A Contrastive Analysis Of Engagement In Judges’ Evaluative Utterances In Britain’s Got Talent And China’s Got Talent

Developed from the general theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguists,Appraisal Theory was proposed by James Martin as an evaluation mode for construing interpersonal meaning at the level of discourse semantics.As one of the three subsystems within Appraisal Theory,Engagement is concerned with resources used to adjust the arguability of the speaker?s or the writer?s propositions and proposals and negotiate inter-subjective positionings.Engagement can be categorized as Monogloss and Heterogloss.Monogloss ignores the diversity of viewpoints and excludes the room for the negotiation while Heterogloss acknowledges the diversity of viewpoints and manipulates the dialogic room for the negotiation.Heterogloss is composed of dialogic contraction(closing down the dialogic room)and dialogic expansion(opening up the dialogic room).In the present study,a contrastive Engagement analysis of judges? evaluative utterances in Britain’s Got Talent(BGT in short)and China’s Got Talent(CGT in short)will be conducted.A total number of 378 pieces of judges? evaluative utterances(184 for British judges in BGT and 194 for Chinese judges in CGT)will be analyzed within the framework of Engagement System.Combined with quantitative and qualitative approaches,this study probes into the following three questions:(1)What Engagement resources are deployed respectively in the language used by British judges and Chinese judges in the contexts of positive and negative evaluations?(2)How are these Engagement resources deployed to achieve their interpersonal goals?(3)What similarities and differences are found in the deployment of Engagement resources? What contributes to the similarities and differences? Here are the findings of this study.(1)When commenting on the contestant?s performance,both British judges and Chinese judges have the tendency to give positive evaluation.However,in comparison to Chinese judges,British judges tend to use more positive evaluation;on the other hand,Chinese judges tend to use more negative evaluation than British judges.(2)In the context of positive evaluation,the British and Chinese judges tend to establish the judge-contestant solidarity via Engagement resources in a different way.The establishing of the solidarity between British judges and the contestants confines itself in the domain of professionalism whereas the establishing of solidarity between Chinese judges and the contestants covers a wider range: kinship,fellowship,professionalism and so on.Besides,in the context of negative evaluation,British judges tend to be more confrontational and critical and give the negative evaluation in a sharp and direct way whereas Chinese judges tend to be gentle and give the negative evaluation in an indirect way,aiming to ease the tension between them and the contestants and maintain a harmonious relationship.(3)Under the positive evaluation,both British and Chinese judges are inclined to adopt heterogloss to contract or expand the dialogic room for other voices.To be more specifically,they both tend to apply more contraction resources which narrow down dialogic room.Despite British and Chinese judges share the similarity in applying contraction resources to interact with others,Chinese judges are prone to use more expansion resources than British judges and on the other hand,British judges tend to use more contraction resources than Chinese judges;Under the negative evaluation,British judges tend to adopt monogloss and heterogloss(mostly contraction resources)while Chinese judges tend to apply heterogloss(mostly contraction resources)and mixed resources(more specifically,contraction resources and expansion resources together).The similarities in the distribution of Engagement resources deployed by British and Chinese judges may due to the purpose of the specific discourse domain: a TV selection program and the differences can be attributed to the differences of culture and ideology between Britain and China.This study,to some extent,is of significance.It testifies the feasibility and application of Engagement System in analyzing discourses of different genres and languages.Through the comparison of the distribution of Engagement resources between British judges and Chinese judges,this study finds out the similarities and differences in the distribution and then moves to uncover the underlying reasons for them.By uncovering the underlying reasons,this study sheds light on the cultural and ideological differences between Britain and China.As a result,this study,to certain extent,offers a better understanding between Britain and China and thus promotes the intercultural communication.