The Textual Metafunction Of The Appraisal

Language as a social semiotic system has meaning making potentials at different strata,and realizes ideational,interpersonal and textual metafunctions.The interactive relationship among language metafunctions is a problem deserving study in discourse analysis.In SFL,appraisal is one of three interpersonal systems at the level of discourse semantics.The studies of appraisal from the perspectives of genre,grammar,lexis and discourse are to focus on the appraisal meaning making processes and the representation of appraisal discourse functions,to analyze the meanings at risk,the choices available,the strategies in place,and the potential consequences,and to construe three functions of expressing subjective attitude,maintaining interpersonal relation,and texturing discourse.Existing studies mainly attend to interpersonal metafunction from the former two aspects,and overlook appraisal cohesion and coherence,appraisal theme and information structure,and generic organization as three main aspects of textual metafunction.Under the light of SFL theory and appraisal system,and from the perspective of textual metafunction,the study aims to explore the textual metafunction of the Appraisal system in editorials,and mainly includes three research questions:(1)What are the textual devices for appraisal meanings to reflect or realize the interaction relationship between interpersonal and textual metafunctions?(2)How appraisal meanings are realized as configuration patterns at the discourse semantic level within logogenesis of an unfolding text?(3)Why and for what factors may communicative effect or discourse function of appraisal meanings be interpreted?Centering around these research questions,the study adopts a text-driven,logogenetic analysis methodology,and makes qualitative,case studies of two editorial discourse about the topic of "9.11" terrorism attack in New York Times.The research procedures and steps are:first,to construct an analytical framework of textual devices for appraisal textuality,which is based on a theoretical framework of Appraisal system and includes four modules,three strata,two dimensions,or one intermediary variable;and then from aspects of four modules in turns,to analyze the Appraisal resources as important textual devices to realize the communicative purpose of argumentation or persuasion,the interpersonal rhetoric effect of solidarity,and the textual function of coherence;finally,bringing together the contrastive analyses of two cases,to illustrate the feasibility of the established analytical framework and to reveal identifiable generic status,distinctive registerial property or unique discourse nature of editorials.Appraisal cohesion and coherence have recourse to five respective groups of attitudinal lexis cohesive chains,graduation modifying chains,engagement reference chains,as textual devices,to realize three means of coupling,harmony,periodicity,three patterns of saturation,intensification and domination for prosody propagation,to factor out the pattern,co-pattern,inter-pattern of appraisal distribution closely related to generic stage and registerial field,and hence to reflect three modes of dialectic,polemic or persuasive argumentation,one relation of justification or legitimation,and three iconic,metaphoric,semiotic or rhetorical principles.Appraisal theme and new information attend to when appraisal resources mapped or configured on the two sites for textual prominence of maximal theme zones and minimal N-rheme domain,as textual devices,to realize metafunctions.Appraisal theme experientially construes discourse participant visibility,nominalized process and hence cohesive harmony in transitivity;logically constructs the conceptual taxonomy,expansion relation,and orbitality,taxonomy-,cascade-like argumentative structures;interpersonally encodes value orientations,dialogistic positioning or non-discourse participants;textually realizes 8 progression patterns,the double-faced hyper-themes,and an interaction of prosody and periodicity.Appraisal new information is identified as the focus points of ideational newsworthiness,logical nuclearity,interpersonal centrality,textual noteworthiness,respectively reflecting some basic principles in FSP,RST,social order theory,phonology or pragmatic communication.Both are closely related to three dimensions of tenor:affiliation(contact/familarity),reciprocity(status/power),and alignment(axiology/value system).Appraisal in the generic organization is mainly reflected by the logical conjunctives and metadiscoursive markers,as textual devices,to realize the communicative purposes of both local legitimation and global persuasion.Conjunctions macroscopically construe four generic structure principles(particulate,orbitality,prosody,periodicity),one typical macrostructure(objectivized contrasts and premises,positive/negative evaluations,instructions and warnings),two main argumentation patterns(additive and contrastive),and one cultural principle.They microscopically signal one legitimation relation in Evaluation-Basis pattern,two oppositions to claims-making,two knowledge structures in disciplines(analytical or synthetical),and two argumentation principles of adequacy and acceptability.Metadiscourses globally in three editorial genre stages construe three basic modes of argumentative persuasion by appealing to professional,social representative and intellectual authority or reliability,through four groups of markers(hedges,evidential,attitudinal,engagement markers).They locally in a Problem-Solution pattern signal textual theme as 4 functions of causal legitimacy,evidential reliability,conditional concession and space/time location,comment adjuncts as 4 of proposition,subject,speech act,inherently textual,and characteristically interpersonal oriented metafunctions,and metadiscursive nouns as 8 subcategories of functions(idea,argument,evidence,possibility,entity,attribute,relation,metatext nouns).Both are closely related to contextual dependency,contextual calibration,the writer' s intention,genre convention,disciplinary knowledge,and culture community as mode.Appraisal strategies at a macroscopic dimension determine the choices of stances in appraisal:subjective value stance,intersubjective dialogistic stance,or community alignment stance constructed by monoglossia or heteroglossia,and simultaneously dialogic expansion or dialogic contraction.At a microscopic one,they determine the choices of interactive patterns of attitude,engagement and graduation across genre stages.Stanced and attitudinal appraisals have recourse to the strategies of personalized and depersonalized engagement,inscribed and invoked attitude,force and focus of graduation.At the lexico-grammatical stratum,appraisal strategies are realized and reflected by devices of projection structure,modality grammar,transitivity configuration,or appraisal lexis.Three basic taxonomies of subjectifying objective,heteroglossic solidarity,or legitimate persuasion strategies relate to three generic stages.The interpretations of their interpersonally rhetorical functions and discourse effects depend on genre and tenor in cultural and situational contexts.The main innovative points of the study are as follows.Firstly,the constructed analytical framework of the textual devices for the appraisal textuality reflects the interactions between interpersonal and textual metafunctions of Appraisal,and thus provides a new perspective,a systemic way of thinking,and a comprehensive analytical tool for Appraisal.It contributes to revealing how appraisal meanings are distributed,arranged,proceed in some regular patterns,how to achieve some appropriate rhetorical effects associated with communicative purposes,and how to be promoted and dominated by contextual factors of genre and register.Second,by four modular procedures and steps,it expands the scope of cohesion and coherence study,extends the notions of theme-new information,develops the principles of genre organization,and factors out an intermediate variable of discourse strategies.And thirdly,the appropriate understandings of the enabling role of textual metafunction,and the functional categories of textual devices for the appraisal textuality have important reference values for the academic argumentation writing,rhetoric teaching or multimodal-appraisal discourse analysis.True,considering that this research is primarily a manual sample analysis and qualitative study,it anticipates the following-up,large-scaled corpora analysis,practical discourse analysis across genres and registers,advanced statistic software and functional annotation tools,to optimize the procedures,testify the conclusions,guarantee the validity and reliability,and further the breath and depth of study.