| The Appraisal Theory is a complementary theory to the interpersonal system of Systemic Functional Linguistics on the level of discourse semantics. It is constituted of three broad semantic domains: Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. As appraisal resources are ways to realize the interpersonal meaning of discourse, they are widely referred to in discourse analysis.In this paper, the author attends and transcribes English classes taught by an excellent English teacher. With quantitative and qualitative methods, the author selects five class recordings as data to calculate the frequencies of every subcategory of appraisal resources and analyses their meanings and functions.This study finds that (1) The teacher’s classroom discourse contains rich positive appraisal resources for interacting with the students. When it comes to pointing out the shortcoming or weakness of the students, the teacher will try to express it in an implicit way. (2) The distribution of each subsystem of appraisal resources is unbalanced:the attitudinal resources account for around 50% of the overall teacher’s classroom discourse. Under engagement subcategory, the teacher uses more dialogic expansion than dialogic contraction. In Graduation resources, Force resources is more used than Focus. (3) The comprehensive use of these different appraisal resources mainly exerts positive functions. Appraisal resources can help the teacher construe harmonious teacher-students relationship, create better learning environment and maintain a coherent teaching process.This study analyzes teacher’s classroom discourse from the perspective of Appraisal Theory. It is useful to increase English teachers’ awareness of the importance of language evaluation. It contributes to teachers better understanding the functions taking by appraisal resources and thus reminding teachers to employ appraisal resources in his or her class to improve teaching effect. |
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