A Functional Approach To The Semantic Structure Of Evaluative Adjectives In The Clause

Appraisal system is regarded as a huge resource of interpersonal function. The focus of this thesis, analyzes the semantic structure of evaluative adjectives in the clause and discusses its meanings, making use of Martin's appraisal theory and 'Hunston's local grammar of evaluation. The aims for the study are to testify the practicability and effectiveness of appraisal system towards the exploration on the semantic structure of evaluative adjectives in the clause, and to be an English learner in the field of discourse analysis, it is essential to do this research in order to identify evaluative adjectives embody different evaluative meanings in the clause in different context. This research will adopt qualitative method to analyze and discuss evaluative meanings of evaluative adjectives in seven clauses with appraisal theory and a local grammar of evaluation.The thesis encompasses 5 chapters. The first chapter situates an introduction of the thesis as a whole, including the concept of semantic structure and evaluative adjective, aims and methodology for the thesis, motivation and problems to be tackled as well as the organization of the thesis. The second chapter offers an overview to the development and the studies of semantic structure, appraisal theory and a local grammar of evaluation. Chapter 3 primarily discusses three kinds of clauses respectively with appraisal theory and a local grammar of evaluation, so as to illustrate different evaluative adjective embodies different evaluative meaning and show the fact that the thing evaluated influences evaluative meanings of evaluative adjectives because of this clause beginning with 'there'. Chapter 4 primarily proceeds under the headings of the clause complex and discusses four kinds of clause complexs respectively with appraisal theory and a local grammar of evaluation, so as to illustrate the same evaluative adjective embodies different evaluative meaning in different context and explore the thing evaluated influences evaluative meanings of evaluative adjectives because of this clause complexs beginning with 'it' and 'what'. Chapter 5 comes to the conclusion, points out the limitations and raises some questions for the future research.It has been attempted to explore the semantic structure of evaluative adjectives in...