Step 2 — Engagement Spans
This section deals with structural/grammatical issues during the annotation, particularly the decisions involving where to put the tag. Each section below deals with possible grammatical structure for emgagement, and which items to put a tag on.
In the example in this document, the span for which the tag should be put is shown in Bold face.
Updated on 12th, Sep
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| Citations | Kyle (2020); (Kyle, 2020) | See details |
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. Here is an easy example:
- I think that people are very generous to tourists around here.
Here,
people are very generous to tourists around hereis the idea/issue/problem under consideration. The writer of this sentence usesI 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
wroteis a concrete action verb, which tends NOT to take on engagement, the non-finite subordinate clause (i.e., expressing SOMETHING) roughly equals toI said SOMETHING. Technically, we do not haveACTION verb + COMMUNICATION verb + Shell noun + thatas a pattern in the list above. However, we can think of putting anengagementmove on this span. The question becomes then whether we will takemy concern thator theACTION verb + COMMUNICATION verb + Shell noun + thatsequence as a whole. Here we need to think what makes more sense as the writers’ possible communicative purposes. If we separatewrotefrommy concern, then we would have to treatwroteasMONOGLOSSandmy concernas secondaryENTERTAIN. On the other hand, if we treat the whole span as single Engagement move, then we can treat the whole asENTERTAIN. This may result in disagreement/discussion, but we may consider that the whole thing as almost equivalent toI said that ...then we see them as a whole.
It is X that/to— as Interpersonal metaphor
Updated in version 2
When there is It is X that ~, It is X to ~ or there is/are X that construction, we will tag the entire span of this construction. This decision is based on the fact that these construction function as introducing the stance of the writer as a whole (they almost function as chunks).
When the that-clause govern the following clause, the tag spans are from It/There to that:
- It’s probable/likely/possible that he’s lying.
- It is possible that it is your duty to tell me.
- 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.
- There is no doubt that globalization has a deep effect on China.
- 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.
When a to-infinitive govern the following clause, the tag spans are from It to the adjectival complement.
- It is possible for a layer of ice to form under the circumstances.
- But it is likely to have an impact in the near future.
- It was found, for example, that it is more likely to occur in NNS–NNS dyads rather than between NSs and NNSs (Varonis & Gass, 1985 ).
- It would be possible to suppose, for instance, that the tnre Schrodinger-like equation involves non-linearities.
In the following pattern, we can identify two strategies.
- It seems fairly obvious to most people that Watson tremendously oversimplified the learning process.
First, It seems fairly obvious gets a span, because this is a variant of It is X to. Second, seems should get another tag because they add ENTERTAIN value to the author’s assessment using fairly obvious.
- It seems fairly obvious to most people that Watson tremendously oversimplified the learning process.
References
Biber, D. (2006). Stance in spoken and written university registers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5(2), 97–116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2006.05.001
Chang, P., & Schleppegrell, M. (2011). Taking an effective authorial stance in academic writing: Making the linguistic resources explicit for L2 writers in the social sciences. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 10(3), 140–151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2011.05.005
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.