Appraisal is a framework for analyzing the language of evaluation. It has emerged from within systemic functional linguistics (see, for example, Halliday 1994; Martin 1992; Matthiessen 1995) and was driven in its early days by work in the field of educational linguistics and the development of Australia’s genre-based literacy programs (see, for example, Iedema, Feez & White 1994; Christie & Martin 1997; Martin 2000). It provides techniques for the systematic analysis of evaluation and stance as they operate in whole texts and in groupings of texts. It is concerned with the social function of these resources, not simply as the means by which individual speakers/writers express their feelings and take stands, but as the means by which they engage with socially-determined value positions and thereby align and dis-align themselves with the social subjects who hold to these positions. The systemic functional linguistics out of which the framework has emerged holds that linguistic phenomena can best be explained by reference to the social functions performed by language, by reference to the functional demands placed upon language by its users (see, for example, Halliday 1971: 330–68). Additionally, it holds that these social functions fall into three broad types: those by which language represents the world of experience (the ideational), those by which social roles and relationships are constructed (the interpersonal), and those by which texts are made coherent, both internally and with respect to the context in which they operate (the textual) (see Halliday 1994). Within this context, the appraisal framework is directed towards developing the account of interpersonal functionality, with extending descriptions and understanding of those aspects of language by which speakers/writers construct for themselves particular identities or personae and by which they position themselves and those they address. An array of text analytical interests and issues have shaped its development over the past decade or so. However, some three or four of these have had the greatest influence. In the late 1980s, a group of functional linguists in Australia were exploring modes of narrative and were interested in criteria for articulating a taxonomy of storytelling sub-types.Two central issues ran through these various projects. The first is concerned with the question of the nature of attitude, with how texts activate positive and negative assessments. The second is concerned with how texts adopt a stance towards these assessments and related evaluative meanings, with how these assessments and related meanings are negotiated intersubjectively. It is the answers which the group has proposed for these questions which have given the appraisal framework its current shape. Accordingly, the discussion in this paper will be organized around explorations of these two issues.