On Attitude Resources In English Cover Letters From The Perspective Of Appraisal Theory

Any discourse, oral or written, has its specific communicative goals. Language plays a key role in realizing these communicative goals since language has three metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. Among these three meanings, interpersonal meaning means that language can be used to establish interpersonal relationship to realize communicative purposes. In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Halliday studies interpersonal meaning through mood and modality system. Appraisal Theory put forward by Martin in 1990s shifts the focus of study from grammar to lexis, which is an extension on the study of interpersonal meaning in SFL. Appraisal Theory aims to explore evaluation resources in the discourse and investigate how language users make evaluation to convey their attitude and viewpoint and establish interpersonal relationship.Appraisal Theory, also called Appraisal system, can be divided into Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. Attitude system can be sub-categorized into Affect, Judgment and Appreciation. Engagement refers to the source of the attitude and Graduation means the amplification of the attitude. This thesis employs the theoretical framework of Attitude system to analyze attitude resources in English cover letters. Cover letters aim to express job applicants' intention to apply for the position, in which applicants must make evaluations on themselves to elicit a response from potential employers to be offered an interview. To achieve this purpose, appraisal patterns in cover letters must have special features. In this thesis,40 English cover letters are collected to investigate patterns of Attitude resources and how interpersonal relationship is established through Attitude values. Quantitative and qualitative methods are combined to do this research. Quantitative method is employed to do statistics about proportion of Attitude resources and qualitative method is used to characterize these Attitude resources.It is found that in cover letters Attitude values are overwhelmingly positive and only a few values are negative. Judgment values take larger proportion than Affect values and Appreciation values. Capacity under Judgment takes up the largest proportion. Valuation under Appreciation comes behind. Irrealis Affect or inclination values rank the third followed by Tenacity under Judgment. No Normality under Judgment or Composition under Appreciation values are found in the corpus. As for those negative Attitude resources, they are employed to highlight the applicants'capacity, just in an opposite way.The research results show that job applicants strongly make positive evaluation, and they mainly emphasize their abilities, unique characters and their valuable and significant experiences and activities. At the same time, they strongly show their interest in the position. This is done by applicants on purpose. They intend to meet the demand of employers and elicit a response of solidarity from the potential employers.This research can prove the great feasibility of Appraisal Theory in the discourse analysis. Moreover, it can provide significant implications for the practical writing of cover letters. Applicants can employ appraisal resources to make positive evaluation on their abilities, characters and experiences so as to leave good impression on potential employers and achieve the ultimate goal.