Interpersonal Theory Of Attitudinal Language

The second subsystem of appraisal, graduation, deals with the gradability of the attitudinal meanings and evaluative expressions. The degree of the evaluation can be increased or decreased according to intensity or force (e.g., I’m slightly worried), and prototypicality or focus (e.g., A genuine apology). The third subsystem, engagement, is concerned with intersubjectivity and dialogism through expressing the perspectives and relationships of alignment and rapport between speakers/writers and their audience and how they position themselves accordingly. Engagement distinguishes between monoglossic statements or ‘bare assertions’ (e.g., This government has a long history of corruption), and heteroglossic statements (i.e., the recognition of other …show more content…
The appraisal theory adds value through evaluating language within the context of the interpersonal functions of meaning with the specific purpose of analyzing the features of attitudinal language. Wei, Wherrity & Zhang (2015) reviewed research that employed appraisal theory to explain this theoretical framework and offer a re-theorization and refinement to it as a whole, to explain one or more of its subsystems as a means of providing suggestions as to how they can better function in different contextual, situational, and cultural situations (e.g., Ngo & Unsworth, 2015), or as a methodology for discourse analysis (e.g., Mei & Allison, 2005; Chen, 2010). While appraisal theory has been successfully applied as an analysis framework within different genres, such as media discourse, educational contexts, and legal discourse (Wei, Wherrity & Zhang, 2015), it has also been implemented in L2 research as an instructional (e.g., Haromi, 2014), or discourse analysis (e.g., Ryshina-Pankova & Kugele, 2013; Harman & Xiaodong, 2015)