Updated in version 3

Step 2 — Engagement Spans

This section deals with structural/grammatical issues during the annotation, particularly the decisions involving where to put the tag.

In the example in this document, the span for which the tag should be put is shown in Bold face.

General Principles

It is important to remember that an engagement category (e.g., ENTERTAIN) is realized/expressed in a variety of construction types (e.g., modal verb, if-clause, adverbial phrase, etc.). Similarly a given construction type (e.g., It is X that construction) can take various engagement categories (e.g., ENTERTAIN, PRONOUNCE). Step 2 guidelines aim to help us to precisely identify the span of engagement tag in different types of construction.

Example construction by category matrix

First, to illustrate what it meant by the previous points, the following matrix shows patterns of combination between engagement category and construction type.

We can confirm that:

A construction can express different engagement meaning.
An engagement category can be expressed with a range of construction types.

Engagement Moves	Communication (and other) verb	Mental verb (‘like’ pattern)	Mental verb (‘please’ pattern)	“I am/have” clause	“It/there is x that/to” clause	Prep. phrase	Adv. gp; Prep. Phrase	Predicator	Nominalization	Engagement Moves (reproduced)
Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (guess)		I + guess / I don’t know if		I am not entirely sure whether			presumably		my assumption/impression (that)	Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (guess)
Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (argue)	I + argue				it is arguable that		arguably		our argument (that)	Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (argue)
Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (think)		I + think/believe	It strikes me that	I am of the opinion that	it is possible that, there is a probability that	in my opinion, to me	perhaps, probably	X is likely to	my opinion,	Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (think)
Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (suggest)	I + suggest						tentatively		our proposal (that)	Prototypical `ENTERTAIN` (suggest)
Prototypical `PRONOUNCE` (no doubt)		I never doubt/ I do believe		I have no doubt that	there is no doubt that, it is indubitable that		indubitably, no doubt			Prototypical `PRONOUNCE` (no doubt)
Prototypical `PRONOUNCE` (clear/obvious)	We + conclude			I am sure that	it is clear that, it is my knowledge		clearly, obviously			Prototypical `PRONOUNCE` (clear/obvious)
Prototypical `ATTRIBUTE`	They + say/admit/report	I + hear			it is said/reported that	according to X	reportedly, allegedly	X is said/rumored to	their assertion/proposal that	Prototypical `ATTRIBUTE`
Prototypical `ENDORSE`	They + convincingly argue, They + confirmed				there is mounting evidence that			X is demonstrated to		Prototypical `ENDORSE`

Note: This table is not an exhaustive list of construction types for each engagement. It is possible to have examples in the empty cells; Adapted from Halliday & Mattheissen (2014, Table 10-6).

Note that not all instances of these construction type realize engagement meaning. You need to examine the specific communicative function each instance has in a given context.

Basic Patterns and Rules

The following table summarizes basic construction types which may realize any of the engagement meaning and their rules for span detection. Again, the following constructions may not always take on engagement meaning.

Verbal group

Features	Example items	Where to put a tag
Verb phrases	`runs`, `had seen`, `have been identified`, `have shown`, etc.	on the entire verb phrase (except model verbs)
Passive construction	`is determined`, `was said`	on the entire verb phrase (except model verbs)
Mental or communication verbs	`think`, `say`, `tell`	on the entire verb phrase
Degree adverb + Verb	`partially agree`,	`degree adverb + lexical verb`
It/there is X that/to construction	`It is unlikely` that ….	See the rule below
emphatic do	I `do believe` that …	`do + lexical verb`
Modal verbs	`can`, `have to`	on the item

Adverbial group

Features	Example items	Where to put a tag
Single-word adverbs	`obviously`, `sure`	on the item
Adverbial/ Prepositional constituency	`in my view`, `to me`, `in actual fact`	the entire phrase
(Adverbial) subordinate clauses	`as SV`, `when SV`, `if SV`, `as long as SV`, `whether or not SV`	the entire subordinate clause
Coordinating conjunctions	`but`, `and`, `yet`	on the item

Nominal group

Features	Example items	Where to put a tag
Shell nouns	`the author's belief` that/of …	`Det + premodifiers + Noun` + that/of
No + Noun construction	`No rules`, `None of the idea`	`No + head noun`

Other important constructions

Features	Example items	Where to put a tag
Question	`Who thinks that smoking do no harm in 21st century?`	on the entire question
Comment clause/ parataxis	see examples	on the entire comment clause
Citations	`Kyle (2020)`; `(Kyle, 2020)`	See details

Some Generalization

When in doubt, you can test whether the span is reasonable by separating an idea/issue/problem at hand (i.e., propositional content) from the author’s view on that matter.

Propositional discourse = Statements about the world
Stances = author’s view on the matter.

Here is an easy example:

I think that people are very generous to tourists around here.

Here, people are very generous to tourists around here is the idea/issue/problem under consideration. The writer of this sentence uses I think (= ENTERTAIN) as an engagement device to say this view is only mine (and there may be other views.)

To extend this approach, consider the following example:

A few years ago, I wrote expressing my concern that the village of West Linton, Peeblesshire, had ‘moved’.

In this example, the writer of this sentence says that they expressed their concern by writing. The matter (i.e., propositional content) is the idea/fact that the village of West Linton, Peeblesshire, had 'moved'. This is the actual content, on which the writer of this sentence takes stances. Then, the question becomes if the writer of this sentence takes any positions on this matter of discussion (Contract? or Expand?). Based on this, I would suggest the following:

A few years ago, I wrote expressing my concern that the village of West Linton, Peeblesshire, had ‘moved’.

In this sentence, the writer says that they wrote something. What did they write?—Their concern. Although wrote is a concrete action verb, which tends NOT to take on engagement, the non-finite subordinate clause (i.e., expressing SOMETHING) roughly equals to I said SOMETHING. Technically, we do not have ACTION verb + COMMUNICATION verb + Shell noun as a pattern in the list above. However, we can think of putting an engagement move on this span. The question becomes then whether we will take my concern or the ACTION verb + COMMUNICATION verb + Shell noun sequence as a whole. Here we need to think what makes more sense as the writers’ possible communicative purposes. If we separate wrote from my concern, then we would have to treat wrote as MONOGLOSS and my concern as secondary ENTERTAIN. On the other hand, if we treat the whole span as single Engagement move, then we can treat the whole as ENTERTAIN. This may result in disagreement/discussion, but we may consider that the whole thing as almost equivalent to I said that … then we see them as a whole.

Table of Content

The following is the table of content for the manual. The original deanonymized version of the manual has sidebars for annotators to navigate through the contents. This could not be implemented in this anonymized version for review.

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