The engagement category

(Adopted from Martin & White, 2005)

Table 1. Categories of Engagement moves

Strategy	Engagement moves	Description
Contraction	Disclaim: Deny	An utterance which invokes a contrary position but which at the same time rejects it directly. The contrary position is hence given very little dialogic space.
Contraction	Disclaim: Counter	An utterance which expresses the present proposition as replacing and thus ‘countering’ another proposition which would have been expected.
Contraction	Proclaim: Concur	An utterance which shows writers’ expectation/assumption that the putative readers will agree with the preposition and/or to have the same knowledge.
Contraction	Proclaim: Pronounce	An utterance which expresses a strong level of writer commitment through the author’s explicit emphasis and interpolation, thereby closing down the dialogic space.
Contraction	Proclaim: Endorse	An utterance which refers to external sources as warrantable, undeniable, and/or reliable. It expresses the writer’s alignment with and endorsement of an attributed proposition. As such, the dialogic space is somewhat narrowed.
Expansion	Entertain	An utterance which indicates author’s position but as only one possibility amongst others, thereby opening up dialogic space.
Expansion	Attribute	An utterance which signifies dialogic space as the writer attributes the proposition to an external source.
Monogloss	Monogloss	An utterance which does not employ any value of engagement. Such an utterance ignores the dialogic potential in an utterance.
Auxiliary	Justify	An utterance which engage in persuasion through justification or substantiation.
Auxiliary	Citations (Updated on Feb 25th)	Citation is segment of the text where external source(s) are referenced in the text.

Note that in the example on this page, Bold face is used to show the span on which the tag is put. Italics shows the context which helps to decide the category.

Tag spans

Features	Example items	Where to put a tag
Modal verbs	can, have to	on the item
Single-word adverbs	obviously, sure	on the item
Adverbial/ Prepositional constituency	in my view	the entire phrase
Mental or communication verbs	think, say, tell	on the item
Subordinate conjunctions	as, when, if, as long as, whether or not	the entire subordinate clause
Coordinating conjunctions	but, and, yet	on the item
Question	Who thinks that smoking do no harm in 21st century?	on the entire question
It is ADJ that construction	It is unlikely that ….	On the construction
Citations	Kyle (2020); (Kyle, 2020)	See details