A Corpus-Based Study of Heteroglossic Features in 2018 BRICS Talk from the Perspective of Engagement System

Abstract

Under the guidance of engagement system, which belongs to appraisal theory, this study analyzes data from 2018 BRICS talk through both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Quantitative approach is used to find out the list, characteristics and frequency of engagement resources of the speakers’ utterance. Qualitative approach is employed to explore what interpersonal meaning it implies and how speakers position their own voices among the multi-voices. The results show that the theme of 2018 BRICS talk is about cooperation, development, unilateralism, protectionism, and opportunity for BRICS. With regard to engagement resources, expansion resources are used much more frequently than contraction resources. Furthermore, most of the speakers prefer entertain resources, especially, median and low value of modality resources. Within contraction sub-system, speakers are more willing to use disclaim rather than proclaim to contract dialogic space because proclaim may present more obvious subjective intervention. The engagement distribution features do present interpersonal meaning of BRICS members. On one hand, speakers tend to open up the dialogic space and welcome different opinions from other BRICS members, which indicates that a harmonious discussion atmosphere is established in 2018 BRICS talk. Moreover, median and low values of modality make it easier for audience to accept their points of view and helpful to establish solidarity with other BRICS members because high value modality is sort of assertive. On the other hand, the 2018 BRICS Talk is about sensitive political issues including protectionism, unilateralism and the 4th industry revolution. Therefore, opinions on those topics unavoidably differ from each other. In such cases, speakers prefer to use disclaim resources to reject others’ opinion so as to make clear their own points of view.