Abstract
Subsumed under Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) that emphasizes functionality of language in social contexts, Appraisal is a recent theoretical framework that extends the interpersonal dialogistic semantics dimension of SFL into interesting elaboration. This system, in turn, has three subsystems, one of which is Attitude which is geared to justifying and explaining the processes through which writers and speakers communicate their evaluations towards individuals, material objects and phenomena, or even their own emotions. Since Appraisal has evolved in recent years, studies have often been concerned with introducing the framework, and extensive attention could obviously not have been paid to tapping into the practical, and equally, enormous use of this system in illuminating and insightful discourse analysis. This study is a small step in such a direction. The selected corpus for this research was “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and the whole novel was analyzed discursively, linguistically, and stylistically through one of the subsystems of Appraisal, namely Attitude. Two research questions at the macro level were concerned with the analysis of the whole text (the whole novel) employing Attitude. Two other research questions at the micro level were concerned with the analysis of the discourse of each of the main discourse producers (main characters of the novel) when employing Attitude. The data that included frequencies and percentages of each of the Attitudinal modes were used to answer and discuss the four research questions. It was found that Attitude was deployed in the expected order of Appreciation, Judgment, Affect, and also that Attitude was stylistically indicative of and worked in line with character and context within the novel in question. Finally, the role of this research in paving the way for prospective further studies was presented concisely.
Highlights
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the substantive father discipline to which the Appraisal framework belongs and out of which it has evolved, favors the possibility of a more profound exposition of linguistic phenomena in the light of references to the functional demands put upon language by its users plus social functions performed by language in social contexts
Emerging within the zone of the “interpersonal” social metafunction of language in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Appraisal is a framework for investigating the mechanisms language employs in the evaluation and adaptation of stances adopted by discourse producers
The area of Appraisal is a relatively recent mode of Systemic Functional Linguistics thinking, its complete articulation developed in the late 90s at the very best
Summary
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the substantive father discipline to which the Appraisal framework belongs and out of which it has evolved, favors the possibility of a more profound exposition of linguistic phenomena in the light of references to the functional demands put upon language by its users plus social functions performed by language in social contexts. Emerging within the zone of the “interpersonal” social metafunction of language in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Appraisal is a framework for investigating the mechanisms language employs in the evaluation and adaptation of stances adopted by discourse producers. It was driven in its early days by work in the field of educational linguistics and the development of Australia’s genre-based literacy programs. 2015, Vol 7, No 1 framework is concerned with the interpersonal metafunction of language in Systemic Functional Linguistics, and endeavors to explore the ways in which language is used for evaluation and adaptation of stances by discourse producers It provides techniques for the systematic analysis of evaluation and stance as they operate in whole texts and in groupings of texts. Some of the previous work using the paradigm of research has centered around different strands including, among many others: covert evaluation (Coffin & O’Halloran, 2006), sentiment evaluation using appraisal hierarchies (Fletcher & Patrick, 2006), the ontogenesis of Appraisal in human language as children acquire it (Painter, 2003), an impressive work by Read & Carroll (2012) annotating expressions of Appraisal in English, focus on interpersonal meanings within Evaluation and the Engagement subsystem of it in works like Souza (2006), Taboada & Carretero (2012), White (2003), White (2009), and so on
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