An Analysis Of Engagement Resources In Reports By American Media On The Belt And Road Initiative

News discourse,especially “hard news”,as a convenient carrier to transmit information,should be the factual reflection of related events.However,it can be maneuvered by reporters through linguistic devices so as to implicate personal stance or present their evaluation on related events.As a subsystem of Appraisal Theory,Engagement focuses on the interaction and negotiation of different opinions,regulating the dialogistic potential between external voice and internal voice.Researchers at home and abroad have long been engaged in the study of news discourse,however,the previous studies mainly concentrated on the analysis of one specific genre of the news discourse,but lack further exploration of appraisal evaluations in the news discourse of one certain specific event based on Engagement system.In addition,in recent years,news reports on the Belt and Road Initiative has become one of heated topics,however,previous studies are chiefly on the domestic news reports,but fewer on foreign countries’ news reports.For these reasons,the present study uses quantitative and qualitative methods to probe into the interpersonal meanings behind the ‘objectivity’,the strategies used,the distribution of different resources,etc.by the American side in the issue of the Belt and Road Initiative based on the Engagement system.There are totally 25 pieces of news reports selected from American media,such as the New York Times,the Washington Post,for their high authority and influence in the world.The major findings are as follows:(1)There are various engagement resources in the selected news discourse,accounting for 1221 resources in total,of which Dialogic Contraction(56.84%)resources are obviously more than these of Dialogic Expansion(43.16%).In the subsystem of Dialogic Contraction,Disclaim resources(47.09%)are five times more than Proclaim resources(9.75%).In the subsystem of Dialogic Expansion,the resourcesof Attribute(24.90%)occupy a little higher than these of Entertain(18.26%).Moreover,Counter is the highest in the whole engagement resources,then is followed by Acknowledge and Deny.(2)Findings imply that the higher employment of Dialogic Contraction demonstrates that American media tends to show authorial stance to China’s initiative by contracting dialogic space.Moreover,the Disclaim resources are frequently employed to show the negation to the Belt and Road Initiative.Entertain resources are also used to show the unreliable attitude to China’s initiative while Attribute resources are widely employed to show the tendency of objectivity by quoting external voices.(3)Findings indicate that different engagement strategies are used to construct American media’s stance,that is,the preference of Deny and Counter strategies,then Entertain and Acknowledge strategies,thereby,the final aim is to realize the alignment with the readers so as to persuade readers to get agreement with the authorial stance on the Belt and Road Initiative.With the detailed analysis of news discourse on the Belt and Road based on Engagement system,this study is hoped to provide a better way to understand the foreign media’s stance to the Belt and Road Initiative.