Students’ engagement resources in university EFL oral academic presentation: an appraisal approach

Abstract Recent studies have focused on evaluative language to improve the quality of academic presentations, though few have examined students’ engagement resources in Indonesian EFL book review oral presentations. This study investigated such resources using Martin and White’s appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). The data consisted of video recordings and transcriptions (7593 words) from three students’ presentations. The findings revealed an imbalanced use of engagement resource types. For dialogic contraction, disclaim resources were used in 31% of cases (deny 20%, counter 11%), while proclaim resources accounted for 27% (pronounce 20%, concur 5%, endorse only 2%). For example, students frequently “pronounced” their stance (e.g., “This novel clearly shows…” ) but rarely “endorsed” other voices, reflecting limited acknowledgment of external perspectives. In terms of dialogic expansion, entertain occurred in 22% of cases and attribute in 20%. A typical “entertain” instance was “I think this character might be…” , signalling subjectivity and openness to alternatives. Interestingly, the attribute distance was absent from the presentations. This may be because the genre favors straightforward and confident evaluation, encouraging students to state opinions directly rather than employ distancing strategies such as hedging or detachment. In spoken contexts, learners also tend to be more direct and less likely to use distancing markers unless explicitly taught, whereas written reviews often display more distancing through reporting verbs or modality. Overall, the results suggest that students favored assertive and subjective stances while underutilizing endorsement strategies. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how students manage dialogic space in spoken academic discourse and highlight pedagogical implications for guiding learners toward a more balanced use of engagement resources. Such insights can inform the design of targeted speaking activities and assessment criteria that encourage the strategic use of evaluative language, ultimately enhancing presentation effectiveness and critical communication skills.