Persuasion in Engineering Reports: Evaluative Resources and Targets in Practice

ABSTRACTThis article reports on a four-year longitudinal study which investigates students’ use of evaluative language in English as a second language (L2) to talk and write about history in a bilingual education programme. We focus on how four students use linguistic resources to adopt a stance to the content they are learning and develop an authoritative voice, for which they need to use evaluative language, in which people, actions, events and processes are appraised. We combine quantitative analysis of a spoken and written corpus with a qualitative analysis of students’ spoken production in one-to-one interviews. Quantitative findings showed similarities and differences in the use of evaluative language among individual students both cross-sectionally and over the four years of study. Moreover, qualitative comparative analysis of the production of two of these students, who were differently rated by their teachers in their English skills, showed clear differences in their abilities to use linguistic resources to construct an appropriate ‘historian’s’ voice in the L2.

Purpose This study intended to bridge the gap by investigating Chinese master’s students’ perceptions of their supervisors’ use of evaluative language in feedback, from both cognitive and affective perspectives, at a Sino-foreign university in mainland China. Design/methodology/approach Employing a qualitative research design, 12 participants from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Economics and Finance were included. Data were collected through individual semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. Findings The findings show that students perceive directive and actionable evaluative language, as well as evaluative language aligned with assessment criteria as effective, facilitating improvement and self-regulated learning. However, the use of evaluative language can evoke mixed emotions, with linguistic devices and inadequate follow-up explanations reinforcing negative feelings. Additionally, power imbalances between supervisors and students influence feedback perceptions, hindering students’ active participation in feedback processes. Originality/value This study addresses a gap in the literature on master’s students’ perceptions of evaluative language in supervisory feedback and provides practical recommendations for both thesis supervisors and master’s students to facilitate the acceptance and application of feedback.

This study investigates university students’ perceptions of their lecturer's use of evaluative language in the oral feedback on their presentation performance. Using appraisal as the analytical framework, we examine the lecturer's use of evaluative language in oral feedback and students’ perceptions of the effects of evaluative language features. Results show that: 1) evaluative language carrying intensified attitudinal meanings closely relevant to students’ effort and performance is perceived as a desirable option to provide specific oral feedback; and 2) questions are regarded as an evaluative device to formulate communicative feedback for academic presentations. The study concludes that students need to understand the use of evaluative language, especially those related to the constructions of a dialogic voice when lecturers invite alternative viewpoints to be discussed in the feedback process. This study highlights students’ interpretations of feedback in the oral feedback process and pedagogical implications for providing oral feedback to facilitate learning.

Managing rapport through evaluation in grounder – A qualitative study

This study was designed to examine secondary teachers’ use of evaluative language resources in their qualitative written feedback on student work and factors shaping the deployment of such resources. Drawing on appraisal theory as an analytic framework for the language of evaluation, the study analyzed 84 teachers’ evaluative reports on their students’ research projects. The teachers’ use of several types of evaluative language was found to differ along the lines of disciplinary background and teaching experience. These results can be explained by disciplinarily valued dispositions, epistemological beliefs, knowledge-making practices, and varying knowledge of (in)effective feedback resulting from cumulative teaching experience. Implications are derived from these findings for developing teachers’ competence in using evaluative language effectively to provide feedback that can support and maximize students’ learning.

We identify language and discourse skills in 54-month-old Spanish–English bilingual preschoolers and their English-speaking monolingual peers, using multiple measures. Forty-one Spanish–English bilingual and 25 English monolingual children, all US born, viewed an eight-minute wordless video. The bilingual children recounted the story once in English and once in Spanish, in counterbalanced order. The story retellings were transcribed and coded for discourse skills (narrative length, narrative components and uses of evaluative language) and language skills (number of words, number of different words, MLUw). No difference was found in the two groups´ overall language or discourse skills, assessed in the narrative production, with the exception of certain uses of evaluative language. Within the bilingual group, all measures, except MLUw, were highly correlated across the two languages. Our multidimensional analysis of narrative structure and use of evaluative language sheds light on certain differences between the ways in which English monolinguals and Spanish–English bilinguals organize their narrative discourse. We discuss the advantages of using this multidimensional approach in assessing bilinguals´ language and discourse abilities in narrative production.

Evaluative stance in high achieving Year 3 persuasive texts

In this study I examine Venezuelan children's developing abilities to use evaluative language in fictional and personal narratives. The questions addressed are: (1) How does the use of evaluative language vary in fictional and personal narratives? (2) Is there a relationship between the use of evaluative language in these two narrative genres and children's age and socio-economic status (SES)? The sample consists of 444 narratives produced by 113 Venezuelan school-age children participating in 4 narrative tasks, in which personal and fictional stories were elicited. Findings suggest that age and socio-economic status have a greater impact on the use of evaluation in fictional stories than in personal narratives. Low SES and younger children are at a greater disadvantage when performing fictional narratives than when performing personal narratives. These results strongly imply that children's narrative competence cannot be assessed in a single story-telling task, given the importance that task-related factors seem to have on narrative abilities.

In this paper we study the connection between the use of evaluative language and the building of both personal and social identities, from the perspective of Dynamical System Theory. We primarily discuss two issues: 1) The use of evaluation (in the sense given to the term by Alba-Juez and Thompson (forthcoming)) as a means to the construction of both individual and group identities, thus exploring how the connection between linguistic choices and social identities is shaped by interactional needs for stancetaking. In order to illustrate this connection, we examine examples of the use of evaluative language in a web social network, and we analyze some of the discourse elements showing ways of positioning that act as catalysts for the emergence of a multifactorial dynamic system of identities. 2) The consideration of Dynamical System Theory (DST) as a theoretical framework for the modeling of language and identity. Although originally a mathematical theory, DST has been adopted by cognitive science as a valid framework for the study of cognitive phenomena, on the grounds that natural cognition is a dynamical phenomenon. Within the realm of (socio) linguistics and pragmatics, this study is to a certain degree in line with some recent studies such as Gibbs (2010), Geeraerts, Kristiansen and Peirsman (2010), or Moreno Fernández (2012). Thus, we herein focus on how linguistic evaluation intervenes in the intricate dynamical system of identity, and even though we do not engage in complex mathematical disquisition, we argue that the idea and philosophical foundation underlying DST can lead us towards the ‘integration’ of the complex equation of identity construction, and that consequently the field has great potential for further research.

Williams Syndrome narratives tend to display atypically frequent uses of evaluative language. The aim of the present study is to determine the narrative language profiles of a group of 12 WS participants. We video-recorded their oral recounts of a wordless animated video and compared them to those of typically developing children matched for verbal abilities (matched by MLU). We analyzed narrative structure and evaluative devices referring to internal states and to evidentiality. Our findings suggest that the narrative length and structure of WS and TD groups were similar, but the WS narratives lacked overall coherence and clarity. The use of evaluative language in WS was at the level expected for verbal age, and thus, not significantly excessive.

Migration is predominantly represented negatively within host societies’ public discourses. However, positive (stereotypical) images of migrants are also produced, resulting in what may be considered powerful, socially sanctioned constructions of ‘good migrants’. Discourse studies have detected positive evaluations in media discourse when positive economic effects brought about by migrant workers are mentioned. More broadly, social science research has identified cultural similarity, hard work, loyalty to the host society, suffering, victimhood, a history of forced migration and, partly, refugee or legal immigrant status as elements associated with more positive attitudes towards migrants. Stories of migrant experiences potentially problematise and offer alternatives to dominant representations; at the same time, however, they may reproduce ‘good migrant’ stereotypes for self-legitimation purposes. This study draws on a small dataset of online English-language first-person migrant narratives (written or in video transcript form) from five different document series, to compare the discursive constructions of migrants they offer through their use of evaluative language – Appraisal, and in particular Attitude – with positive stereotypical constructions held by host societies. The approach adopted (combining qualitative annotation with quantitative analyses) reveals that while features consistent with some stereotypes appear in several narratives and in all document series, they are never used in a discriminatory way, and can be balanced by stereotype-divergent elements.

Linguistic social influence: Attitude change produced by feedback concerning others' use of evaluative language

How do thesis writers evaluate their own and others’ findings? An appraisal analysis and a pedagogical intervention

Online learning is a well-established mode for tertiary education and training. However, technology-mediated learning at a distance continues to face challenges to participant engagement, despite the proliferation of models of effective online learning and the implementation of increasingly sophisticated technologies to enhance learning (Bragg, Walsh & Heyeres, 2021). The critical need to build and maintain relationships for effective learning continues to be confounded by the geographic and temporal distribution of online participants as well as the nuances of the technology in use. Online learning occurs in collaborative text-spaces within learning management systems, social media spaces and their attendant learning objects such as forums, many of which foreground language as the primary resource for making meaning with others. As such, ongoing challenges to engagement in online learning may be viewed with fresh eyes by considering the language-based interpersonal affordances of these text-spaces. This pecha kucha presentation examines how the language choices made by learning facilitators impact on student engagement in online learning. It draws on a case study of the strategic use of evaluative language – the language used to express feelings and build relationships - by one teacher educator to engage initial teacher education students in online learning. Underpinned by the Systemic Functional Linguistic model of language (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) and following Martin & White (2005), appraisal analysis of weekly forum posts across three iterations of a unit of study shows how changes to language choices made by the teacher educator positively impacted on student engagement. This illuminates the relationship between online learning and language, and how judicious use of language-based meaning making resources can be used to improve online participant engagement.

Due to its supervisory responsibility over the executive and public institutions, including ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs), Ghana’s legislature has a mandate to check and fight corruption and make its practice a high risk, low-gain activity. The commitment, urgency and the willingness to fight corruption can be seen not only in creating the legislative framework for addressing corruption, promoting governmental accountability and acting as a check on the executive, but also in how the subject of corruption is broached in parliamentary debates and discussions, an area which relatively lacks scholarly attention. First, using an interpretive content analysis, this paper studies the approaches to the fight against corruption in Ghana by examining the Parliamentary Committee report on the National Anti-Corruption Action Plan (NACAP) and, the debate thereof, in order to uncover the focus of the NACAP. Second, the paper examines Parliamentarians’ use of evaluative language in parliamentary debates to enact otherness and how this othering affects the fight against corruption in Ghana. The paper finds that the NACAP suggests a three-pronged approach to the fight against corruption, viz: ethical/educational, multi-stakeholder and legal approaches. However, the implementation of these approaches has been ineffective due to certain Ghanaian cultural practices. Again, the paper finds that as a result of othering between government and opposition MPs, the fight against corruption is only incidental in parliamentary debates, indicating a low parliamentary commitment to the fight against corruption. Thus, the paper suggests that the fight against corruption must be taken away from the corridors of the Parliament of Ghana.