评价理论简介

Appraisal TheoryIt is within the general theoretical framework of SFL that Martin and White‟s (2005) Appraisal Theory evolved. The basic idea of SEL is that “language i s a resource for mapping ideational, interpersonal and textual meaning onto one another in virtually every act of communication” (Martin and White, 2005: 7). Appraisal Theory focuses on interpersonal meaning at the discourse level for three reasons. Firstly, the realization of an “attitude tends to splash across a phase of discourse, irrespective of grammatical boundaries - especially where amplified”; secondly, a given attitude can be “realized across a range of grammatical categories and we need to move out of lexicogrammar to generalize the evaluative meaning common to this kind of scatter”; and finally, there is grammatical metaphor “whereby meaning is not cooked twice as it were, introducing a degree of tension between wording and meaning” (Martin and White, 2005: 10). As Martin and White suggest, appraisal can be located as an interpersonal system at the level of discourse semantics. At this level it co-articulates interpersonal meaning with two other systems of negotiation and involvement, as can be shown in the following figure:Figure3.4Interpersonal semantic systems and tenor variable(Martin and White,2005:34)solidaritypowernegotiationappraisalAs can be seen from the figure, appraisal is one of three major discourse semantic resources construing interpersonal meaning (alongside involvement and negotiation). In this sense, we can firmly say that appraisal is mainly concerned with semantic sources for construing evaluative meaning in the interpersonal dimension at the discourse level.The notion of appraisal is used to cover the “resources for modalising, amplifying, reacting emotionally (affect), judging morally (judge-ment) and evaluating aesthetically (appreciation).” (Martin 1995b: 28). In SFL terms, the appraisal system realises tenor at the level of discourse semantics and is constituted by three semantic categories: ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT, and GRADUATION, with further sub-divisions:Figure3.5An overview of appraisal resources(Martin and White2005:38)monoglossENGAGEMENTheteroglossAPPRAISALAFFECT…ATTITUDEJUDGEMENT …APPRECIATION …FOCUSFORCEATTITUDE is concerned with “values by which speakers pass judgements and associate emotional/affectual responses with participants and processes” (W hite 2001a: 1). APPRAISAL system holds the view that evaluations can be divided into three basic kinds – (i) the value of things, (ii) people‟s character and (iii) people‟sfeelings (Martin and White, 2005). Accordingly, ATTITUDE system involves three semantic regions which are termed AFFECT, JUDGEMENT and APPRECIATION.AFFECT construes emotion with the person experiencing the emotion being the Emoter and what evokes the emotion being the Trigger (Martin and White, 2005). JUDGEMENT construes attitude about character and is subdivided into two broad categories: judgements of social esteem (normality, capacity, tenacity) and judgements of social sanction (veracity, propriety) APPRECIATION construes attitudes about texts, performances or natural phenomena and is organised around three variables: Reaction, Composition, and Valuation. Reaction concerns the impact of the text/process on our attention (reaction: impact) and its emotional impact (reac-tion: quality). Composition concerns perceptions of proportionality/balance (composition: balance) and detail (composition: complexity) in a text/process. Valuation has to do with our assessment of the social significance of the text/process (Martin and White, 2005).GRADUATION is concerned with gradability and is divided into force and focus. Focus applies most typically to categories which are not scalable and functions to sharpen or soften the specification to indicate strong or weak sense of prototypicality. Force is divided into intensification and quantification. Assessments of degree of intensity can operate over qualities (e.g. slightly foolish), over process (e.g. It greatly hindered us), or over the verbal modalities of likelihood, usuality, inclination and obligation (e.g. it’s very possible that). The term …quantification‟ is employed to indicate assessment of amount that applies to entities. The system of GRADUATION can be shown in figure 3.6.Figure3.6System of GRADUATION(Martin and White,2005:154)ENGAGEMENT system adjusts a speaker‟s commitment to what he or she is saying (Martin 2000), and is related to what has traditionally been described as epistemic modality. Under the system, the following options are seen as enabling the textual voice to vary the terms by which it engages with alternative voices and alternative positions.Dialogic Contraction includes resources for disclaiming and proclaiming. Disclaim covers “mean ings by which some dialogic alternative is directly rejected or supplanted, or is represented as not applying ” (Martin and White, 2005: 117) and is accordingly divided into two sub-types: deny (negation) and counter. According to Martin and White (2005), Proclaim includes the formulations which act to limit the scope of dialogistic alternatives by representing a proposition as valid or plausible in order to rule out alternative positions. Proclaim is divided into three sub-types: concur, endorsement, pronounce. The category of c oncur involves formulations which “overtly announce the addresser as agreeing with, or having the same knowledge as, some projected dialogic partner” (Martin and White, 2005: 123). Endorsement refers numbermass/presencetimeQUANTIFICATIONPROXIMITYspacetimeDISTRIBUTIONspacequalityINTENSIFICATIONFORCE processisolatinginfusingFOCUSEXTENTto those formulations by which “propositions sourced to external sources re-construed by the authorial voice as correct, valid, undeniable or otherwise maximally warrantable” (Martin and White, 2005:126). Pronounce covers formulations which involve “authorial emphases or explicit authorial interventions or interpolations”(Martin and White, 2005:127).Dialogic Expansion includes those resources for entertaining and attributing a proposition. Entertain means that the writer “represents the proposition as one of a range of possible positions” (White, 2002a:2). Under this sub-system the term attribution mainly deals with those formulations which “disassociate the proposition from the text‟s internal voice by attributing it to some external source” (Martin and White, 2005: 111) and is further divided into the two sub-categories of acknowledge and distance. Acknowledge covers those locutions which have no overt indication as to “where the authorial voice stands with respect to the proposition” (Martin and White, 2005: 112. Distance, in contrast, involves formulations by which there is an “explicit distancing of the authorial voice from the attributed material” (Martin and White, 2005: 113).Figure3.7The ENGAGEMENT System(Martin and White,2005:134)denydisclaimcountercontractaffirmconcurconcedeproclaimpronounceendorseentertain。