A Study On The Attitude Change Of Gatsby To Daisy In The Great Gatsby

Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) has been proved a practical and applicable theory of language research, with a feasible and well-conceived framework. And Martin’s Appraisal theory is an extension of Halliday’s interpersonal meaning in SFL, which evaluates language user’s opinion, stance and attitude towards happenings through the analysis of the lexical resources from the discourse and utterance. It belongs to interpretive research. The Appraisal theory contains three systems-Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, in which the Attitude system is the core.Literary writers can vividly present the reality to the readers with sensitive insight and the appropriate choice of language resources and a great writer can explore the reality from multiple and deep levels. The American author Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is thought of as the reflection of "Jazz Age", which is set on Long Island’s North Shore in New York City. The novel shows us the social reality at that time. The moral belief fails, as the economy prospers. It is seen as a great work, considering both the mental depth and artistic expression. Up to now, many scholars have analyzed and studied the classic novel from different perspectives. However, few researchers have worked on it on the basis of the Attitude System within the Appraisal Theory to explore the change of Gatsby’s attitude towards Daisy. Therefore, the paper will study and analyze the novel from the linguistic perspective, with The Great Gatsby as the language corpus, under the research framework of the Attitude System within the Appraisal Theory.The thesis selects typical attitudinal appraisal resources from the research objective, The Great Gatsby. It aims to explore the change of Gatsby’s attitude towards Daisy to reveal how his American Dream breaks, through which it can prove that the Appraisal theory can serve as an effective theoretical framework for the interpersonal meaning research. It is found through analysis and research that such attitudinal resources as affect, judgement and appreciation can interact to enrich our emotions and reveal psychological characteristics, which plays an important role in creating the personalities of literary characters. The distribution of evaluative lexis can reflect the attitude of the speaker and its change. Meanwhile, it proves that the Appraisal Theory is feasible and practical to improve the literature appreciation.