A Study On The Attitudinal Features Of Aesop’s Fables On The Basis Of Appraisal Theory

Appraisal theory is effective in analyzing various discourses of different genres, but studies on Aesop’s fables based on Appraisal Theory are rare. Aesop’s fables indirectly reflect the social reality of ancient Greece and Rome through descriptions of feelings, attitudes and behaviors of personified animals and plants, having the function of satire or persuasion and containing rich life philosophy as well as deep instructive meaning. This study aims to explore the attitudinal features of Aesop’s fables on the basis of Martin & White’s Appraisal Theory to help fable creators adopt various attitudinal resources strategically to convey their intentions. The language data for this study are 100 Aesop’s fables selected from Laura Gibbs’s version through the stratified-random sampling technique. The lexical realization of attitudinal resources and their configurations, the appraisers and the appraised were investigated through qualitative and quantitative analysis.The results of the study show that attitudinal resources in Aesop’s fables are realized through various adjectives, adverbs, verbs, nouns, and phrases. As to the configurations of attitudinal resources, judgment has the highest frequency, and affect also plays a vital role, while appreciation makes up the lowest percentage of the total; besides, negative resources of each type of affect and judgment outnumber their corresponding positive resources except dis/inclination and normality. It was also found that most emoters are the fable characters, and triggers of affect involve these characters’ various desires or instinct, appearance, remarks, behaviors, capacities, luck, related situations, etc. The chief evaluator is the fable narrator, and most targets are the behaviors of the personified characters. These attitudinal features of Aesop’s fables are closely connected with the fable narrators’ communicative purpose of satire and persuasion.This study is significant in three aspects: first, it expands the application scope of the Appraisal Theory and makes some supplements to the theory itself; second, it contributes to the development of the linguistic studies on Aesop’s fable; third, it sheds some new lights on fable teaching, fable appreciation, and fable creation.