Cover not available
Part of
Evaluation in Context
Edited by Geoff Thompson † and Laura Alba-Juez
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 242] 2014
► pp. 67–92

Appraising Appraisal

Appraisal is a term referring to systems within Systemic Functional Linguistics that map evaluative language. This chapter reviews two Appraisal systems (Attitude and Graduation) and assesses their viability for analysing evaluation in narratives and students’ written responses to these. Within this context, a crucial affordance of Appraisal is its semantic orientation, which allows analysts to capture the delicate interweaving of explicit and implicit attitudes that powerfully positions readers of narratives. However, the sprawling, cumulative and context-sensitive nature of evaluation requires a rigorous methodology for using Appraisal for coding purposes. We address this challenge, proposing a cline of implicitness that relates degrees of reliability to instances of evaluation depending on their textual and/or cultural/institutional environments.
Published online: 4 February 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.242.04mac
References (37)
References
Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1935/1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Edited by Michael. Holquist, translated by Carol Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika. 2008. Emotion Talk across Corpora. Basingstoke/New York. Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010a. “Polyphony in appraisal: Typological and topological perspectives”. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 3(2), 107–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010b. The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and Identity. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika, and Martin, James R. (eds). 2010. New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity and Affiliation. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Belz, Julie A. 2003. “Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration.” Language Learning and Technology, 7 (3): 68–99.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace L. 1986. “Evidentiality in English conversation and academic writing”. In Evidentiality: The Linguistic Encoding of Epistemology, Wallace L. Chafe and Joanna Nichols (eds), 261–272. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Christie, Frances, and Martin, James R. (eds). 1997. Genres and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2001. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow, UK/New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Don, Alexanne C. 2007. A framework for the investigation of interactive norms and the construction of textual identity in written discourse communities: The case of an email discussion list. Unpublished PhD thesis, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K. 1978. “The sociosemantic nature of discourse.” In Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, 128–151. London: Edward Arnold.Google Scholar
1981. “Text semantics and clause grammar: Some patterns of realization.” In The Seventh LACUS Forum, James E. Copeland and Philip W. Davis (eds), 31–59. Columbia, SC: Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A.K and Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar (3rd ed.). London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hood, Susan. 2006. “The persuasive power of prosodies: Radiating values in academic writing.” Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 5 (1): 37–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010. Appraising Research: Evaluation in Academic Writing. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hood, Susan and Martin, James R. 2007. “Invoking attitude: the play of graduation in appraising discourse.” In Continuing Discourse on Language: A Functional Perspective (Vol. 2), Ruqaiya Hasan, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen and Jonathan Webster (eds), 739–764, London/Oakville: Equinox.Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan. 2000. “Evaluation and the planes of discourse: Status and value in persuasive texts.” In Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson (eds), 176–206. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan, and Thompson, Geoff (eds). 2000. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Iedema, Rick, Feez, Susan and White, Peter. 1994. Media Literacy (Write it Right Literacy in Industry Project – Stage 2). Sydney: Metropolitan East Disadvantaged Schools Program.Google Scholar
Isaac, Anne. 2012. Modelling Voice as Appraisal and Involvement Resources: The Portrayal of Textual Identities and Interpersonal Relationships in the Written Stylistic Analyses of Non-native Speaker, International Undergraduates. PhD thesis, University of Canberra, Canberra.Google Scholar
Knight, Naomi. 2010. “Wrinkling complexity: Concepts of identity and affiliation in humour”. In New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity and Affiliation, Monika Bednarek and James R. Martin (eds), 35–58. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1972. “Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts”. In Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Paul Peranteau, Judith Levi and Gloria Phares (eds), 183–228. Chicago, IL: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Lemke, Jay. 1998. “Resources for attitudinal meaning: Evaluative orientations in text semantics”. Functions of Language, 5 (1): 33–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Macken-Horarik, Mary. 1996. Construing the Invisible: The Specialized Literacy Practices of Junior Secondary English. PhD thesis, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
2003. “Appraisal and the special instructiveness of narrative”. In Negotiating Heteroglossia: Social Perspectives on Evaluation (Special Issue of TEXT), Mary Macken-Horarik and James R. Martin (eds), 23 (2): 285–312.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. 2000. “Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English.” In Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson (eds), 74–101. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2003. “Introduction”. In Negotiating heteroglossia: Social perspectives on evaluation. Special Issue of Text - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, Mary Macken-Horarik and James R. Martin (eds), 23 (2): 171–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, James R. and White, Peter R.R. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Sally. 1990. “The Letter”. In Jack Davis (ed), Paperbark, 1–3. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press.Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor and Schieffelin, Bambi. 1989. “Language has a heart.” The Pragmatics of Affect (Special issue of TEXT). 9 (1): 7–26.Google Scholar
Painter, Clare. 2003. “Developing Attitude: An ontogenetic perspective on appraisal.” TEXT 23 (2): 183–209.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey and Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London/New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Rothery, Joan, and Stenglin, Maree. 2000. “Interpreting literature: The role of appraisal.” In Researching Language in Schools and Communities: Functional Linguistic Perspectives, Leonard Unsworth (ed), 222–244. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Sano, Motoki. 2011. “Characteristic linguistic patterns of evaluative expressions in blog articles: An exploration of the relationship between evaluative criteria and the explicitness/implicitness of the expressions from a perspective of Appraisal theory.” Mathematical Linguistics, 27 (7): 249–269.Google Scholar
Stamper, Judith. 1986. CLICK. A short story adapted for NSW School Certificate examination in English, NSW Board of Studies, Sydney.Google Scholar
Stenglin, Maree. 2008. “Interpersonal meaning in 3D space: How a bonding icon gets its 'charge'”. In Multimodal Semiotics: Functional Analysis in Contexts of Education, Leonard Unsworth (ed), 50–66. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
White, Peter. 2000. “Dialogue and inter-subjectivity: Reinterpreting the semantics of modality and hedging.” In Working with Dialogue, Malcolm Coulthard, Janet Cotterill, and Frances Rock (eds), 67–80. Tubingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Cited by (23)

Cited by 23 other publications

Alwohaibi, Hala Abdulrahman & Hesham Suleiman Alyousef
2023. An Investigation of Engagement Resources in the World Cup 2022 Newspaper Articles in the Arab World Media. Journal of Contemporary Language Research 2:2 ► pp. 118 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Yu
2023. Analysing tension between language and images: a social semiotic view. Social Semiotics 33:1 ► pp. 132 ff. DOI logo
Nguyen, Tien Phung
2023. Preliminary Investigation into the Affordances of Evaluative Resources in Multimodal Texts of an Established Textbook Series in Vietnam. International Journal of TESOL & Education 3:2 ► pp. 14 ff. DOI logo
Andersson, Marta
2022. ‘So many “virologists” in this thread!’. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 32:4 ► pp. 489 ff. DOI logo
Ariztimuño, Lilián I., Shoshana Dreyfus & Alison Rotha Moore
2022. Emotion in speech. Language, Context and Text. The Social Semiotics Forum 4:2 ► pp. 335 ff. DOI logo
Congcong, Wang
2022. Attitudinal Value of the Ideational in Institutional Discourse: Evidence from Annual Reports of Hanban and British Council. Corpus Pragmatics 6:1 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Granato, Luisa & María Leticia Móccero
2022. Political dialogues in Argentina. Language and Dialogue 12:2 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
Kabel, Kristine, Jesper Bremholm & Jeppe Bundsgaard
2022. A framework for identifying early writing development. Writing & Pedagogy 13:1-3 ► pp. 51 ff. DOI logo
Lamb, David A. & Thora Tenbrink
2022. Evaluating Jesus and other “heroes”. Language, Context and Text. The Social Semiotics Forum 4:2 ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo
Pérez Blanco, María & Marlén Izquierdo
2022. Engaging with customer’s emotions. Languages in Contrast 22:1 ► pp. 43 ff. DOI logo
Zhao, Minru & Dechao Li
2022. Translator positioning in characterisation: a corpus-based study of English translations ofLuotuo Xiangzi. Perspectives 30:6 ► pp. 1074 ff. DOI logo
Pounds, Gabrina
2021. Presupposed evaluation in environmental argumentative discourse. Functions of Language 28:1 ► pp. 27 ff. DOI logo
Toni, Francesco De
2021. Emotion. In Analysing Religious Discourse, ► pp. 256 ff. DOI logo
Watanabe, Hideo
2021. The discursive construction of the international dispute over the East China Sea: A multimodal analysis of evaluations in online newspaper editorials in the Chinese and Japanese press. Media Asia 48:1 ► pp. 34 ff. DOI logo
Mills, Kathy A., Bessie G. Stone, Len Unsworth & Lesley Friend
2020. Multimodal Language of Attitude in Digital Composition. Written Communication 37:2 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Hood, Susan
2019. Appraisal. In The Cambridge Handbook of Systemic Functional Linguistics, ► pp. 382 ff. DOI logo
Tupala, Mira
2019. Applying quantitative appraisal analysis to the study of institutional discourse: the case of EU migration documents. Functional Linguistics 6:1 DOI logo
Aungsuwan, Wimonwan
2017. A Corpus-Informed Study of Media Attitudes Using the Appraisal Framework: An Analysis of Reports on Yingluck Shinawatra Found in the Nation During the 2013-2014 Political Unrest in Thailand. SSRN Electronic Journal DOI logo
Gajardo, Consuelo & Teresa Oteíza
2017. The ideological construction of mother identity in the discourse of four women of the lower socio-economic group from Santiago, Chile. Discourse & Society 28:2 ► pp. 142 ff. DOI logo
Don, Alexanne
2016. “It is hard to mesh all this”: Invoking attitude, persona and argument organisation. Functional Linguistics 3:1 DOI logo
Exley, Beryl
2016. Secret squirrel stuff in the Australian Curriculum English: The genesis of the ‘new’ grammar. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy 39:1 ► pp. 74 ff. DOI logo
Su, Hang
2016. How products are evaluated? Evaluation in customer review texts. Language Resources and Evaluation 50:3 ► pp. 475 ff. DOI logo
Ngo, Thu & Len Unsworth
2015. Reworking the appraisal framework in ESL research: refining attitude resources. Functional Linguistics 2:1 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 23 december 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.