APPRAISAL THEORY

A PRESENTATION BY:

MATTHEW BEDIAKO

KWAKU ARHIN

SHARI ASIEDU

Appraisal theory defined:

An evaluation, a judgment, or an opinion of something or somebody, especially one that assesses effectiveness or usefulness of something or somebody (Microsoft Encarta, 2009) - Ordinary

Framework used to describing and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, adopt stances, construct textual personas, and manage interpersonal positioning and relationships (White, 2002) - Technical

Deftn. of Appraisal Theory Cont.

The theory focuses on how speakers express feelings, how they amplify them, and how they may incorporate additional voices in their discourses (Martin & White, 2005)

Key sub-systems of appraisal theory: engagement attitude, graduation, (Martin & White 2005)

Engagement

Resources for introducing additional voices into a discourse.

Speakers allowing space for negotiation of meaning into their talk.

The degree to which a text is relatively monoglossic or hetroglossic

Engagement cont.

Monoglossic: Communicative context is construed as a single voice / utterances do not make reference to other voices and viewpoints.

Example: All first year students in UCC fear communicative skills.

Hetroglossic: Communicative context is construes more than one voice / when a text opens up space for the inclusion of the audience.

Example; There is the view that all first year students in UCC fear communicative skills.

Attitude

Linguistic resources used to negotiate feelings, judge people’s character, behavior and evaluate the worth of things.

Expression of positive and negative feelings.

Three semantic domains of Attitude; Affect Judgment Appreciation

Attitude cont.

Affect: Linguistic resources utilized for expressing emotional state or responding to emotional trigger

Deals with emotional reaction to behavior, text or phenomena

Examples: 1. Great is the love we have for you. 2. How sad the accident was.

Attitude cont.

Judgment: Attitude towards behavior that we admire or criticize, praise or condemn

Linguistic resources used to evaluate character and social behavior in relation to culturally accepted set of moral, legal and personal norms (civilized, progressive, kindly and humane, wrong, right, more skillful, enormous powers, bully are judgmental)

Deals with ethics ; evaluating behaviour.

Example: 1. Ghanaians are a civilized and humane people 2. You hypocritically claim that you are trying to protect us.

Attitude cont.

Appreciation: Aesthetic evaluation of text/process or natural phenomena

Interpersonal resource utilized to express positive or negative evaluation of entities, processes, and phenomena (fair, serene, startling, original, stunning, incredible, dangerous)

Example: 1. Martin Luther’s “I have a dream” speech had a stunning applause. 2. His impeccable recitation of the long poem is a thing of beauty

Graduation

Grammatical and lexical resources used to “say how strongly we feel about someone or something” (Martin & Rose, 2003)

Includes: hedges, downtoners, boosters and intensifiers – (e.g. somewhat, slightly, rather, very, entirely and sort of/kind of, true/pure)

Operates across two axes of scalability – Force Focus

Graduation cont.

Force covers assessments as to the degree of intensity and amount.

Two sub-systems:

Quantification - assessments of the degree of quantity operates over amount.

( e.g. a few books, many writers, small sugar)

Intensification - assessments of degree of intensity operates over qualities and process. (e.g. slightly foolish, extremely brilliant; it stopped somewhat abruptly, it stopped very abruptly, slightly disturbed me)

Graduation cont. Focus applies to categories which, when viewed from an

experiential perspective, are not scalable

Operates to reconstrue these categories in such a way that they participate in scalablity (prototypicality and preciseness).

Example: 1. He’s a true friend. (real, genuine, true) 2. He’s a kind of friend (kind of, of sorts)

Up-scale, or ‘sharpen’ prototypicality (e.g. a real father, a true friend) - intensifiers, boosters and amplifiers

Downscale, or ‘soften’ (e.g. they play sort of jazz, they are kind of crazy, it was an apology of sorts)

Scalar categories are also gradable according to prototypicality.

Example: 1. a very red carpet [intensity] 2. a sort of genuinely red carpet [prototypicality]

Appraisal and sub-sections

Application of appraisal theory

To assist professionals in the field of critical analysis of text in any form (written, oral or computer mediated) upgrade their skills at appreciation/evaluating language usage.