A Corpus-based Multi-dimensional Analysis Of The Features In The Use Of English Evaluative Nouns

Noun is a hot topic in language studies. Descriptive Structuralism,Transformational Generative Grammar, Systemic Functional Grammar, CognitiveLinguistics are all applied to the study of nouns. However, the study of nouns withconsideration to evaluation function is not enough. Recent years have witnessed anincreasing interest in interpersonal research. Martin’s Appraisal Theory has beendrawn upon mostly to construe the interpersonal position. This thesis tries to explorethe features of English evaluative nouns from the semantic, syntactic and pragmaticperspective within the framework of Appraisal System.The author chooses600evaluative nouns from the commonly-used3030nounsin the BNC and then classifies the top50evaluative nouns according to the semanticcategories of evaluative nouns. The study aims at investigating the features ofevaluative nouns at the semantic and syntactic level and the causes for differentevaluative functions from pragmatic dimension.At the semantic level, this study has found out that modal nouns can expressattitudinal, engagement and graduation meanings; quantifying nouns can only expressgraduation meanings and the amount of evaluative nouns expressing graduationmeanings is very rare. In the top50evaluative nouns, the number of factual nounsoccupies most, which can express attitude and engagement meanings. Mental nounsmainly express attitudinal meanings. Besides, linguistic nouns expressing engagementmeanings are very frequent.At the syntactic level, the frequency of evaluative nouns as subject is higher thanthose as object and as predicative, while the frequency of evaluative nounsfunctioning as object is higher than those as predicative. As to the lexical collocationalpatterns of different evaluative nouns, most of the evaluative adjectives collocate withevaluative nouns, and the frequency of descriptive adjectives co-occurrence withevaluative nouns is less frequent than evaluative adjectives. Apart from evaluativeadjectives and descriptive adjectives, classifying adjectives and restrictive adjectives can also co-occur with evaluative nouns, but the proportion is very low. About thegrammatical patterns of evaluative nouns, seven patterns are analyzed based on thelocal grammar of evaluation. Among them, grammatical patterns expressing dialogicexpansion are the most frequent in the BNC. The frequency of grammatical patternsexpressing dialogic contraction ranks second. In general, the frequency of fourpatterns expressing engagement is higher than those expressing attitude andgraduation. The grammatical pattern of evaluative nouns expressing graduation isvery rare.From the pragmatic dimension, three causes for different functions of evaluativenouns are discussed. These three factors include: pragmatic functions, rhetoricalfunctions and textual functions.The study is significant for enriching the methodologies on the study of Englishevaluative vocabulary. Moreover, it also has referential significance for the study ofChinese evaluative vocabulary.