Engagement in Novels

The multilevel situation of contexts of novels leads engagement in them involving four pairs of speaker-hearer:narrator-reader, speech of character-reader, speech of character-character and thought of character-reader. It makes engagement system cannot be directly used in the analysis of appraisal meanings in novels appropriately. Through the analysis of engagement from the narrator, speeches of characters and thoughts of characters in The Shop of the Lin Family, this paper demonstrates that the combination of engagement and its function in adjusting alignment between corresponding dialogic parties can reveal the significance of engagement system in the expression of appraisal meanings in novels.