Appraisal Resources In English Sitcoms

This thesis attempts to analyze the appraisal resources in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory and intends to conclude the functions of appraisal resources in producing humor and constructing interpersonal meaning. It aims to interpret the mechanism for producing humor from a new perspective and tries to explain how to construct a heteroglossic field of discourse, that is, a field combining language user’s voice and others’ voices such as listeners as well as audience in the sitcom.Sitcoms achieve high popularity for their unique humorous mechanisms and thus obtain linguists’ attention and researches. The thesis is an application of Appraisal Theory(AT) to sitcoms and strives to discover the distribution of appraisal resources in sitcoms, their influences on the humorous effect and their contributions to constructing heterglossic field of discourse.Based on Systemic Functional Linguistics, Martin and his colleagues established Appraisal Theory to better understand the interpersonal meaning in discourses and the expression of attitudes and feelings. This theory is an interpretive research to SFL and can be employed to analyze the evaluative meaning in different types of discourses. This system has three subsystems: Attitude system, Engagement system and Graduation system. Nine episodes are selected randomly from the sitcom as samples of this study. This thesis calculates the appraisal resources occurred in the sitcom and explains the functions of these resources to listeners as third party- audience.Through the research, the thesis finds out that appraisal resources in the sitcom are not only of their original meanings of evaluation but also used as mechanisms to produce humor for the inconformity of the evaluation and entity. Firstly, under the Attitude System, explicit resources are used to highlight appraisers’ attitude and feeling and implicit resources are applied to make the atmosphere more relax and weaken the context of tension and sorrow. The author finds out appraisers tend to employ more positive appraisal resources, and the inconformity of appraisal resources and the surrounding context serves as an important device to cause a humorous effect. Secondly, under the Engagement System, dialogic contraction resources are applied for appraisers to declare themselves. It is a device to produce conflicts. Dialogic expansion resources let more potential listeners participate in this heteroglossic field of conversation. The more participation of audience, the more attraction of the sitcom and the more successful the interpersonal meaning is established. At last, under the Graduation System, appraisers employ the graduation resources to adjust the intensity of attitude and engagement. In the sitcom, appraisers use Force resources to highlight their attitudes and views or to weaken the tense atmosphere. They use Focus resources to make the evaluation vague, thus to produce humor.Analyzing the verbal humor and interpersonal meaning in sitcoms from the perspectives of AT, hopefully, can not only contribute to researches on spoken discourse under AT but also give suggestions on how English learners in China should understand humor in sitcoms and improve cultural understanding through listening and speaking.