The Construction Of Interpersonal Meaning In English Football Commentaries: An Appraisal Approach

The interpersonal meaning is used to express people's viewpoints so as to establish and maintain relations with other people, to influence or change their attitudes of behaviors when they interact with each other. Many scholars did researches on interpersonal meaning from the perspective of grammar before, but it couldn't only restrict to this, it still needs to explore it further. James Martin establishes Appraisal System (AS) which offers people a new analytical approach to probe into interpersonal meaning on discourse semantics level. AS is concerned with all kinds of attitudes negotiated in a text, the strength of the feelings involved and the sources from which values originated. Moreover, since AS was established, many people have employed it into various kinds of discourses, however, they have few touched upon English Football Commentary (EFC) discourse. So it deserves to make a trial study on interpersonal meaning of EFC from the framework of AS.The present study adopted'cases and interpretations'as a methodological principle, and took a quantitative and qualitative analysis towards the data which is composed of five pieces of English Football Commentaries (EFCS) selected from the two Internet websites:http://www.guardian.co.uk and http://www.nytimes.com. In addition, this present thesis aims to find out the distributive features of Appraisal values in EFCS and the Appraisal strategies of interpersonal meaning in EFCS. And in order to achieve the above aims, this thesis puts forward two research questions:one is what the distributive characteristics of Appraisal resources are reflected in the English Football Commentaries (EFCS); the other is how the evaluative resources are construed the interpersonal meaning in the EFCS.Through analyzing and discussing the data, it indicates that in the whole Appraisal resources, Attitudinal values are in the top place; and Engagement values rank the second place; however, Graduation occupies the least. So it can reveal that the writers of EFCS preference for the Attitudinal resources instead of Engagement and Graduation is in accordance with the specific genre-Football Commentary in which the writer mainly expresses people's emotions, judges the players or coaches, and appreciates the games.In Attitude system, the author firstly finds that the interpersonal meanings of the EFCS are construed by the Appraisal resources of all the three sub-systems:Affect, Judgement and Appreciation; however, Judgement values rank first, and then is Appreciation values. And in Judgement system, the values of Social esteem are more than Social sanction. So it can demonstrate that Judgement values reflect the property of EFC discourse more than Appreciation and Affect values; and the author can infer that due to EFC is recreational genre, language of Social esteem will be more than Social sanction. Furthermore, it reveals that the positive attitudes outweigh negative attitudes; and the directly inscribed attitudes take up more than indirectly invoked attitudes. In addition, the writer of EFC expresses his/her attitudes in order to construe the discourse more subjectively to align the envisaged reader into the value position being advanced; and the writer reports others attitudes in order to construe the discourse more objectively to establish solidarity with the putative reader.Within Engagement system, the analysis firstly shows that the interpersonal meanings of the EFCS are construed by Monoglossic or Heteroglossic values; but Heteroglossic values over-ride Monoglossic values. So it can deduce that the writers of EFCS prefer to use the dialogic rhetorical strategies to construe alignment and solidarity. Secondly, in Monoglossic resources, Take-for-granted resources take up more than At issue resources; and the writer employs Monoglossic values so as to align the putative reader into his/her value position. Finally, in Heteroglossic values, Contractive values occupy more than Expansive values. And Contractive values are utilized as the rhetorical strategy to close down the dialogic space to express his/her authority and subjectivity to align the envisaged reader into the value position being advanced; while Expansive values are used as the rhetorical strategy by which the commentator opens up the dialogic space to present objectivity to establish solidarity with other voices.Under Graduation system, the present research indicates that first and foremost, the interpersonal meanings of the EFCS are construed by Force and Focus values, but Force values account for more than Focus. Next, in Force system, the Intensification values are more than Quantification; meanwhile, in Focus system, Sharpening values occupy more than Soften. What's more, up-scaling Force values and Sharpening values are frequently used to strongly align the reader into that value position being referenced; while down-scaling Force values and Softening values are often employed to maintain solidarity with the reader.Regarding the significance of this present study, the author deems that the thesis at least implies the following three aspects. Firstly, this thesis is a new trial exploration on written English Football Commentary discourse within Appraisal System, so it can broaden the applicable scope of Appraisal system. Secondly, this study is an initial attempt to probe the construction of interpersonal meaning in the EFCS within Appraisal System, so it can enlarge the genre study scope of interpersonal meaning. Thirdly, this study can also benefit people to write football commentaries better.