Attitudinal Lexemes in Diplomatic Discourse: An Appraisal Analysis of President Prabowo Subianto’s 2025 UNGA Speech

This study investigates the language encoding of emotional states by Turkish Twitter users through the hashtag #depresyondayım ("I am depressed"), utilizing Martin and White's (2005) Appraisal Framework within Halliday's (1978) Social Semiotic perspective. This research utilizes Systemic Functional Linguistics to examine how users employ attitudinal resources, engagement methods, and graduation procedures as semiotic tools to articulate emotional pain, negotiate social roles, and create identities in digital environments. A qualitative analysis of 130 tweets indicates that the content primarily consists of affect resources (81.5%), monoglossic engagement (84.6%), and force-based graduation (67.7%). Notable linguistic patterns were identified across seven thematic categories: everyday frustrations, economic hardships, emotional isolation, academic/work stress, seasonal effects, societal issues, and social deprivation. The research illustrates how the Appraisal Framework elucidates the intricate relationship among emotion, evaluation, and intensification in digital communication, while exposing how depression discourse operates as a multifaceted semiotic resource fulfilling diverse social functions beyond the expression of clinical distress. This study aims to contribute to digital discourse analysis by applying the Appraisal Framework to Turkish social media texts. In the process, observations were made about the role of Turkish morphological and syntactic features in evaluative language use. Keywords: Appraisal Framework, Systemic Functional Linguistics, social media discourse, hashtags, linguistic identity, attitude, affect, engagement

Using articles from two major French newspapers of contrasting ideological viewpoints, this study seeks to explore their representation of cycling the city, and their potential to position readers to view cycling favourably or unfavourably. The analysis, drawing on systemic functional linguistics’appraisalframework, highlights the ways in which readers of bothLe FigaroandLe Mondeare positioned to take a positive view of cycling through their listings of the benefits of cycling or praise of bicycle-sharing systems. Conversely, readers may embrace a negative view through their reading about cycling casualties and safety issues. The analysis also shows that a reader ofLe Mondemight feel more inclined to take up cycling than a reader ofLe Figaro.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to get a deeper understanding how not-for-profit organizations (NPOs) discursively legitimize their corporate engagement through cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) in general, and particularly how they construct legitimacy for partnering with firms involved in the commodification of water. The paper seeks to shed light on the values embedded in these discursive accounts and the kind of societal effects and power relations they generate, and the authors are particularly interested in understanding the role of modernity in shaping their responsibilities (or lack of them) via various technologies and practicesDesign/methodology/approachDrawing on critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995), the authors analyze the discursive accounts of three water-related CSPs involving the three biggest bottled water producers in the world (Nestlé, Coca-Cola and Danone) and three major non-profits (The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the World Wildlife Foundation and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization).FindingsThe NPO’s legitimate their corporate engagement in the water CSPs through the use of two global discourses: global governance discourse and the global climate crisis discourse. Relief from responsibility is achieved through three processes: replacement of moral with technical responsibility, denial of proximity and the usage of intermediaries to whom responsibility is outsourced.Originality/valueThis paper explores the processes of legitimizing accounts for CSPs, particularly focusing on NPO discourse and their use of CSR elements and the consequences of such discursive constructs, and this has received little to no attention in previous research.

Lyrics have significant contributions to the music by giving the audience deep understanding about the message contained in the song. The message can be delivered depending on how the writer put the words in the lyrics (Bertoli-Dutra and Bissaco, 2006: 1053). This study focused on analysing interpersonal meanings and linguistics features from the perspective of Appraisal Theory. Due to the time constraints, the study only analysed the interpersonal meaning from Attitude categories, - Affect, Judgement and Affection. The method used was descriptive which data collected from “Lonely Night” song lyric by CNBLUE. The process data analysis was based on Appraisal Framework, a development of Systemic Functional Linguistics, proposed by Martin and White (2005). The result of study showed that the song “Lonely Night” has high Affect sub-categories which reached 81.25%, meanwhile the Judgement and Affection reached the same amount, 9.3%. From all affect types, the song showed unhappiness where the composer revealed the feeling of being dumbed and disrespected. Finally, Appraisal Framework, as one of approach used in many genres, can be used as an alternative for analysing song. Appraisal Framework was developed to make analysis which is more systemic and organized as it was developed from Systemic Functional Linguistics.

From the perspective of systemic functional linguistics (SFL), lexical metaphors are recognized as a resource for enacting interpersonal meaning in discourse. Within the appraisal framework, they constitute a means for ‘provoking’ an attitudinal interpretation. While the interpersonal function of lexical metaphors is well recognized in SFL, there have been relatively few studies that focus specifically on their deployment in the construction of recurring rhetorical strategies in discourse. This is explored in this study in the context of media editorials. It is found that there are patterns in the choices of lexical metaphor, in the values they provoke and the experiential entities these values couple with. The reinforcement of these evaluative couplings in the flow of text functions to promote values similar to the provoked ones. The analyses also show that lexical metaphors propose bonds of affiliation to a putative readership and therefore foster the readers of the newspaper.

Examining evaluative language used in assessment feedback on business students’ academic writing

The Appraisal framework within Systemic Functional Linguistics as a robust tool in language teaching and research has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. Since its establishment as the most complete account, the framework has been used in a variety of contexts, resulting in a number of refinements, tuning its applicability for specific research purposes such as studies of the evaluative language in research article abstracts, biology experiment reports, wine appreciation and student narrative writing. This article proposes additional refinements, particularly to the system of Attitude, informed by research into the deployment of evaluative resources in spoken discourse by postgraduate students in small group discussions in English and in Vietnamese. The refinements were required to account for the range of evaluative language used in discussions of topics including personal experiences of living and studying in Australia, academic experiences at Australian universities, and opinion about one’s professional standing. These refinements contribute to the ongoing development of the Appraisal framework and provide a resource for enhancing the effectiveness of expressions of evaluative stance for speakers of English as a second or additional language.

This study examined a cross-cultural perspective on how the top popular press in the Philippines and China portray an evaluative stance as regards the current South China Sea tensions. It set out to reveal the news writers’ positions through examining Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework particularly the attitude category. The analysis of the media reports from the two countries culled from a three-year period (January 2013-December 2016) focused on how the news writers construed their attitudinal judgment and positions. Findings reveal that the high occurrences of appreciation resources in both corpora provide subtle or indirect expressions of behavioral judgment in the course of journalistic writing where conventions relating to objectivity are necessary. Even if dominated by appreciation evaluative language that construes value of phenomenon relating to aspects of the disputes, affect (manifesting emotions) and judgment (relating to behavior) evaluative resources are employed to reflect or represent the socio-cultural and political contexts, government policy and even capture the local sentiment in which the news reports are written. As regards the difference between the two, the Chinese news reports lean towards a more diplomatic stance through the noteworthy use of evaluative affect and appreciation resources that underscore enhancement of relationship, partnership and accord while the Philippine news reports are more inclined to express implied negative subjective attitudinal stance on the issue. This paper set out the significance of language in framing positions, sentiments, opinions and policies in which meanings are construed in news reports. Examining media discourse from the lens of the appraisal system or evaluative language underscores how subjectivity occurs where beliefs, notions and values in a society are generated.

Lexical items employed in a talk or text are not impartial. They own potential meanings and ideologies. The present study is an endeavor to deconstruct political ideologies of Benazir Bhutto in her posthumous write up Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy and the West from the perspective of SFL (Systemic Functional Linguistics). In her book, she strives to authenticate her thesis that democracy and Islam are mutually inclusive. The objective of the research is to locate the frequency indices of the processes, participants and circumstances and how among various existing political ideologies Benazir Bhutto incorporates her own political ideologies. In order to achieve the aimed targets, transitivity, a framework of SFL has been inducted to conduct the transitivity analysis of the selected text extracts. Transitivity analysis of the text discovered 128 complex clauses and 278 simplex clauses. Moreover, maximum types of processes, participants and circumstances have been used in the text. Employment of maximum transitivity elements signifies author’s encyclopedic range concerning the ideological conflict between Islam and the West. Among processes, material processes out number all other processes which indicates she is an action lady and believes in concrete action. The experiential analysis in the study also found that besides playing the role of a pacifist to reconcile democratic ideals and Islamic ideals to fill the widening lacuna between the Orients (particularly Islam) and the Occidents, Benazir Bhutto projects her own political ideologies; secularism, socialism and liberal feminism.

Examining teacher’s evaluative language in written, audio and screencast feedback on EFL learners’ writing from the appraisal framework: A linguistic perspective

This article describes how national holiday coverage in newspapers attempts to align citizens by valorizing certain kinds of holiday activities and behaviors. In a study of evaluations used over a period of over 150 years in news stories about US Independence Day (the Fourth of July), it finds that chief loci of evaluation are the concepts of impressiveness, appropriateness, restraint, and particularly the emotion and enthusiasm of the audience. From its footing as an authority and general critic, the newspaper defines a standard of public behavior for anniversaries, built around attendance at and to the occasion, and display of affective capacity. In the context of national holidays, a certain amount of ‘flooding out’, as long as it does not physically endanger others, is considered supportive of the social structure rather than disruptive of it. The organizers of the events may also be evaluated from the newspaper’s footing as an independent critic of the government. The systems of evaluation are seen to be integrated with the system of news values, since they highlight information that is important and new. In addition, the results are compared with the APPRAISAL framework in systemic functional linguistics, and some difficulties in using the framework with this material are noted.

Drawing on the appraisal framework from systemic functional linguistics (SFL), this article examines patterns of stance in a corpus of 92 high- and low-graded argumentative papers written in the context of an upper-level course in economics. It interprets differential patterns of stance in students’ texts in light of interview commentaries from the instructors, exploring how their judgments of students’ levels of “critical reasoning” and “analytic rigor,” among other qualities, may be influenced by recurring configurations of stance. As a methodological contribution, the article demonstrates how appraisal analysis of student writing, when used alongside instructor interviews, can reveal types of stances that are tacitly valued in the specific context. Results suggest the need for greater awareness among faculty in the disciplines of what is “going on” when they are reading student work and how they can make their expectations and judgments more explicit to students when assigning and evaluating writing.

The appraisal framework developed by Martin and White and others working within systemic functional linguistics has been applied in a wide variety of contexts. However, to our knowledge, it has been little used in the interpretation of ancient written documents. We believe that it may have value, amongst other things, in determining the genre of such literature and we see this as particularly relevant in the area of biography, where the author’s presentation of the subject is a key factor. So, in this study, we apply aspects of the appraisal framework to three Hellenistic Greek texts often categorised with the genre “Lives”. Selected passages from these texts were divided into short units for quantitative analysis that focused on theJudgementthat the texts’ authors make of their central characters (their “heroes”), how this isamplifiedand how theyengagewith different “voices”. These passages were also compared with the rest of the texts in a more qualitative study. Our results show notable differences in theJudgementthe authors make and presumably wish their readers to share in terms of the positive/negative portrayal of their “heroes”, the degree of amplification and the interaction with other “voices”. We consider the appropriateness of the “Lives” genre for one of these texts, theGospel of John, and also a number of methodological issues arising from an area of application that has not previously received attention. These include the difficulty of making clear-cut evaluation choices where authors themselves may be ambivalent about those they are describing and the need to take account of the differing and complex value systems of ancient cultures. We suggest that our findings may have wider relevance for other applications of appraisal.

While discourses on terror by the United States and its allies have been the focus of most previous studies, this article investigates discourses produced in the Chinese context. 247 news articles from China Daily and People’s Daily were analyzed according to a revised system of attitude within the appraisal framework in systemic functional linguistics (SFL). The findings reveal a correlation between polarity, types of attitude, and social actors being evaluated. Two Them groups, terrorism/terrorists in Xinjiang and Western media and governments, are overwhelmingly evaluated in terms of negative propriety of their behaviors and negative valuation of their things. Two Us groups, China and its people and non-Western countries supporting China, tend to be evaluated through positive valuation of their things, their positive capability, and positive and negative feelings (affect). The West is put in the same category as terrorism, quite contrary to what is commonly seen in the discourses produced by Western media. The attitudinal construction of Them and Us reflects not only the ideological square of negative other-presentation and positive self-presentation, but also the motivations of maintaining domestic stability and proper international relations behind China’s war on terror.

Valued voices: Students’ use of Engagement in argumentative history writing