| Appraisal Theory(AT) is the development and expansion of the interpersonal metafunction of systemic functional linguistics(SFL). As a kind of academic discourse, book review is concerned with evaluation. How to give critical evaluation is the soul of a book review because of the rich and complex interpersonal relations. Therefore, it is meaningful to examine the appraisal resources encoded in book reviews.Based on the framework of Appraisal Theory, this thesis studies 15 English and Chinese linguistic book reviews respectively, aiming to explore the similarities and differences of the distribution of Appraisal strategies between ELBRs and CLBRs and try to find the possible reasons underlying the findings. Both quantitative and qualitive methods were employed in this study. This thesis contributes to the development and application of AT as well as foreign language learning and teaching.The findings of the study are as follows:(1) Engagement takes the largest part both in ELBRs and CLBRs, followed by Attitude and Graduaion;(2) Under Attitude, Appreciation enjoys the highest percentage while Affect takes up the lowest both in ELBRs and CLBRs. But western reviewers use more negative Attitudes than Chinese reviewers;(3) Under Engagement, Heterogloss accounts for a much larger proportion than Monogloss in the two sets of reviews. Western reviewers use more dialogic contractions while Chinese reviewers adopt more dialogic expansions with regard to heteroglossic resources;(4) Under Graduation, Force resources are employed more frequently than Focus. The reasons for these similarities and differences are also discussed in this thesis.The contrastive analysis of appraisal resources in book reviews contributes to the understanding of the interpersonal meanings in academic discourses. It also proves the effectiveness of AT in interpreting different discourses in different cultural contexts. In addition, this study helps foreign language learners read and write book reviews. |
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