Appraisal Analysis

BAEBPC
Fundamentals of Media Communication
Week 8
Carol Yu
 How are 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity'
construed in media texts?
• Consider the set of meanings which relate to what are
commonly termed
"subjectivity" and "objectivity".
- "hard" news is "factual", "objective" and
"impersonal" news reporting
- argumentative texts are necessarily
"subjective", "evaluative" and "personalised".
• Commonsense notions of 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity'
• "objectivity' implies that there is only one valid way of looking
at and talking about the world.
• An alternative view of reality adopts a more "relativist"
position, in which certain people are recognised as having
their own way of observing and describing reality.
• Any interpretation of reality is then seen as a "social
construct", because observation is constrained or
determined by cultural preconceptions and traditions.
• The observer uses a socially determined way of talking about
the world, rather than simply or directly reflecting or
replicating reality.
• This view of perception and communication makes the
notions of "objectivity", "factuality" and "impartiality"
problematic.
• The way events are observed, interpreted and reported will
always be conditioned by the social background and
ideological perspective of journalists, editors and
management.
• "factual" report will be the product of numerous value
judgements.
• These will have determined, for example, that this event,
rather than some other,
- why it was deserved to be covered,
- how prominently it was to be featured,
- the way in which the event was to be described,
- which part of the event received primary focus,
- which experts, eye witnesses or participants were called
upon for comment,
- which viewpoints were regarded as authoritative,
- and so on.
• As in the letter to the editor from the foreign student, a
subjective text, the author's value judgements are explicitly
revealed in the language.
• Compare this with a strictly "objective" text is constructed in
such a way that there is no explicit linguistic evidence of the
author's value judgements.
 Objectivity
• All value judgements are backgrounded or
"naturalised" in the sense that the way the event is
construed is presented as the only way of talking
about it.
• In this context, therefore, the "impartiality" or the
"factuality" of a text are not measures of the degree
to which it accurately reflects reality
– as human subjects we use language to construct rather
than reflect reality
– the success of the text in presenting its underlying set of
value judgements and ideologically informed responses
– as "natural" and "normal",
– as fact rather than opinion,
– as knowledge rather than belief.
• "Objectivity" is an effect created through language (a
"rhetorical" effect) rather than a question of being "true to
nature".

• In journalism the use of the first person pronoun 'I' by a text's

author is always associated with "subjectivity", with a
weakening of the text's status as "hard news".

• Yet the use of certain words and phrases which intensify the
emotional impact of a description - the use, for example, of
"plummeted" and "feverish" in descriptions such as "the value
of the Australian dollar plummeted yesterday in feverish late-
afternoon trading" - are felt to be entirely "objective".
We can summarise these resources for making language
subjective as follows. The resources here are ordered in
terms of increasing "subjective" impact:
• These resources may occur (or "be realised") in different
grammatical forms whose "truth value" (if not their meaning)
remains similar. For example
"It is vital, not just in fairness to Mr Pickering, that the strength of his
allegations be fully tested",
• may be transformed into
"Pickering's allegations should be (or must be) fully tested."
• Not all these resources play an equally important role in
making "subjective" meanings. In "hard news" for example,
"..more than 100,000 Victorians spilled into the streets.." is
accepted as describing an event that occurred in the "real
world", and therefore expressions of Measure are not
generally seen as compromising "objectivity".
• For many journalists, the "hard news",
"factual" report is a benchmark, a textual
base level which may be transformed into
"commentary" or "opinion" by the addition of
subjective elements.
• So we are asking:
Is the "voice" constructed:
- as personal or impersonal, as "objective" or
"subjective",
- as having knowledge only of material events that
occur in the real world,
- as having knowledge of the inner world of human
emotions and thought processes as well?

Does the author simply "observe" or does he or she

appraise and evaluate?
What do you think?
 Modelling appraisal resources
• ‘…is concerned with the interpersonal in language, with
the subjective presence of writers/speakers in texts as
they adopt stances towards both the material they
present and those with whom they communicate. It is
concerned with how writers/speakers approve and
disapprove, enthuse and abhor, applaud and criticise,
and with how they position their readers/listeners to do
likewise. It is concerned with the construction by texts of
communities of shared feelings and values, and with the
linguistic mechanisms for the sharing of emotions, tastes
and normative assessments.
(Martin & White 2005:1)
 Figure 1: Appraisal systems – an overview

monogloss
projection…
engagement modality…
heterogloss concession…
negation…
if… then..
affect…

appraisal attitude judgement…

appreciation…

raise
force…
graduation lower

focus… sharpen

soften

(Martin & Rose 2003)

 Attitudinal positioning

We are concerned with which might be thought of as praising

and blaming, with meanings by which writers/speakers indicate
either a positive or negative assessment of people, places,
things, happenings and state of affairs.

Attitude -
is concerned with our feelings, including
emotional reactions, judgements of behaviour
and evaluation of things.
 Attitude

• Affect (emotion)
• Judgement (character/behaviour)
• Appreciation (value things)

Martin & White 2005. The

Language of evaluation: Appraisal
In English. London: Palgrave
Macmillan.
 The three sub-types of Attitude:
Affect, Judgement and Appreciation
Affect (emotion): evaluation by means of the writer/speaker indicating
how they are emotionally disposed to the person, thing, happening or
state of affairs. For example, `I love jazz'; `This new proposal by the
government terrifies me'.

Judgement (ethics): normative assessments of human behaviour

typically making reference to rules or conventions of behaviour . For
example, `He corruptly agreed to accept money from those bidding
for the contract'; `Our new classmate seems rather cool'.

Appreciation (aesthetics): assessments of the form, appearance,

composition, impact, significance etc of human artefacts, natural
objects as well as human individuals (but not of human behaviour) by
reference to aesthetics and other systems of social value. ‘Inception
is a great movie’
 Affect is to do with emotion, peoples
feelings
Affect can be
positive (happy/confident/interested) or
negative (unhappy/anxious/bored).
There are four semantic areas of emotion –
• inclination/ disinclination (I love/hate that)
• happiness/ unhappiness (makes me cry/laugh)
• satisfaction/ dissatisfaction (I am content/bored)
• security/insecurity (I am confident/ afraid)
What resources can you use to code Affect?
– Through adjective of emotion, (happy/sad;
worried/confident)
e.g. he is proud of his achievements
– Through verbs of emotion,
e.g. he laughed; the class bores me; your offer pleases me;
he shook uncontrollably
– Through adverbs (happily/sadly)
e.g. Sadly the government has decided to abandon its
commitment to the comprehensive school system
– through nominalisation (the turning of verbs and
adjectives into nouns) joy/despair, confidence/insecurity
( His fear was obvious to all, I was overcome with joy)
– use of metaphor,
• e.g. He was feeling on top of the world
 Inscribed Attitude and token of Attitude:
• Expressed explicitly:
– That is if we are happy, we can say ‘I am happy’.
= explicit about the Affect.

• expressed implicitly:
by saying something that suggests the emotion
– E.g. see above ‘he was feeling on top of the world’

Prosody - the spreading of values across a phase of text:

• We can set up a particular Attitude by coding it strongly in one
part of the text.
value - tends to spread across subsequent text to add value to
other words, that we might not otherwise see as having that
value.
spreading pattern called:
Prosody or prosodic patterning
Example of Types of Prosody:
• Saturating prosody

- Bloody Hell man, who the hell told you I liked doing this kind of shit.
shit

• Intensifying prosody

It is a dirty rotten stinking lousy bloody low filthy two-faced

lie.

• Dominating prosody
- Are you absolutely sure
that Miss Foley couldn’t have
replaced the keys in the box
without your seeing her?
Underline the Affect in the following examples:

1. “Children’s poverty is most serious in the district. We want

to broaden the children’s circle, help them learn concern
for society and gain contact with the community so they
don’t feel isolated” (SCMP, 21 Oct 06:C1).
2. Some private “tutorial heavenly kings” have acquired a
celebrity status far more elevated than mere local film
celebrities… Mr Ko is not shy about the HK$20 million he
made by selling to joined houses for more than HK$50
million earlier this year, while Mr Li is distinguished if not by
his command of English, then at least by his fashion sense…
(SCMP, 21 Oct 06:C2)
 Judgement of character/ behaviour
Under JUDGEMENT, we're concerned with language which
criticises or praises, which condemns or applauds the
behaviour - the actions, deeds, sayings, beliefs, motivations
etc - of human individuals and groups. There are two areas of
judgement:
• Social esteem: good and bad in terms of someone’s
capacity (ability: she is clever/ silly)
tenacity (resolve: she is brave/coward)
normality (she is lucky/ strange)
• Social sanction: good and bad in terms of ‘truth’,
e.g. someone behaving dishonestly or ‘ethics’,
e.g. someone behaving immorally.
• As with Affect,
expressed directly - inscribed or
expressed indirectly token of Judgement.
Underline the Judgement in the following
examples:
1. Three men – Liu Siu-Kei, Chow Chi-yung and Lee
Chi on – were found guilty of one count of
conspiracy to defraud and were each jailed for four
years (SCMP, 21 Oct 06:C3).
2. Deputy Judge Dufton said it was a well-planned
fraud that demonstrated persistent dishonesty and
required deterrent sentences (SCMP, 21 Oct
06:C3).
3. Personal attacks are unknown inside the august
Legco chamber, but some lawmakers, have been
hitting below the belt, or at least around the waist
(SCMP, 21 Oct 06:C2).
It is vital to stress JUDGEMENT, as a system of attitudinal
positioning, is, by definition, shaped by the particular cultural
and ideological situation in which it operates. The way people
make Judgements about morality, legality, capacity, normality
etc will always be determined by the culture in which they live
and by their own individual experiences, expectations,
assumptions and beliefs. So there's always the possibility that
the same event will receive different JUDGEMENTS,
according to the ideological position of the person making
those JUDGEMENTS.
(Are strikes necessary, sometimes heroic bids by workers to
protect their rights and their families' standard of living, or
irresponsible, bloody-minded attempts by workers to get more
than they deserve?
Was the Gulf War an entirely moral exercises in defending a
weak nation (Kuwait) against the avarice of a tyrannical
regime, or a cynical exercise in protecting US economic
interests in the oil- rich Middle East?)
To summarise then, JUDGEMENT involves
positive or negative assessments of human
behaviour by reference to a system of social
norms. Thus for an utterance to act to indicate a
JUDGEMENT value it must, either directly or
indirectly, reflect on the behaviour or
performance of some human individual or
grouping.
 Appreciation (valuing things, places, events
scenes, etc)
• APPRECIATION. As indicate previously, we categorise as
APPRECIATION those evaluations which are concerned with
positive and negative assessments of objects, artefacts1,
processes and states of affairs rather than with human
behaviour
• to express evaluations about things such as TV shows, films,
books, as well as art and scenery, etc.
• values can be positive or negative.

As with Affect and Judgement

expressed directly - inscribed or
expressed indirectly token of Judgement.
Underline the Appreciation in the following
examples:
1. Speaking avidly about how China should learn from mistakes
in history – a balanced account not distorted by the
authorities – Sun Yat-sen University Professor Yuan Wishi
may sound like and idealist.
But the controversial philosophy professor also knows how to
stay clear of potholes on the path to free speech on the
mainland.
“We better not discuss this question, because this is a taboo…
I would like to maintain like to maintain my right of speech on
the mainland ... Some people criticise the Communist Party in
overseas publications. That's much easier [than what I'm
doing], but I would rather publish essays on the mainland,'
Professor Yuan said when asked a sensitive question
yesterday while in Hong Kong to promote a new book on Sun
Yat-sen (SCMP, 17 Oct 06:C3).
areas of borderline differences in meaning
between
Appreciation and Judgement,
e.g. evaluating the product of someone’s
work-
difficult to say when we talk about a
performance as brilliant, are we
• Appreciating the produce or
• Judging the actor?
 Appraisal systems – an overview

monogloss
projection…
engagement
heterogloss modality…

concession…
affect…

appraisal attitude judgement…

appreciation…

raise
force…
graduation lower

focus… sharpen

soften

(Martin & Rose 2003)

Graduation

-Another major sub-system of meanings

-Concerned with up-scaling and down-scaling

-All attitudinal meanings (Affect, Judgement,

Appreciation) are gradable i.e. do they construe
greater or lesser degrees of positivity or negativity?
Graduation operates across two axes of scalability –
that of grading according to intensity or amount
(Force) and that of grading according to the
preciseness by which category boundaries are drawn
(Focus)
Force: grading up and down in terms of
intensity e.g.:
extremely handsome
really handsome
quite handsome
fairly handsome
somewhat handsome

Focus: blurring or sharpening the focus of

the semantic categorisations
via locutions such as true, real, genuine, kind
of, sort of, effectively etc.
e.g. He is a true friend; We will be there at 5
o’clock-ish
Notes taken from Martin, J.R. 2004. Mourning:
How We Get Aligned. In Discourse and Society.
Vol 15(2–3): 321–344
 TASK 1

• Analyse the way in which solidarity and alignment

are realised in the Mourning text in the first 2
paragraphs

• How is the text trying to align the reader to think

about the terrible event of 9/11?

• What language resources are used to persuade the

reader to align with the writer’s viewpoint?
 TEXT: Mourning
(Published on HK magazine, 21st September, 2001 -10 days after 9/11)

The terrible events of the past week have left us with feelings - in order of
occurrence- of horror, worry, anger, and now just a general gloom. The
people of America are grieving both over the tragedy itself and over the
loss - perhaps permanently - of a trouble-free way of life.

While that grief is deeply understood, the problem with tragedies like this
one is that they become the heyday for the overly-sincere, maudlin,
righteous-indignation crowd. We’ve been appalled, perplexed and
repulsed by some of the things we’ve heard said in the media this week.
The jingoistic, flag-waving, “my way or the highway” rhetoric is enough to
make thinking people retch. That said, the polls aren’t going our way. 89
percent of Americans surveyed are thrilled and delighted by all the tub-
thumping. We suppose that every episode of “letterman” from now until
doomsday is going to open with another weepy rendition of “God Bless
America”.
 Analysing the meaning of a text
1. First discuss the text as a whole and analyse both of its register
variables (field, mode & tenor) as well as it’s context of culture
(genre). Discuss these features of the text and justify your choices
why?

2. Focusing on interpersonal meaning:

– Read the text again this time focus on what’s emerging in the
interpersonal choices in the text.
– Discuss some of the choices made in the text and why the editor
has chosen the language? What kind of meaning is the writer
trying to construct? How is the writer associating what is written
with the audience?
– What kinds of emotions, feelings or attitudes does the image give
rise to?
– Does the viewer feel a close personal contact or a more
distanced one? Why?
 Highlighting affect
The terrible events of the past week have left us with feelings -
in order of occurrence- of horror, worry, anger, and now just a
general gloom. The people of America are grieving both over
the tragedy itself and over the loss - perhaps permanently - of a
trouble-free way of life.

While that grief is deeply understood, the problem with

tragedies like this one is that they become the heyday for the
overly-sincere, maudlin, righteous-indignation crowd. We’ve
been appalled, perplexed and repulsed by some of the things
we’ve heard said in the media this week. The jingoistic, flag-
waving, “my way or the highway” rhetoric is enough to make
thinking people retch. That said, the polls aren’t going our way.
89 percent of Americans surveyed are thrilled and delighted by
all the tub-thumping. We suppose that every episode of
“letterman” from now until doomsday is going to open with
another weepy rendition of “God Bless America”.
 Affect
– Dealing with emotional reactions to the events to
9/11
– Then reactions to those reactions
– Initially positioned to sympathize with their loss
– This soon gives way to negative judgement
• Through looking at affect we can see that a text ‘may
reposition us as the text unfolds – for example from
a rather universal communiality invoking our
humanity (sorrow for another’s loss) to a much more
specific alignment playing on our moral and political
response to American rhetoric (castigation of their
overreaction)” (Martin 2004:327)
• Judgement and appreciation are not as dominant.
 Highlighting judgment
The terrible events of the past week have left us with feelings -
in order of occurrence- of horror, worry, anger, and now just a
general gloom. The people of America are grieving both over
the tragedy itself and over the loss - perhaps permanently - of a
trouble-free way of life.

While that grief is deeply understood, the problem with

tragedies like this one is that they become the heyday for the
overly-sincere, maudlin, righteous-indignation crowd. We’ve
been appalled, perplexed and repulsed by some of the things
we’ve heard said in the media this week. The jingoistic, flag-
waving, “my way or the highway” rhetoric is enough to make
thinking people retch. That said, the polls aren’t going our way.
89 percent of Americans surveyed are thrilled and delighted by
all the tub-thumping. We suppose that every episode of
“letterman” from now until doomsday is going to open with
another weepy rendition of “God Bless America”.
 Judgment
– Sympathy wanes as disapproval swells
– Shift signalled by concessive clause while that
grief is deeply understood…
– Affect inviting sympathy vs. judgement prescribing
disapproval
– Appraisal may reposition the reader as the text
unfolds, e.g. sorrow for America’s loss to stating
overreaction of Americans
– Unlike affect and judgement, appreciation is not a
dominant motif
 Highlighting appreciation
The terrible events of the past week have left us with feelings -
in order of occurrence- of horror, worry, anger, and now just a
general gloom. The people of America are grieving both over
the tragedy itself and over the loss - perhaps permanently - of a
trouble-free way of life.

While that grief is deeply understood, the problem with

tragedies like this one is that they become the heyday for the
overly-sincere, maudlin, righteous-indignation crowd. We’ve
been appalled, perplexed and repulsed by some of the things
we’ve heard said in the media this week. The jingoistic, flag-
waving, “my way or the highway” rhetoric is enough to make
thinking people retch. That said, the polls aren’t going our way.
89 percent of Americans surveyed are thrilled and delighted by
all the tub-thumping. We suppose that every episode of
“letterman” from now until doomsday is going to open with
another weepy rendition of “God Bless America”.
 Appreciation
• Limited appreciation
Packaging events as things and appreciating them =
distancing effect
This text forms more of ‘a community commenting
observers than reacting participants’ (Martin, 2004:
328) from afar on what has happened – introducing
local HK response to the 9/11
E.g. some unfortunate cases of backlash
unfortunate = inappropriate, embarrassing,
awkward, undesirable incidents
• This text forms more of a community
commenting from afar on what has happened
– introducing local HK response to the 9/11
– E.g. some unfortunate cases of backlash
unfortunate = inappropriate, embarrassing,
awkward, undesirable incidents
 Appraisal systems – an overview

monogloss
projection…
engagement
heterogloss modality…

concession…
affect…

appraisal attitude judgement…

appreciation…

raise
force…
graduation lower

focus… sharpen

soften

(Martin & Rose 2003)

 Graduation

• The first half of the text is much louder than the

second half, drawing on a range of resources to
amply the effect of affect and to some extent
judgement.
deeply understood
overly sincere
enough (to make…)
diametrically opposed
precious little
terrible – meaning very serious, or very unpleasant
• Triplets also add to the amplification:
horror, worry, anger
overly-sincere, maudlin, righteous-indignation
appalled, perplexed and repulsed
• Graduation using measures also add to the
amplification of meaning
both, some, 89 percent, all, every, all, one,
permanently, from now until doomsday, any time
soon
 Prosody

• The purpose of this use of graduation is to add strength and

persuasiveness in the first half of the editorial.
• The volume is turned up loud – to encourage empathy and
alignment
• The second half of the editorial is much quieter. Rather than
being saturated with attitude, the key features the writer
wants to emphasise are placed in textually dominant
positions, where they preview and review incidents of
discrimination (some unfortunate cases, a Keystone Cops
episode and such is the logic of xenophobia)
• Prosodically speaking ‘the editorial seems to be suggesting
that events in America have been deeply moving and utterly
appalling, the regional response has been humorously remiss’
(Martin, 2004: 330)
 Appraisal systems – an overview

monogloss
projection…
engagement
heterogloss modality…

concession…
affect…

appraisal attitude judgement…

appreciation…

raise
force…
graduation lower

focus… sharpen

soften

(Martin & Rose 2003)

 Engagement:
Modality
• Modality is used throughout both subjective and objective:
explicit subjective we suppose
implicit subjective might, would
implicit objective perhaps, often
explicit objective little chance, no hope
modalized clause if
• Modality – develops the heteroglossia of a text by implicitly
acknowledging alternative voices.
• Writers modalize not because they are unsure of what they
are saying but to acknowledge alternative points of view (see
Martin and White, 2005)
 Projection
Projection is used throughout the editorial
• The Macau police found themselves in a Keystone Cops episode,
arresting and detaining seven “seven suspected Pakistani
terrorists”.
• though the men turned out to be tourists, a word which is
spelled somewhat like terrorists, and we suppose to some
people, just as frightening.
• Meanwhile (and we’re not making this up), two Indian national
on a flight from Singapore to Hong Kong were detained at
Changi Airport
• an American passenger said he heard
• one of the men calling himself a “Bosnian terrorist”
• Similarly, there have already been reports of taxis putting up
“out of service” signs
 Projection

– acknowledging alternative sources

– some expanding the range of voices
– some restricting us to one particular viewpoint,
e.g. as something we know something all the
pundits are saying
 Polarity

• Here polarity is used to deny alternative

positions
the polls aren’t going our way
we are not all of one religion
we are not making this up
there is no hope for normalicy
 Concessives

The use of conjunctions to position alternative

perspectives, while, though, in fact, anyway,
but, at least
 Summary

We’ve been looking at how feelings, solidarity, alignment are

established through written text. Feelings are always about
something – interpersonal attitudes to ideational experience.
– In management the interpersonal meaning constructed has to be ‘stage-
managed’ but textual resources
– The rhetorical power of language to position the reader/listener
– How we share viewpoints, feelings, reality in order to belong
– Texts have texture – they map logic onto the rhetoric
– There is a need to understand ideational meaning in relation to
interpersonal meaning
– Plus need to understand ideational and interpersonal meaning to the
way a text is structured / organised – i.e. textual meaning
– Understand this triangulation in relation to the social system – ideology
 Prosody and genre

Appraisal resources - establish the tone or mood of a passage

– choices resonate with one another from one moment to another as a text
unfolds.
– thus ‘prosodic’
– a prosody of attitude running through the text that swells and diminishes, in
the manner of a musical prosody
• prosodic pattern of appraisal - constructs the ‘stance’ or ‘voice’ of the
appraiser
• this stance or voice defines the kind of community that is being set up
around shared values
– these stances are often discussed as ranging along a scale - from more
objective to more subjective. (Martin and Rose, 2003:54)
• ‘objectivity’
– involves– basically as little attitude, graduation and heteroglossia as possible.
– thought of this as a kind of faceless stance. “But the absence of feelings,
intensification and alternative voices is itself a face – a cool excluding one
perhaps, but it is a face. “(Martin and Rose, 2003:55)
• differences between genres are reflected in
differences between stages within genres.
• As texts unfold we are moved in different
ways – to form different kinds of relationship
with us – to commune with us strategically.
 Appraisal

“unfolds dynamically to engage us, to get us on side

– not with one appeal, but through a spectrum of
manoeuvres that work themselves out phase by
phase.”
(Martin and Rose, 2003:56)
 Appraisal

• Summing up then, what we have are three main appraisal

systems – attitude, graduation and engagement.
• Attitude comprises affect, judgement and appreciation – our
three major regions of feeling.
• Graduation covers grading, including force and focus; force
involves the choice to raise or lower the intensity of gradable
items, focus the option of sharpening or softening an
experiential boundary.
• Engagement covers resources that introduce additional voices
into a discourse, via projection, modalisation or concession;
the key choice here is one voice (monogloss) or more than
one voice (heterogloss). Technically sourcing resources are
referred to as engagement.