Structural Potential Of Attitude

This dissertation is based on a premise that there are two levels of meaning functioning in discourse - descriptive and evaluative, and that evaluation (the expression of the writer's or speaker's opinion) is an important feature of language. A review of the literature reveals that the nature of evaluation is an area seldom mentioned by those scholars, their research foci are mainly on one or several aspects of what I term the "evaluative category", such as modality (Stubbs 1986; Halliday 1994; Fleischman 1995), affect (Besnier 1993; Ochs 1989), attitude (Halliday 1994; Tench 1996), evidentiality (Chafe 1986; Chafe and Nichols 1986), intensity (Labov 1984), hedging (Holmes 1988; Hyland 1996), stance (Barton 1993; Beach and Anson 1992; Biber and Finegan 1988; 1989). This dissertation makes an attempt to define evaluation from the perspective of axiology, linguistics and communication studies. Evaluation is thus defined as the value judgement (evaluative category) made by the evaluator (subject of evaluation) towards the evaluated (object of evaluation) based on certain norms in a given culture. Four essentialities are involved in the process of evaluation: the Subject of Evaluation, The Evaluation Norm(s), The Object of Evaluation, and Value Judgement. This view of language, and thus of evaluation, serves as the basis for a functional study of evaluation.A revised framework of Appraisal Theory is developed in this dissertation. APPRAISAL system is divided into four sub-systems: ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT, GRADUATION and NORMS, with ATTITUDE as the main system. The framework is based on findings from various disciplines, including psychology, sociology, SFL, corpus linguistics, etc.. The revised framework is supported by the findings from the BOE corpus, in which 10 AFFECT patterns and 12 JUDGEMENT patterns are identified. Unfortunately, no patterns are found to typically construe Appreciation.