An Appraisal Analysis Of Anne Frank's Diary

Anne Frank's diary written during 1942 to 1944 in her hiding place called the"Secret Annexe"has been widely read and studied for the purpose of historical research of the Second World War. This dissertation is a tentative linguistic research on the evaluative resources of the diary with the analytical tool of Appraisal system from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar. It studies how the attitudinal lexis, projections and names for'speech act'contained in the nine excerpts reveal Anne's changing state of mind.The methodology of analyzing these nine excerpts is descriptive and qualitative. The materials are divided into four phases according to the time of Anne's settlement in hiding and her changing attitudes, which are conducted in three steps.The Appraisal analyses show that Anne's emotions went through four distinctive stages beginning from holding positive attitude towards the new life, to feeling indignation and negative evaluation towards the wrong doings of the Gestapo and Nazi army, to falling into the abyss of depression towards the future of Jews and herself with negative emotion, and at last ending with faith in heart and with positive attitude towards the future due to her convert to religion and independent thinking. At the same time, the fluctuating volume of her engaged voices tracked down by projections and names for'speech act'also indicates her changing emotions, starting from engaging few to many to few. These changing attitudes and the engaged voices reveal that Anne grew not only in height but also in heart during her hiding life. She became mature over two years'concealment in the aspect of outlook and character. She began the journey to shape her independent self and to form her own opinion about the world.This linguistic analysis of the attitudinal meaning in Anne's diary enables readers to enter into Anne's deeper part of her mental world and gain insight of her growing up process in becoming a mature young woman.