Interpersonal And Attitudinal Meanings Of English Academic Book Review: Appraisal Analysis

As a concept from the classification of language metafunctions, interpersonal meaning has been one of researching topics in linguistics. The study in functional grammar has involved the description of speech function, the difference between information and goods&service, the interpersonal function of Subject and Finite, Polarity and Modality, interpersonal metaphor, comment adjunct, attitudinal adjunct, etc. Martin puts the discussion of attitude into a systematic framework and forms the new framework: Appraisal Theory. Many linguists elaborated evaluation from different angles of modal or affect and gave different terms, such as"evaluation"is Thompson's term, while"connotation"is Lyons'term. Thompson points out in Evaluation: an Introduction that evaluation is the core part of any text, and any discourse analysis must refer to the evaluation in it, from which, we can know the importance of evaluation. Evaluation mainly concerns with the negotiation between writer and reader, speaker and listener about their relation and ideology in communication.Appraisal Theory derives from the interpersonal function and Tenor model. So, the interpersonal meaning and context theory are explained in this thesis. Martin's Appraisal Theory is to develop and extend Systemic Functional Linguistics(hereafter SFL) account of the interpersonal meaning by attending to speaker or writer's intersubjective stance. It is a approach to exploring, describing and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and relationships. Appraisal Theory includes three systems: Attitude, Graduation and Engagement, each of which has further sub-systems.As a sub-genre of academic discourse, academic book review has received less attention for its unremarkable features as reference literature. It, nevertheless, "plays an important role in supporting both the manufacture of knowledge and the social cohesiveness on disciplinary community" (Hyland,1996:43). Based on the interpersonal function in Systematic Functional Linguistics and the Appraisal Theory, with the means of quantitative and qualitative analysis, from the angel of negotiation between the writer and reader, the author explores the interpersonal and attitudinal meaning of English academic book review from the 50 samples. Then a conclusion is made: the text of a book review is interpersonal and attitude-loaded, and it involves the negotiation between the writer and the reader. Almost all the categories of Appraisal resources, which convey the interpersonal and attitudinal meanings can be involved in book review texts. Among these resources, Appreciation, Modality and Force appear much often.Based on researching findings, it is found that the writer-reader relationship is implicit authority on the reviewer's part, and the reviewer attaches importance to maintain his "positive face". In response to the underlying challenge on the reader's part, the reviewer also takes readers' "negative face" into consideration. As a result of the tension between these two tendencies, the book reviewer has to balance a reassuringly authoritative display of his opinion/attitude with a concern to be accepted by the reader as true or accurate and to show appropriate consideration for the reader on an interpersonal level. All these constitute the complexity of interpersonal meaning of EABR.The following are the specific organization of this thesis.Chapter 1 is the introduction, telling the researching value of English academic book review, the author's purpose of the research, the method applied in the thesis as well as the source of the data collected.Chapter 2 is the literature review. It first looks back at the nature and the development process of evaluation. The relation between evaluation and lexis, grammar is accounted. We get to know that lexis and grammar are not truly distinct, not only lexis, but also grammar, even the whole text have the embodiment of evaluation. As one of the three metafunctions in Halliday's functional grammar, the interpersonal function is introduced in detail in this chapter. Some other theories concerning the realization of the interpersonal meaning, for example, the context theory is explained in this part. Finally, the tool of Appraisal theory is fully expounded.Chapter 3 introduces the definition, structure and feature of academic book review. And the importance of research is given that academic book reviews are a crucial site for the research community, an effective way to popularize academic research result to service folks and stimulate its applicable value, and an important way to maintain pleasant academic atmosphere and enforce academic exchange or development.Chapter 4 is the main body of the thesis. The research finding is given directly. By making use of the theories outlined in chapter 3, the author analyses the English academic book review in detail to explore their interpersonal and attitudinal meaning in it.Chapter 5 is the conclusion. The whole study is summarized and further research is suggested in this part.