Article published in:
Functions of Language
Vol. 26:3 (2019) ► pp. 343–371

Language patterns and attitude revisited

Adjective patterns, Attitude and Appraisal

| Sichuan International Studies University
| University of Birmingham

This paper investigates the association between language patterns and attitudinal meanings, focusing specifically on adjective complementation patterns and types of attitudes as proposed in the Appraisal framework (Martin & White 2005). The investigation shows that the tripartite division of Attitude into Affect, Judgement and Appreciation can be supported with pattern differentials. The detailed scrutiny of adjective patterns with respect to the attitude system supports Bednarek’s (2009) argument that both aspects of attitudinal lexis (emotion or opinion lexis) and attitudinal target (the entity being evaluated) should be considered in analysing appraisal expressions, which leads to the proposal that Appraisal is in essence instantiated by choices made simultaneously in terms of the attitudinal lexis that is used and the attitudinal target that is involved.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. attitude in the Appraisal model
  • 3.Adjective patterns
  • 4.Analysing adjective patterns in terms of Attitude
  • 5.Adjective patterns and attitude
    • 5.1Form and meaning
    • 5.2Lexis of emotion vs. lexis of opinion
    • 5.3Judgement vs. Appreciation
    • 5.4Patterns that only co-occur with one type of attitudinal lexis
  • 6.Adjective patterns, Attitude and Appraisal
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 November 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.16030.su
References
Alba-Juez, Laura & Geoff Thompson
2014 The many faces and phases of evaluation. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), 3–23.Google Scholar
Austin, John
1957 A plea for excuses. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Vol. 571 (1956–1957), 1–30. Available online at http://​www​.jstor​.org​/stable​/4544570
Baker, Paul
2006 Using corpora in discourse analysis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika
2006 Evaluation in media discourse. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
2009 Language patterns and ATTITUDE. Functions of Language 16(2). 165–192. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Coffin, Caroline
2006 Historical discourse: The language of time, cause and evaluation. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Conrad, Susan & Douglas Biber
2000 Adverbial marking of stance in speech and writing. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 56–73.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W.
2007 The stance triangle. In Robert Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in discourse: Subjectivity, evaluation, interaction, 139–182. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eggins, Suzanne & Diana Slade
1997 Analyzing causal conversation. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Englebretson, Robert
(ed.) 2007 Stancetaking in discourse. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Felices-Lago, Ángel & María Enriqueta Cortés-de-los-Ríos
2014 The implementation of the axiological parameter in a verbal subontology for natural language processing. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), 117–136.Google Scholar
Francis, Gill, Susan Hunston & Elizabeth Manning
1996 Collins Cobuild grammar patterns 1: Verbs. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
1998 Collins Cobuild grammar patterns 2: Nouns and adjectives. London: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele
1995 Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2006 Constructions at work: The nature of generalization in language. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K.
1994 An introduction to functional grammar, 2nd edn. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
Hoey, Michael
1983 On the surface of discourse. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Hoffman, Sebastian, Stefan Evert, Nicholas Smith, David Y. W. Lee & Ylva Berglund
2008 Corpus linguistics with BNCweb: A practical guide. Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Hood, Susan
2010 Appraising research: Evaluation in academic writing. London: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hunston, Susan
2003 Frame, phrase or function: A comparison of frame semantics and local grammars. In Dawn Archer, Paul Rayson, Andrew Wilson & Tony McEnery (eds.), Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2003 conference, 342–358. UCREL technical paper number 16. UCREL, Lancaster University.Google Scholar
2011 Corpus approaches to evaluation: Phraseology and evaluative language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan & Geoff Thompson
(eds.) 2000 Evaluation in text. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan & Gill Francis
2000 Pattern grammar: A corpus-driven approach to the lexical grammar of English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hunston, Susan & John Sinclair
2000 A local grammar of evaluation. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 74–101.Google Scholar
Macken-Horarik, Mary & J. R. Martin
(eds.) 2003 Negotiating heteroglossia: Social perspectives on evaluation. Text 23 (2).Google Scholar
Martin, J. R.
2000 Beyond exchange: Appraisal systems in English. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 142–175.Google Scholar
2003 Introduction. Text 23(2). 171–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, J. R. & David Rose
2003 Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & Peter White
2005 The language of evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Millar, Neil & Susan Hunston
2015 Adjectives, communities, and taxonomies of evaluative meaning. Functions of Language 22(3). 297–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moreno-Ortiz, Antonio & Chantal Pérez-Hernández
2014 Form and function in evaluative language: The use of corpora to identify contextual valence in a linguistically-motivated sentiment analysis system. In María de los Ángeles Gómez González, Francisco José Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco Gonzálvez-García & Angela Downing (eds.), The functional perspective on language and discourse: Applications and implications, 87–110. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochs, Elinor
(ed.) 1989 The pragmatics of affect. Text 9(1).Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor & Bambi Schieffelin
1989 Language has a heart. Text 9(1). 7–25. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pang, Bo & Lillian Lee
2008 Opinion mining and sentiment analysis. Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval 2(1–2). 1–135. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Partington, Alan, Alison Duguid & Charlotte Taylor
2013 Patterns and meanings in discourse: Theory and practice in corpus-assisted discourse studies. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Saucier, Gerard & Lewis Goldberg
2001 Lexical studies of indigenous personality factors: Premises, products, and prospects. Journal of Personality 69(6). 847–879. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silk, Alex
2016 Discourse contextualism: A framework for contextualist semantics and pragmatics. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sinclair, John
1991 Corpus, concordance, collocation. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
2004 Trust the text: Language, corpus and discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Su, Hang
2015 Adjective complementation patterns and Judgement in biographical discourse: A corpus study. Birmingham: University of Birmingham PhD thesis.Google Scholar
Su, Hang & Susan Hunston
2019 Adjective complementation patterns and judgement: Aligning lexical-grammatical and discourse-semantic approaches in appraisal research. Text & Talk 39(3). 415–439. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thompson, Geoff
2010 Review of Emotion Talk across Corpora. Linguistics and the Human Sciences 3(3). 399–404.Google Scholar
2014 AFFECT and emotion, target-value mismatches, and Russian dolls: Refining the APPRAISAL model. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), 47–66.Google Scholar
Thompson, Geoff & Laura Alba-Juez
(eds.) 2014 Evaluation in context. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Turney, Peter
2002 Thumbs up or thumbs down? Semantic orientation applied to unsupervised classification of reviews. In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, 417–424.Google Scholar
White, Peter
2000 Dialogue and inter-subjectivity: Reinterpreting the semantics of modality and hedging. In Malcolm Coulthard, Janet Cotterill & Frances Rock (eds.), Working with dialogue, 67–80. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 Beyond modality and hedging: A dialogic view of the language of intersubjective stance. Text 23(2). 259–284. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011 Appraisal. In Jan Zienknowski, Jan-Ola Östman & Jef Verschueren (eds.), Discursive pragmatics, 14–36. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Dong, Min & Mengfei Gao
2022. Appraisal as co-selection and media performativity: 5G technology imaged in German news discourse. Text & Talk 42:2 ► pp. 177 ff. DOI logo
Kovtun, Oksana
2020. СЕМАНТИКО-ПРАГМАТИЧНИЙ ПОТЕНЦІАЛ АКСІОЛОГІЧНОЇ ПОТУЖНОСТІ АНГЛІЙСЬКОГО ПРИКМЕТНИКА: ПСИХОЛОГІЯ СПРИЙНЯТТЯ В ПРОЦЕСІ ВИВЧЕННЯ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ ЯК ІНОЗЕМНОЇ. Psycholinguistics in a Modern World 15 ► pp. 122 ff. DOI logo
Sanahuges, Carme & Hortènsia Curell
2020. Responding to Trouble: An Interactional Approach to Empathy In Catalan and English. Corpus Pragmatics 4:4 ► pp. 449 ff. DOI logo
Su, Hang
2020. Synergising Corpus, Functional and Cultural Approaches to Critical Discourse Studies: A Case Study of the Discursive Representation of Chinese Dream. In Corpus-based Approaches to Grammar, Media and Health Discourses [The M.A.K. Halliday Library Functional Linguistics Series, ], ► pp. 157 ff. DOI logo
Zhao, Minru & Dechao Li
2021. Translator positioning in characterisation: a corpus-based study of English translations of Luotuo Xiangzi. Perspectives ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Ковтун, О. В.
2021. СЕМАНТИКО-ПРАГМАТИЧНИЙ ПОТЕНЦІАЛ АКСІОЛОГІЧНОЇ ПОТУЖНОСТІ АНГЛІЙСЬКОГО ПРИКМЕТНИКА: ПСИХОЛОГІЯ ЙОГО СПРИЙНЯТТЯ В ПРОЦЕСІ ВИВЧЕННЯ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ МОВИ ЯК ІНОЗЕМНОЇ. Лінгвістичні дослідження 2:54 ► pp. 141 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.