Engagement resources in the English news texts of two phases in China's constructing Greater Bay Area

This study examined the similarities and differences in the distribution and quantitative use of engagement resources in the English news texts of two phases which are demarcated by an important document issued by the Chinese government in constructing the Greater Bay Area (GBA) by drawing on the engagement framework of the appraisal system in Systemic Functional Linguistics. Sixty English news reports of these two phases, each with a length of 800-1200 words, were collected and all the engagement resources were coded and calculated on the UAM corpus tool (version 6) before comparisons were made in terms of the quantitative use and distribution of each sub-category. The findings show that more dialogic expansion resources are present in the English news texts on GBA than dialogic contraction resources and that the most used and the least used strategies in the news reports are entertain resources and distance resources respectively. Moreover, in terms of the comparison of the sub-category, the distribution of the endorse strategy is significantly different in these two phases.

Automated summary

This study explored the distribution and quantitative use of engagement resources in English news texts related to the Greater Bay Area (GBA) in two different phases. A total of 60 English news reports, each ranging from 800 to 1200 words, were collected and analyzed using the UAM corpus tool. The findings revealed that dialogic expansion resources were more prevalent in GBA news texts compared to dialogic contraction resources. The most commonly used strategy in the news reports was entertainment resources, while the least used strategy was distance resources. Furthermore, a significant difference was found in the distribution of the endorse strategy between the two phases.