An Investigation of Engagement Resources in the World Cup 2022 Newspaper Articles in the Arab World Media

Abstract

Introduction: Investigating patterns of dialogic engagement in newspaper articles can help inform novice writers of effective writing strategies that can increase their readers’ engagement and interest. The study aimed to identify the linguistic features used to engage and sustain readers’ interest in sports newspaper articles and explore related research within a systemic functional linguistics framework. Methodology: A corpus of 9,000 words from 14 different sports newspaper articles was analyzed using the UAM Corpus Tool software following Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and White (2005). Results: The study revealed that writers of sports news employed various linguistic and discourse strategies, including evaluative language, to create engagement. The findings suggest that heteroglossic instances were more common, compared to monoglossic ones. Moreover, the writers preferred to use contract resources more frequently than expand resources. Disclaim resources had a higher frequency than proclaim resources, while attribute and entertainment resources were almost equally used. Conclusion: According to the findings, sports news writers use a range of grammatical structures and vocabulary choices to create a sense of immediacy and establish the relevance of the reported events.