1. Engagement strategies for (dis-)alignment with readership in postgraduate literature review assignments
CHEUNG Lok Ming Eric
PhD Candidate, Department of English,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University

2. Why Literature review assignment?
Genre: text response: review (Rose and Martin, 2014)
Evaluating a literary, visual or musical text
Staging: Context ^ Description of Text ^ Judgement
Genre family: critique or literature survey (Gardner & Nesi, 2012)
Develop understanding of the object of study or the literature relevant to the study
Genre examples: academic paper review (critique); literature review (literature survey)
Occluded genres (Swales, 1996; Loudermilk, 2007)
Different from LRs in published journals or as a part of theses in terms of requirements
Both suggest the LRs belong to a part of a longer text
LRs in the present study are the stand-alone written papers

3. Why interpersonal meanings in EAP?
Criticality is beyond cognitive skills
Expressing criticality discursively (Hood, 2010; Luckett et al, 2013)
Aligning readership to writer’s evaluative position
Stating the significance of studies
Constructing appropriate identity through discourse (“voice”)
Discourse strategies for readership (dis-)alignment
Academic modesty (hedging and attribution)
Maintaining balance of writer’s own voice and other sources of voice

4. APPRAISAL: a quick overview
Categorisation of discourse semantic resources construing interpersonal meaning
Divided into three subsystems of ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION
attitude: explicit evaluative resources for displaying emotive responses (affect), and valuating people (judgement) and things/phenomena (appreciation)
engagement: sourcing of voice – either expands or contracts dialogic space
expansion: entertain (modality) or attribute other voices
contraction: rejects (disclaim) or limits (proclaim) the scope of voices
graduation: upscaling or downscaling the evaluative values through force or focus

5. Engagement up-close engagement monoglossic heteroglossic expand
contract
disclaim
proclaim
entertain
attribute
acknowledge
distance
deny
counter
concur
pronounce
endorse
Engagement: category of meanings construing a heteroglossic backdrop of prior utterances, alternative viewpoints and anticipated responses (Martin and White, 2005, p.97)
Opening up or closing down space for discussion
Closing down: disclaiming (rejecting) or proclaiming (validating) propositions

6. Counter-expectancy in ENGAGEMENT
Disclaim: COUNTER: presupposing the expected; contrary to expectation – concession
Typically realised through adversative conjunctions (e.g. ‘but’, ‘however’, etc.)
The approach seems feasible but it is too time-consuming.
Usually, the teachers act as facilitators. However, …
There are still no one adopting this feasible approach.
The students actually found the program difficult to use.

7. Data and Methods
Collected 30 LRs texts from 20 MA applied linguistics students in Academic Year 2013/4
LRs automatically annotated with Wmatrix (semantic tagging): adversative/concessive (COUNTER-EXPECTANCY in APPRAISAL)
Discourse analytical approach:
Investigated other ENGAGEMENT features around ‘however’
Investigated the triple clause relations of situation-evaluation- basis (Hoey, 2000; Winter, 1982) with ‘however’ and the surrounding ENGAGEMENT features
Picked ‘however’ for the purpose of this paper
Investigated other ENGAGEMENT features around ‘however’: For common discourse strategies that disengage the readership and supporting the evaluation around these features

8. Lexico-grammaticalisation of COUNTER
Counter values lexicalised/ grammaticalised
Frequency
But 87
Even though 5
However 85
Nevertheless 6
Only 58
Though
Still 31
Contrary 3
While 35
Unlike
Rather than 20
Except 2
Despite 7
Contrarily 1
Semantically, ‘however’ is relatively stable – either as a comment adjunct or an adverbial (e.g. however hard I tried, I failed.) – only instances of ‘adversative’ are found in the body of texts.
There are several collocations of ‘but’ with ‘also’ and ‘only’ with ‘not’ that suggest the opposite to their original concessive meanings.

9. Common discourse patterns with ‘however’
ENGAGMENT feature following (^) ‘however’ (COUNTER) N
Rhetorical function(s)
Example
Counter ^ Entertain 20
Hedging; obligation or commitment
However, audiences may easily overlook the process of the mediation…
Counter ^ Monoglossic 19
Bare assertion as “intersubjectively neutral”
However, a critical observation raises issues of construct under-representation. (unmodalised declarative statement)
Counter ^ Endorse 14
Asserting validity of external source
However, the research on language acquisition of internationally adopted children (Scott et.al. 2011) indicated that…
Counter ^ Acknowledge 7
Grounding of viewpoint with external source
However, Taylor (1994) argues that authenticity is…
Counter ^ Concur
Overt authorial agreement
However, teaching adapted native-speaker norms… rich resources of course materials which are obviously insufficient
Counter ^ Pronounce 6
Explicit authorial emphases/interventions
However, from my own perspective as an English teacher in mainland China…

10. Situation-Evaluation-Basis: disaligning readership
||| [Situation] As the TOEFL iBT program aims, || the Speaking section includes a variety of academic reading texts and listening input … (Chapelle, et al., 2008, p.74). || [Evaluation] This seems || that the content is relevant [[to what students may encounter in colleges and universities]] (Chapelle, et al., 2008, p.120; ETS, 2011). || However, the Speaking concentrates less on speaking skills than on listening and content knowledge. || Most often, listening skill is the key [[ underlying language ability in the TOEFL iBT Speaking.]] || [Basis] Take an authentic test from the official guide of ETS (2009) as an example… ||| (Flo_1_Content)

11. Situation-Evaluation-Basis: developing (counter)-counter-argument
||| [Situation] Contextual guesswork in top-down model is commonly used in the real life… || and Field (2002) does not see any failure [[ in making guesses.]] || [Evaluation] However, Wilson (2003) argues || that top-down processing is not ideal ... || [Evaluation + Basis] Based on my experience [[ of teaching the speaking part of TOEFL iBT test ]], || I may not share the same point with Wilson|| … It might be difficult [[ to realize the goal ]]|| when students’ bottom-up processing is problematic.|| Guesswork can compensate such inadequacy. ||| (Flo_1_Content)

12. Conclusion
Appropriating evaluation through deployment of ENGAGEMENT resources
Contribution of ENGAGEMENT resources to textual cohesion of argument – demonstrating clarity of thinking processes
COUNTER-EXPECTANCY as an overt signal for writer’s subsequent evaluation
Explicit evaluation from the writer is common, followed by justification through exemplars or literature
Monoglossic statements may be less evaluative
Writer’s assertion is often downplayed with modality (ENTERTAIN)
Overt signalling of evaluation allows teachers to assess the clarity of students’ thinking, as the written discourse structure of situation-evaluation-basis is rendered more explicit.
These strategies, whether coming with monoglossic or heteroglossic evaluation, do not entail good or bad arguments; they simply implicates the choices student writers can make to make their argument claims sound – they still need to (i) structure their arguments clearly and carefully at the phase or even the text level; (ii) the right choice of evaluative resources, e.g. more evaluation of “knowledge” in applied linguistics but more valuation of emotions and people in cultural studies, an example from Hood (2009).

13. Future Works Explorations of other COUNTER values
Exploration of alignment strategies (e.g. use of PRONOUNCE or CONCUR values to express writers’ overt agreement)
Cross-genres investigations of the assignment texts
Contrastive study with published literature reviews

14. Alignment strategy with PRONOUNCE
Accentuating the original evaluative intensity
||| With a clear [+ve] purpose, listeners know [+ve] [[ what information is needed ]] and [[ what strategy should be used. ]]|| I believe [pronounce] || this approach is of importance [+ve] [[ in teaching listening comprehension ]], || and it is also an effective way [+ve] to scaffold spoken language. |||

15. Major References
Nesi, H., & Gardner, S. (2012). Genres across the disciplines: Student writing in higher education. Cambridge University Press.
Hood, S. (2010). Appraising research: Evaluation in academic writing. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. UK: Palgrave Macmillan
Rose, D., & Martin, J. R. (2012). Learning to write, reading to learn: Genre, knowledge and pedagogy in the Sydney school. London: Equinox.

16. THANK YOU!
Questions, comments & advice are welcomed!