Appraisal (discourse analysis)

In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), appraisal refers to the ways that writers or speakers express approval or disapproval for things, people, behaviour or ideas.{{Cite book|last1=Martin|first1=J.R. |author-link1=J.R. Martin|last2=White|first2=P.R.R. |title=The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English|year=2005|publisher=Palgrave|isbn=140390409X}} Language users build relationships with their interlocutors by expressing such positions. In other approaches in linguistics (including linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics), alternative terms such as evaluation{{Cite book|title=Evaluation in media discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus|last=Bednarek|first=Monika|author-link1=Monika Bednarek |date=2006|publisher=Continuum|isbn=978-0-8264-9126-8|location=London|oclc=76941675}}{{Cite book|title=Corpus approaches to evaluation: Phraseology and evaluative language|last=Hunston|first=Susan|year=2011|isbn=978-0-415-83651-7|location=New York|oclc=823552375}} or stance{{cite book|last=DuBois|first=John|editor=Robert Englebretson|title=Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1-xHfAhyzOgC&pg=PA139|access-date=10 May 2013|year=2007|publisher=John Benjamins|isbn=978-90-272-5408-5|pages=139–182|chapter=The stance triangle}}{{Cite book|date=2012|editor-last=Hyland|editor-first=Ken|editor2-last=Sancho Guinda|editor2-first=Carmen|title=Stance and Voice in Written Academic Genres|language=en-gb|doi=10.1057/9781137030825|isbn=978-1-349-33788-0|s2cid=145774189}} are preferred.

J.R. Martin and P.R.R. White's approach to appraisal regionalised the concept into three interacting domains: 'attitude', 'engagement' and 'graduation'. Each of these has various sub-systems; for example, 'attitude' includes 'affect' (expression of emotion), 'appreciation' (evaluation of things/entities), and 'judgement' (evaluation of people and their behaviour), with different choices within these sub-systems. In the case of 'affect', for instance, these more delicate choices relate to different types of emotion.{{Cite book|title=Emotion talk across corpora|url=https://archive.org/details/emotiontalkacros00bedn|url-access=limited|last=Bednarek|first=Monika|date=2008|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-0-230-28571-2|location=Basingstoke [England]|pages=[https://archive.org/details/emotiontalkacros00bedn/page/n172 160]–178|oclc=681926200}} However, there is debate about the different sub-systems that should be recognised, and various researchers have since suggested modifications of the initial description.{{Cite web|url=http://www.socialsemiotics.org/appraisalsymposium/parallel-papers/|title=Appraisal Symposium 2013: Current Issues in Appraisal Analysis|date=2013|website=Social Semiotics|access-date=15 December 2019}}

The analysis of appraisal has also become influential outside Systemic Functional Linguistics, in various types of discourse analysis.{{Cite web|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/329933952|title=Bibliography of Appraisal|last1=Su|first1=Hang|last2=Bednarek|first2=Monika|date=2018|website=Research Gate|access-date=15 December 2019}}