This presentation takes readers through the appraisal theory and its various sub-section used in the process of critical reviews and general appraisal of texts (written, spoken or computer mediated).

1. APPRAISAL THEORY
A PRESENTATION BY:
MATTHEW BEDIAKO
KWAKU ARHIN
SHARI ASIEDU
M.A. (TEACHING COMM. SKILLS) STUDENTS,
DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION STUDIES,
UNIVERSITY OF CAPE COAST

2. Appraisal theory defined:
 An evaluation, a judgment, or an opinion of
something or somebody, especially one that
assesses effectiveness or usefulness of
something or somebody (Microsoft Encarta,
2009) - Ordinary
 Framework used to describing and explaining
the way language is used to evaluate, adopt
stances, construct textual personas, and
manage interpersonal positioning and
relationships (White, 2002) - Technical

3. Deftn. of Appraisal Theory Cont.
 The theory focuses on how speakers express
feelings, how they amplify them, and how
they may incorporate additional voices in
their discourses (Martin & White, 2005)
 Key sub-systems of appraisal theory:
 engagement
 attitude,
 graduation, (Martin & White 2005)

4. Engagement
 Resources for introducing additional
voices into a discourse.
 Speakers allowing space for
negotiation of meaning into their
talk.
 The degree to which a text is
relatively monoglossic or
hetroglossic

5. Engagement cont.
 Monoglossic: Communicative context is construed
as a single voice / utterances do not make
reference to other voices and viewpoints.
Example: All first year students in UCC fear
communicative skills.
 Hetroglossic: Communicative context is construes
more than one voice / when a text opens up space
for the inclusion of the audience.
Example; There is the view that all first year
students in UCC fear communicative
skills.

6. Attitude
 Linguistic resources used to negotiate feelings, judge
people’s character, behavior and evaluate the worth
of things.
 Expression of positive and negative feelings.
 Three semantic domains of Attitude;
 Affect
 Judgment
 Appreciation

7. Attitude cont.
 Affect: Linguistic resources utilized for expressing
emotional state or responding to emotional trigger
 Deals with emotional reaction to behavior, text or
phenomena
Examples: 1. Great is the love we have for you.
2. How sad the accident was.

8. Attitude cont.
 Judgment: Attitude towards behavior that we admire or
criticize, praise or condemn
 Linguistic resources used to evaluate character and social
behavior in relation to culturally accepted set of moral,
legal and personal norms (civilized, progressive, kindly
and humane, wrong, right, more skillful, enormous
powers, bully are judgmental)
 Deals with ethics ; evaluating behaviour.
Example: 1. Ghanaians are a civilized and humane people
2. You hypocritically claim that you are trying
to protect us.

9. Attitude cont.
 Appreciation: Aesthetic evaluation of text/process
or natural phenomena
 Interpersonal resource utilized to express positive or
negative evaluation of entities, processes, and
phenomena (fair, serene, startling, original,
stunning, incredible, dangerous)
Example: 1. Martin Luther’s “I have a dream”
speech had a stunning applause.
2. His impeccable recitation of the long
poem is a thing of beauty

10. Graduation
 Grammatical and lexical resources used to “say how
strongly we feel about someone or something” (Martin &
Rose, 2003)
 Includes: hedges, downtoners, boosters and intensifiers –
(e.g. somewhat, slightly, rather, very, entirely and sort
of/kind of, true/pure)
 Operates across two axes of scalability –
 Force
 Focus

11. Graduation cont.
 Force covers assessments as to the degree of intensity and
amount.
 Two sub-systems:
 Quantification - assessments of the degree of quantity operates
over amount.
( e.g. a few books, many writers, small sugar)
 Intensification - assessments of degree of intensity operates
over qualities and process.
(e.g. slightly foolish, extremely brilliant; it stopped somewhat
abruptly, it stopped very abruptly, slightly disturbed me)

12. Graduation cont.
 Focus applies to categories which, when viewed from an experiential
perspective, are not scalable
 Operates to reconstrue these categories in such a way that they
participate in scalablity (prototypicality and preciseness).
Example: 1. He’s a true friend. (real, genuine, true)
2. He’s a kind of friend (kind of, of sorts)
 Up-scale, or ‘sharpen’ prototypicality (e.g. a real father, a true
friend) - intensifiers, boosters and amplifiers
 Downscale, or ‘soften’ (e.g. they play sort of jazz, they are kind of
crazy, it was an apology of sorts)
 Scalar categories are also gradable according to prototypicality.
Example: 1. a very red carpet [intensity]
2. a sort of genuinely red carpet [prototypicality]

13. Appraisal and sub-sections

14. Application of appraisal theory
To assist professionals in the field of
critical analysis of text in any form
(written, oral or computer mediated)
upgrade their skills at
appreciation/evaluating language
usage.