem of Martin's Appraisal Theory,has been widely used ever since its emergence to analyze the function of engagement resources in various discourses.However,previous researches on book reviews based on the engagement system have mainly focused on its interpersonal meaning and taken it as a politeness strategy.In the current study,the engagement system as the theoretical framework is adopted and a quantitative analysis and a qualitative approach are combined to conduct a comprehensive study on newspaper book reviews in terms of realizations and distributions of engagement resources,attempting to build an in-depth understanding of newspaper book reviews for general readers.The corpora of the research are based on 60 book reviews selected randomly from the two leading English newspapers,the New York Times and the New York Times Book Reviews,which are published during the period between September 2017 and February 2018.Based on data obtained by Antconc 3.5.2 and some persuasive examples provided,this study aims to answer the following three questions:(1)What are distinctive evaluative features of the engagement system in newspaper book reviews?(2)How are evaluative resources under the engagement system realized in newspaper book reviews?(3)What are frequencies and proportions of various subcategories of engagement resources in newspaper book reviews?The findings of the study can be summarized as follows:(1)Engagement resources abundant and diversified in newspaper book reviews are more concerned with the purpose of presenting critical evaluations for readers through their distinctive distribution patterns;(2)Compared with monoglossic statements,the reviewer is more likely to choose heteroglossic utterances,which are full of different views from readers.Among statements framed as heterogloss,dialogic contractive resources in these newspaper book reviews generally outnumber dialogic expansive ones,for the newspaper book review is a highly subjective discourse and the reviewer tends to close down the space for dialogic alternative voices to improve the authority of his own point of view more often than open it up.It can be found that the highest frequency of dialogistic contractive resources is related to the fact that there are a large number of disclaim resources in newspaper book reviews;(3)Another significant feature is that the frequency of proclaim resources in newspaper book reviews is drastically lower than the other three subtypes of heterogloss.In this study,some reviewers prefer to use attribute resources which support their own points of view by quoting others' words as the basis rather than apply entertain resources in newspaper book reviews which present alternative positions for readers.This study has both theoretical significance and practical significance.From the theoretical point of view,a thorough analysis based on a corpus of engagement resources in English newspaper book reviews supports the applicability and interpretive power of the engagement system.And from the practical point of view,the current study provides some guidance and suggestions for readers and writers of book reviews,and reminds them of taking account of engagement resources while reading or writing.