PART I — Understanding Engagement

Table of Contents

  1. PART I — Understanding Engagement
    1. Engagement coding scheme
      1. Core Terminologies
        1. Monogloss and Heterogloss
        2. Expansion and Contraction
        3. Expansion moves—Entertain and Attribute
        4. Contraction moves—Disclaim and Proclaim
      2. Table 1. Categories of Engagement moves
        1. Note on JUSTIFY and CITATION
    2. Engagement meaning can be expressed using different categories of lexical and grammatical resources
    3. More elaborated description of each category with examples
      1. Disclaim: Deny
        1. Tagging not only as COUNTER
        2. Tagging negative prefixes such as un-, non-
      2. Disclaim: Counter
      3. Proclaim: Concur
      4. Proclaim: Pronounce
      5. Proclaim: Endorse
      6. Entertain
      7. Attribute
        1. Hear-say as ATTRIBUTE
        2. Implicit attribution
        3. Attribution using prepositional phrase
      8. Justify
      9. Monogloss
      10. Citations (Updated on Feb 25th.)
        1. 1. Narrative citation—Author (DATE) pattern
        2. 2. In-text citations—(Author, date) pattern
        3. 3.The use of ibid., etc.

Engagement coding scheme

There are 9 categories of engagement moves to annotate in the current project (see Table 1). Most categories belong to “parent” (or more general) discourse moves, such as contract and expand.

Figure 2 shows the entire taxonomy. Based on Figure 2, we can understand that we have finer-grained discource moves as we go deeper into the taxonomy (e.g., heterogloss > contract > disclaim > deny). I will explain what these categories mean shortly, but remember that this taxonomy presents alternative stance-taking strategies (or discourse choices) a writer can make to position themselves in the writings.

Figure 2 (Adopted from Martin & White, 2005)

Core Terminologies

The following sub-sections describe core terminologies (category labels) in the coding scheme.

Monogloss and Heterogloss

The first (the most coarse-grained) distinction concerns monogloss vs. heterogloss, which is about whether the utterance recognizes the alternative positions or not. In Monogloss, the utterance does not recognize any alternative views and presents the idea/event as a fact (e.g., “The banks have been greedy”). On the other hand, a heteroglossic utterance includes various ways to at least acknowledge possible alternatives (e.g., “I speculate that the banks have been greedy”, “I read somewhere that the banks have been greedy.”, “It is unlikely that the banks have been greedy.”, etc.).

Expansion and Contraction

A heteroglossic move is divided into expand and contract moves. The distinction is about whether the writer opens up (expand) dialogic spaces for alternative viewpoints or to close down (contract) the spaces. Essentially, writers use expand moves to indicate that the idea is only one possible version of the reality. Expansion move is further divided into entertain and attribute, which are explained later. On the other hand, writers use contract moves to close down the dialogic spaces. They can do this by (a) rejecting alternative viewpoints (disclaim) or (b) showing greater committment to their ideas (proclaim).

Expansion moves—Entertain and Attribute

Expansion move includes discourse moves to (a) increase the tentativeness to the statement (entertain) and to (b) attribute the idea to external sources (attribute). For example, a writer can use lexico-grammatical items such as modal verbs (can, may) and mental verbs (I believe) to entertain other possible alternatives. The writers can refer to external sources (e.g., the paper mentioned) and remain neutral with respect to the presented idea.

Contraction moves—Disclaim and Proclaim

Contraction moves concern different ways the writer advances their own views on the topic, and therefore, narrow down or close down the space for negotiation. Writers can disclaim other views by using deny option (e.g., “That is NOT correct.”) or using counter option (e.g., “Although the paper may be right, there is another possibility.”). The writers can proclaim their views by (a) assuming that the readers would agree their views (concur), (b) explicitly underscoring their views as valid (pronounce), or (c) use other’s perspective/data/claims as correct and reliable (endorse).

Interrim Summary

  • Monoglossic utterance = An utterance which involves a factual statement, without recognizing other potential views.

  • Heteroglossic utterance = An utterance which recognizes that the referenced idea is one possible alternatives among others, regardless the author supports or rejects the idea.

  • Contraction strategy = Discourse moves which close down dialogic space; the speaker/writer acts to challenge, fend off or restrict other alternative positions and voices.

  • Expansion strategy = Discourse moves which open-up the dialogic space; the speaker/writer actively makes allowances for dialogically alternative positions and voices.

Table 1. Categories of Engagement moves

StrategyEngagement movesDescription
ContractionDisclaim: DenyAn 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.
ContractionDisclaim: CounterAn utterance which expresses the present proposition as replacing and thus ‘countering’ another proposition which would have been expected.
ContractionProclaim: ConcurAn utterance which shows writers’ expectation/assumption that the putative readers will agree with the preposition and/or to have the same knowledge.
ContractionProclaim: PronounceAn utterance which expresses a strong level of writer commitment through the author’s explicit emphasis and interpolation, thereby closing down the dialogic space.
ContractionProclaim: EndorseAn 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.
ExpansionEntertainAn utterance which indicates author’s position but as only one possibility amongst others, thereby opening up dialogic space.
ExpansionAttributeAn utterance which signifies dialogic space as the writer attributes the proposition to an external source.
MonoglossMonoglossAn utterance which does not employ any value of engagement. Such an utterance ignores the dialogic potential in an utterance.
AuxiliaryJustifyAn utterance which engage in persuasion through justification or substantiation.
AuxiliaryCitations (Updated on Feb 25th)Citation is segment of the text where external source(s) are referenced in the text.

Note on JUSTIFY and CITATION

  • Auxiliary tags (JUSTIFY and CITATION) are added to supplement the engagement moves. When these two are the only moves in a sentence, the sentence also get MONOGLOSS tag. The reason is that neither JUSTIFY and CITATION are not heteroglossic moves. See more

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.

We are going to look at the raw sentences and tag any of the following engagement moves. Using the previous example.

  • In my view (ENTERTAIN), the banks have been greedy.
  • A book I read recently said (ATTRIBUTE) that the banks have been greedy.

Once again, these categories is about discourse meaning that writers make; therefore, the meaning can be realized through different levels of lexico-grammar. This is the topic of the next section.

Engagement meaning can be expressed using different categories of lexical and grammatical resources

Meanings of engagement (stance-taking) are realized through a range of lexical and grammatical resources. These are the focus of the later chapter, but typical grammatical structures include:

  • Modal auxiliaries (e.g., can, may, must)
  • Stance adverbs (e.g., obviously, naturally, probably)
  • Adverbial phrases (e.g., according to X, in my view)
  • Communication/mental verbs (e.g., X said that, the study demonstrated, I think)
  • Attributive adjectives (e.g., it is possible, it is likely)
  • Subordinate clauses (e.g., even though, if X..., although ..., as far as I am concerned)
  • Negation (e.g., not, never)

Two implications are:

  • A particular engagement move can be expressed through different levels of grammar.
    • ==> Entertain can be expressed using modal verbs (can), adverbial/prepositional phrases (in my view), evidentials (it seems that).
  • A same grammatical structure would function as distinct engagement meaning.
    • ==> Communication verbs (e.g., suggest) can express different meanings depending on its subject. the data suggest (ENTERTAIN) vs. The author suggested (ATTRIBUTE).

So, It is important to fully understand what each category means through closely examines the examples presented below.

More elaborated description of each category with examples

Disclaim: Deny

CONTRACTION

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.

In other words, deny move includes acknowledgement to an alternative position so as to reject it. Typically the meaning is realized using negations.

  • Linguistics is not easy.
  • You don’t need to give up potatoes to lose weight.
  • these were definitely not the norm
  • We are of course not dealing with one monolithic hegemonic English voice
  • Natural gas burns with twice the heat of coal gas, is not poisonous and has no odor.
  • There is nothing wrong with your proposal.

Tagging not only as COUNTER

We will treat following expressions as COUNTER not DENY:

  • not only
  • not just The reason for this decision is that we found that not only does not always paired with but also but still works just like a COUNTER move. This indicates that not only is a multiword expression that has potential to COUNTER the discourse by itself.

Tagging negative prefixes such as un-, non-

When you encounter negative prefixes, consider whether that negative prefix negates the predicates (propositions). Some example of you could tag them as DENY include:

  • As a result , it is unable to come up with enough gas to meet internal demand and its export obligations.
  • It is impossible to see the ultimate goals of either side being realized .

But the same word may not take DENY move because they do NOT disclaim a view point.

  • The net result appears to be that these incomplete theories often portray minority children and their families as educationally inferior and unable to benefit from traditional mental health practices .

In this example, unable is used to describe a percieved property of minority families by what the writer terms as incomplete theory. It does NOT DENY the proposition itself.

  • The reporting for JE laboratory testing was vague and incomplete . This is also another example of non-DENY negative prefix.

  • But it would have been an impossible task without the assistance and advice of the Exhibition Webmaster.

Here, the word “impossible” describes a property of a task. The writer then ENTERTAINs this property by “would have been”, making the overall engagement move as ENTERTAIN, not DENY.

Back to Table 1

Disclaim: Counter

CONTRACTION

An utterance which expresses the present proposition as replacing and thus ‘countering’ another proposition which would have been expected.

Typically, disclaim: counter involves conjunctions such as although, but, however, which signals the meanings of Counter in an explicit manner. This signals concession and counter expectations.

  • Although the religion motif was not commonly discussed among the discussants, the relevance of this theme to these various texts need to be brought to attention.
  • Although provisional, our model has implications for pedagogy.
  • Despite the fact that both parties were manorial peasants , they must have found it very difficult to understand each other ‘s lifestyles .
  • In comparison, 32% of the respondents felt that the conventional downtown was still a major attraction, even though the regional centre had gained quite a vast amount of popularity and did to large extent have an air of modernity.
  • While the Supreme Court rejected the “quality of care” argument in the federation case, the oligopolistic characteristics and purchasing structure of insurance make this outcome unsurprising.
  • While that grief is deeply understood, the problem with tragedies like this one is that they become a heyday for the overly-sincere, maudlin, righteousindignation crowd.
  • Even though he had taken all his medication, his leg did n’t look any better.
  • Every single law is addressed to the men, with the use of the pronoun “he” throughout the text, even when the laws are closely referring to female issues.
  • So they ‘re trying to create a candidate that can win rather than a candidate that addresses these issues that are important to people. (Disclaiming the idea of having a candidate who adresses important issues.)
  • The author should have considered all the potnetial interpretations before making a strong claim.
  • As Mary Ann Glendon notes , the American Constitution is “ not only a charter of rights but a design for government which places important limits on both judicial and legislative lawmaking “ ( Scalia , 108 - 9 ).

Disclaim: Counter sometimes includes less obvious realizations. For example, adjuncts such as even, only, just, and still may “also have a counter-expectational aspect to their meanings” (Martin & White, p. 121).

  • They even organised a car for you at the airport.
  • Still, they were able to win the game.

Disclaim: Counter would also include some adverbs that encode meanings of counter-expectations.

  • Unexpectedly/Surprisingly/To my surprise, there seems to have been little smuggling this year.

Back to Table 1

Proclaim: Concur

CONTRACTION

An utterance which shows writers’ expectation for the putative readers to agree with the preposition and/or to have the same knowledge.

This includes lexico-grammatical items such as naturally, if course, obviously, admittedly. These items reveal writer’s expectation for the reader to agree with the idea.

There are two sub-types of concur which we do not differentiate in the current project. These are affirm and concede (Tan, 2010).

Affirm examples

  • The ability of a population to successfully reproduce is obviously a crucial aspect of a society’s survival.
  • Bailey, of course, was that rarity, a cricketer who at his best was worldclass with both bat and ball.
  • The Bush administration, as we all know, has rejected the Kyoto agreement
  • As we can see, the popularity of Woodlands new town between residents and non-residents is directly opposite to each other.
  • Furthermore , we can easily see that the semantic overdetermination of the Pygmalion story is already there , as J. Hillis Miller sees , in Ovid .
  • Everyone knows that linguistics is fun.
  • I know Inspector Morse was supposed (ATTRIBUTE) to be the pinnacle of the late John Thaw’s career.

Concede examples

  • Admittedly, he was badly behaved.
  • Indeed, it is odd that both the FTC and courts have historically regarded huge, publicly traded insurance firms rather than health providers as the legal proxy of patients.
  • Sure, he broke rules.
  • If, as all the pundits are saying, there is no hope of normalcy returning soon

Some tricky example, but we all categorize them under concur:

  • Certainly he was badly behaved but look at what he has achieved.

Certainly illustrates there may be multiple functions that an item can accomplish depending on the context. Here, “Certainly …., but” can be considered as concur, but certainly can be used as Entertain (see example).

Rhetorical questions are sometimes categorized as Concur:

  • Should we go to war against these children? (CONCUR) (Tip: Tag the entire question.)

See Rhetorical questions for other possibilities.

Back to Table 1

Proclaim: Pronounce

CONTRACTION

An utterance which expresses a strong level of writer commitment through the author’s explicit emphasis and interpolation.

In pronounce, the writer shows strong commitment that their idea is TRUE. Reader would consider that this is a very bold move. Pronounce is where you

  • I contend it’s the worst address by a British Prime Minister.
  • I insist that she’s the person for the job.
  • I would contend that this enviable level of tolerance is not the result of direct government laws or interventions.
  • I would affirm the judgment of the trail court and deny the motion to suppress Oliver’s statement.
  • It is absolutely clear to me that what Charlotte was arguing was that Crouching Tiger was a bad film to which liberal audiences imputed a significance shaped by their own prejudices about Chinese cinema and the Chinese in general.
  • It is evident that a powerful political - industrial complex with a developmentalist ideology remains the greatest threat to the environment of Taiwan .
  • I therefore propose that universities have a greater role in working alongside the NCAA in negotiating its television.
  • One of the arrested people in fact was a Hindu, a chef from Hong Kong.
  • We have to remember that bobbies move around - and slowly.
  • The absolute fact is that linguistics is fun.
  • But the facts of the matter are that we have never made the national decisions or marshaled the national resources required for such leadership.
  • The scare was enough to close the U.S. Consulate in Hong Kong for a day, though the men turned out to be tourists
  • There is no doubt that globalization has a deep effect on China.
  • I DID turn out the lights before I left.
  • However, there is mounting evidence that processes of language acquisition, use, and change are not independent of one another but are facets of the same system.

Examples added on May 26th

  • We firmly believe deepwater drilling can be done safely and in an environmentally sensitive manner.
    • Note: firmly here intensifies and increases the commitment by the author, so we consider them as Pronounce rather than Entertain.

Pronounce is also realized by intensifiers with clausal scope such as really, indeed, etc.

  • I really think that it is true.
  • Indeed, a binary definition of the environment increases the strength of spatial relations and the measure of spatial autocorrelation.
  • The language spoken at that period is undoubtedly called Middle English, which is sandwiched in‑between by Old English and Modern English. (Note: undoutedly expresses authors committment to their assersion.)
  • In this way the company can definitely fulfil the fluctuating demand. (Note: definitely carries the author’s subjective involvement to the company’s capacity.)

What’s NOT pronounce?

Although the author may show “assessment of high probability” (e.g., He must be lying.; I’m convinced that he is lying), these are still expansive. So, these are still classified as ENTERTAIN. In other words, even if the percieved probability is high, they still present it as one of the potential alternative views (ENTERTAIN). Martin and White (2005) writes:

Accordingly, as assessments of probability, such modals are dialogically expansive – they still ‘entertain’ the possibility of dialogistical alternatives. Pronouncements, in contrast, do not ‘entertain’ alternative positions in this way but, as we have demonstrated, are directed towards challenging and dismissing an alternative viewpoint.

Back to Table 1

Proclaim: Endorse

CONTRACTION

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.

Essentially, in Endorse option, a writer use an external source and align with it to support their views. Typically, this is achieved by the use of verbal processes and their nominalized equivalents. Compared to Attribute, Endorse encodes writers more approval of the content.

  • Evidence showed that . . . there was “a large number of small competitors, the absence of significant price wars, . . .”
  • An interview by the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) concerning national identity revealed that 50% of those interviewed feel that they think of themselves more as citizens of the world than any particular country, up from 45% in 1993.
  • First, the study found that advisee perceptions of their advisor ‘s credibility was positively related to advisee perceptions of advisor mentoring and an advisor ‘s use of solution-oriented conflict management strategies.
  • More specifically, five studies demonstrate that investment dependence – investment by foreign firms in a society’s domestic economy increases economic inequality.
  • For instance, young learners were found to perform differently on both text comprehension (e.g., Langer, 1985) and production (e.g. Hidi & Hidyard, 1983).
  • As discussants correctly pointed out, Bernardino of Siena, Martin Le Franc, and the anonymous author of the Errores Gazariorum all have an even more aggressive campaign against witches than did the authors of our previous readings.

Furthermore, Endorse may involve a pattern ADV + VERB where adverbs adds extra meaning to Endorse the external sources:

  • … convincingly argued …
  • … compellingly propounded …
  • … successfully explained …
  • As Hastie (an Englishman of their own political persuasion) so compellingly argued, ‘In any society racism will increase in direct proportion to the number of people who are given well-paid and prestigious positions to discover it.’

Back to Table 1

Entertain

EXPANSION

An utterance which opens the dialogic space by acknowledging a proposition as one possibility amongst others.

Essentially, Entertain option allows writers to show that they take into consideration potential alternative viewpoints in addition to one they are advancing. Entertain is a type of expansion strategy because they opens up the dialogic space to allow for other potential viewpoints.

Entertain can be achieved by a range of lexico-grammatical structures. These include but not limited to, modal verbs (may), conditional clauses (if), evidential markers (appear/seem), and adverbial phrases (generally, perhaps).

ENTERTAIN move signals author’s own subjectivity to present the idea.

  • In my view/from my perspective/in my opinion, linguistics is fun.
  • I think/suppose/suspect Mary teaches French
  • I believe that he’s lying.
  • I am convinced that she betrayed us.
  • It appears that maximum price fixing does the greatest harm when set below a competitive level.
  • That mismatch seems worse than it was ten years ago.
  • His defensive behaviour suggests he feels ashamed and guilty that you’ve discovered his habit.
  • He may be lying.
  • It may have been the most immature, irresponsible, disgraceful and misleading address ever given by a British Prime Minister.
  • You must switch off the lights when you leave.
  • Probably/apparently/perhaps he’s lying.
  • It was probably/arguably the most immature, irresponsible, disgraceful and misleading address ever given by a British Prime Minister.
  • It’s probable/likely/possible that he’s lying.
  • Of course, there’s precious little chance of that happening in America any time soon.
  • He has certainly disgraced the Attorney General’s office in lending credence to the assertions of the Swift Boat veterans for Truth.

ENTERTAIN can include phrasing where the authors set the condition under which their claims apply.

  • Generally speaking, if a person repented the church would pardon him or her regardless of how atrocious the crime was.
  • If we accept that differences are not only good and sameness is dull and non - competitive , then it is easy to see that diversity , in fact , can be a competitive advantage .
  • But, I think it will last as long as Bill sticks to his current strategy.

Rhetorical questions are sometimes categorized as Entertain include following examples:

  • So what brings happiness to our life? (ENTERTAIN) (Tip: Tag the entire question.)

See Rhetorical questions

Back to Table 1

Attribute

EXPANSION

An utterance which signifies dialogic space as the writer attributes the proposition to an external source.

Attribute is another expansion strategy. In this move, the writer presents an idea as a version of the truth by (explicitly or implicitly) referring to an external source (e.g., other authors/studies). The attribution can be made to some unspecified sources (see below). The writer essentially have no stake in reporting the idea. This can be contrasted with ENDORSE, where the author shows greater alignments to the attributed idea as a valid and reliable one (hence contraction).

Typically, this move is achieved by “X [third person] says/reports/states/declares/announces” or “According to X”, which shows that the idea is borrowed from the external source. Martin & White (2005) says: “Under the heading of ‘attribution’, we deal with those formulations which disassociate the proposition from the text’s internal authorial voice by attributing it so some external source.”

In many cases, ATTRIBUTE occurs where the author explicitly mention the source of information and ackowledge that the original idea is theirs.

  • Mr. Mandela said the Group of Eight nations have a duty to help battle the scourge of AIDS.
  • Dawkins believes that religion is not an adaptive evolutionary vestige, but in fact a cultural virus.
  • Most linguists believe that linguistic structure is most productively studied in its own terms, with its communicative use(s) considered separately.
  • Hovenkamp argues that a company could have one hundred percent market share both as a newspaper publisher and distributor, and still have no monopoly power.
  • According to the authors, he gave new witches everything they wished as long as they sold their soul to him.
  • As the discussant post “Witchcraft and Sexual Deviance” mentioned, the church and the public believed that if witches were willing to so publicly flout the word of the Lord, they must also disobey other societal conventions.
  • Tickner has claimed that regardless of the result, the royal commission was a waste of money and he would proceed with a separate inquiry into the issue headed by Justice Jane Matthews.
  • In Wong’s study, another ‘‘geographical imagination’’ of Lucky Plaza is the view that it is a place where the Filipino maids get to know their ‘boyfriends’.
  • Chomsky’s belief that language is for individuals rather than groups .
  • In response to Jackson ‘s assertion that African Americans had progressed a lot in eighty odd years, Young interrupted him again and informed him, “we are not going to wait eighty more years, I will tell you that.”
Hear-say as ATTRIBUTE

In some cases, the author can present the idea without specifying the sources (but still present it as something they hear about).

  • It is said that he lied about his age as he grew older …
  • The government’s serologist reportedly lied about his qualifications.
  • It is generally understood that science has developed a highly sophisticated way of representing ideas.
Implicit attribution

Updated on May 30th

Additionally, ATTRIBUTE would include some implicit attribution like the followings:

  • Van de Kooi and Knorr (1973) measured one office building and five small dwellings over a period from February 1967 to August 1967 in The Netherlands.

→ This can be interpreted as “Van de Kooi and Knorr (1973) (reported that they) measured ~.” So, in the annotation, we will tag measured as ATTRIBUTE (see Hood, 2010, p. 181).

  • Anderson (2004) offers a number of suggestions.

→ Here, offer + suggestion can be interpreted as abstract representation (called grammatical metaphor) of Anderson suggested many things. So, in the annotation we will put ATTRIBUTE tag on offers.

Compared to Endorse, Attribute keeps a neutral stance on the content attributed.

Attribution using prepositional phrase

Some prepositional phrases signaling (metaphorical) locations, can be treated as ATTRIBUTE, when that location is an external source. This include following examples:

  • In Wong’s study, another ‘‘geographical imagination’’ of Lucky Plaza is the view that it is a place where the Filipino maids get to know their ‘boyfriends’.
  • In recent research on human evolution, unique abilities for exact imitation contributed signally to our unique evolutionary trajectory.

Back to Table 1

Justify

An utterance which engage in persuasion through justification or substantiation.

This move is typically achieved by subordinate clauses or prepositional phrases expressing reasons (e.g., because, considering that, given that, because of, due to, for this reason).

  • Because the steps are made of a smooth, polished—and therefore slippery—stone, the BTA should’ve taken precautions to clean the steps in such wintry conditions.
  • Accessibility is quite a key factor because it is evident that the regional centre was built on the basis of good infrastructure.
  • Because of the event happening next year, the housing prices have gone up so rapidly around here.
  • Given that about a quarter of all employed people move on and off the payrolls of individual firms during the year , a need to move between firms to climb the career ladder would not seem to be a difficult barrier to surmount .
  • The items had been produced by ANPWS for the following reasons : ( a ) to generate publicity ( for some of Australia ‘s national parks ) , ( b ) to meet existing information requests from school students and the general public ( such as on Australia ‘s endangered plants ) , ( c ) to generate interest in particular topics ( such as remnant vegetation ) , and ( d ) to explain government policy ( on kangaroo harvesting ) .

Updated on May 26th

We will also consider logical connectors such as so, therefore, thus, accordingly, as such as Justify. Note that so needs to be used to show logical relations to be tagged as Justify.

  • Accordingly, a learner with a score of 50 is considered to have a vocabulary size of 5,000 words.
  • As such, a student can develop, or fail to develop, an isolated skill distinct from their general performance across skills.
  • Literacy varies within contexts; therefore, a single “ literacy “ does not exist.

When JUSTIFY is the only move in the sentence, use MONOGLOSS tag. See more.

Back to Table 1

Monogloss

An utterance which does not employ any value of engagement. Such an utterance ignores the dialogic potential in an utterance.

As of April 9th, we will NOT use a Monogloss tag. A main clause without any engagement values are all considered monogloss. Examine this fact in the following examples, where there should be no engagement-invoking lexico-grammatical items in each sentence.

  • Teachers are facing the difficult task of providing an optimal learning environment to students from varying social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds.
  • What is interesting in this example is how neither of the two views that are attributed to others is actually endorsed by the author, even though they are entertained and explicated.
  • The purpose of maintaining an expansive approach here is clear: the author seeks to present perspectives and research conducted thus far to lay the groundwork for what should be done.
  • Television has helped to shrink the relative distance between people and countries.
  • When the news came through that the National Air Traffic Services (Nats) was in financial trouble and was being offered a £60 million rescue package, the reaction of the first union official to pop up on the BBC’s radar screen was predictable.
  • The preposterous idea that privatisation puts profit before safety was a commonplace long before Nats was born.
  • In the past few years there have been a number of moral panics about racism, accompanied by self-serving calls from predictable quarters for more government action to deal with the problem.

An imperative clause is also classified as monogloss (Martin & White, 2005, p.111):

  • Turn out (MONOGLOSSS) the lights before you leave.

Note that modal verbs to express obligations (should, must) are categorized as Entertain:

  • You must (ENTERTAIN) turn out the lights before you leave

These example are said to include no recognition of alternative viewpoints. That is, the writers treat the idea as an established fact at least in the sentence (i.e., bare assertion). It is also possible to say that these monoglossic sentences do NOT have any engagement items. To test if the sentence is monogloss, you can try adding any engagement items, for example:

  • The author argued that (ATTRIBUTE) television has helped to shrink the relative distance between people and countries.
  • Television can be said (ATTRIBUTE) to have helped to shrink the relative distance between people and countries.
  • In some regions (ENTERTAIN), television has helped to shrink the relative distance between people and countries.

Back to Table 1

Citations (Updated on Feb 25th.)

Citation is segment of the text where external source(s) are referenced in the text.

There are several types of citation format to identify in the current corpus. In the dataset to annotate, there will be cases where the citation is cut in the middle (e.g., (Bell &amp.). This is because the automatic system I used to segment the essay into sentences is not perfect. In such cases, we will still tag the fragment of the citation as CITATION. (see more example of this kind)

When CITATION is the only move in the sentence, use MONOGLOSS tag. See more.

1. Narrative citation—Author (DATE) pattern

Narrative citation pattern is where author’s name is explicitly referenced in the prose.

The following examples were taken from Nesi (2021):

  • Schapiro et al. (2001) demonstrated (BAWE code: 3060a SS level 4)
  • Lipton (1991, p.419) refers (BAWE code: 0177b AH level 3)
  • In 1991, Aram et al. (Menyuk, 1995:4) reviewed (BAWE code: 6206b AH level 3)
  • Batliwala (1993 cited in Sen, 1997: 2) brings into focus (BAWE code: 0422a SS level 4)
  • Piaget (as cited in Rubin, LeMare and Lollis, 1990) offers (BAWE code: 0014c LS level 2)
  • Gisela Bock (in Bridenthal et al., 1984) argues (BAWE code: 0408f SS level 3)
  • quoted by Aitchison (1989:260) as claiming (BAWE code: 6055a AH level 1)
  • supported by Kjelsan et al. (2004) who found (BAWE code: 0014a LS level 2)
  • In Brown et al. (1994) it says to look for (BAWE code: 3101b SS level 1)
  • In another study by Kerr and MacCoun (1985) theydemonstrated (BAWE code: 0014e LS level 3)
  • Lloyd and Lishman (1975) originally demonstrated (BAWE code: 0016a LS level 1)
  • Some predictions made by Robertson et al (1999) make this even clearer’
    • According to Jones (1998), “students often had difficulty using APA style, especially when it was their first time” (p. 199).

Note: BAWE code shows the writing ID number in the British Academic Written English corpus (Nesi & Gardner, 2012).

2. In-text citations—(Author, date) pattern

In-text citations are those which the external sources are cited in parenthetical form.

Nesi (2021) presented the following examples:

  • ideas of nationalism often associated with both the ideology and actions of racism (Fenton, 1999) (BAWE code: 0001a SS level 1)
  • the coping technique adopted to achieve what is believed to be desirable (Gordon, 1990) (BAWE code: 0014a LS level 2)
  • his theory on blackbody radiation (Planck 1900) for which he was later awarded a Nobel Prize (BAWE code: 0109a PS level 1)
  • phosphorus loss can occur through soil erosion (DEFRA, 2003).
  • one-third to half of all diabetics already have evidence of organ or tissue damage (UK Prospective Diabetes Study Group, 1991). (6012g LS level 2)

Additionally, you will encounter a various citation format during the annotation. MLA (and ASA as closely associated format)

  • Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263).
  • Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).
  • Human beings have been described as “symbol-using animals” (Burke 3).
  • Marx and Engels described human history as marked by class struggles (79; ch. 1).
  • Relativity’s theoretical foundations can be traced to earlier work by Faraday and Maxwell (Einstein 782).
  • Although some medical ethicists claim that cloning will lead to designer children (R. Miller 12), others note that the advantages for medical research outweigh this consideration (A. Miller 46).
  • The authors claim that one cause of obesity in the United States is government-funded farm subsidies (Franck et al. 327).

IEEE (Note that many of this has already been converted to [#REF] in the data)

  • A trenchcoat and mask can easily disguise a few owls as a human, as experimentally shown by Smith [1], [2].
  • Italian owls are suspicious of outsiders, as noted in [3]–[5].
  • This is disputed by Civetta [6] and Strix [7], who are not owls in masks.
  • The city of Florence is under an ancient curse, as repeatedly and exhaustively described in [8], [10], [13]–[17], [20].

3.The use of ibid., etc.

ibid is sometimes used to indicate the already-referenced materials.

  • His conclusion is that the vegetation was predominantly closed forest, but that some areas such as floodplains and chalklands had more open vegetation (ibid: 140).

When the sentence included references as follows, typically used with (op.cit.), mark the entire sequence as citation:

  • Millington, T., & Sutherland Williams, M., (op.cit.), pp.2