MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

BÙI THỊ TÙNG THI

AN ATTITUDINAL STUDY ON THE AMERICAN
AND VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENTS’ RESPONSE
TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN NEWS REPORTS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Võ Duy Đức, Ph.D.


BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

BÙI THỊ TÙNG THI

PHÂN TÍCH NGUỒN NGỮ LIỆU THÁI ĐỘ
TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO THỂ HIỆN PHẢN ỨNG
CỦA HAI CHÍNH PHỦ MỸ VÀ VIỆT NAM
ĐỐI VỚI ĐẠI DỊCH COVID-19
Chuyên ngành
Mã số

: Ngôn ngữ Anh
: 8220201

Người hướng dẫn: TS. VÕ DUY ĐỨC

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the thesis An Attitudinal study on the American and
Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news
reports is my work.
No other person's work has been used without acknowledgement in the
paper.
This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or
diploma in any university.

Binh Dinh, 2021

Bùi Thị Tùng Thi


ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis
supervisor, Mr Vo Duy Duc, PhD. for his experienced guidance and valuable
comments on my work. I am also indebted to him for his helpful and timely
response to my questions.
I would also like to express my thank to the lecturers who have given
me exciting knowledge and a great source of inspiration.
I am also grateful to Quy Nhon University, Post-graduate Department,
and Foreign Languages Department for the administrative assistance.

Finally, I must express my very profound gratitude to my family and
colleagues for providing me with unfailing support and continuous
encouragement throughout the course and the study of this thesis.


iii

ABSTRACT

The study applied Appraisal Theory developed by Martin and White
(2005) as a framework for the investigation into the American and
Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news
reports. The data comprises 40 news reports (20 in each language)
downloaded from the New York Times and the Tuoi Tre. The study sought to
investigate the similarities and differences between the two languages
regarding Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation.
The findings showed that the deployment of the Attitudinal resources in the
English and Vietnamese data shared certain similarities, such as the
occurrence of all types of Attitudinal values and the more common use of
Non-authorial and Explicit resources than Authorial and Implicit ones.
However, despite the similarities between the two languages, a number of
subtle differences were also observed. With regard to the differences in
Positive and Negative Appreciation and In/Security Affect in the two
languages, the writers indicated a radically dissimilar attitude to the pandemic
of the American and Vietnamese governments. Hopefully, the study offers
language learners and teachers useful knowledge of Appraisal and the
features of the evaluative language employed in English and Vietnamese
news reports.



iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................. ii
ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. iv
LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................... vi
LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................... vii
CONVENTIONS ........................................................................................... viii
Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................... 1
1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES ...................................................................... 3
1.2.1 Aims ................................................................................................. 3
1.2.2 Objectives......................................................................................... 3
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...................................................................... 3
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY ........................................................................ 3
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ......................................................... 4
1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY ……………………………………..4
Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................ 6
2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ......................................................... 6
2.1.1 Appraisal Theory.............................................................................. 6
2.1.2 Attitude............................................................................................. 8
2.1.3 Engagement ................................................................................... 16
2.1.4 Graduation ...................................................................................... 18
2.2 RELATED STUDIES ............................................................................ 19
Chapter 3. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES ......................... 23
3.1 RESEARCH METHODS ...................................................................... 23
3.2 DATA COLLECTION ......................................................................... 23
3.3 DATA ANALYSIS ............................................................................... 24

3.4 RESEARCH PROCEDURES ................................................................ 24


v

3.5 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ......................................................... 24
3.6 SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 25
Chapter 4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .................................................. 26
4.1 GENERAL FEATURES OF ATTITUDE IN THE NEWS REPORTS 26
4.2 AFFECT ................................................................................................. 27
4.2.1 Dis/inclination ................................................................................ 28
4.2.2 Dis/Satisfaction .............................................................................. 30
4.2.3 In/Security ..................................................................................... 31
4.2.4 Un/Happiness ................................................................................. 32
4.2.5 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect ............................................... 33
4.3 JUDGEMENT ........................................................................................ 38
4.3.1 Subtypes of Judgement .................................................................. 38
4.3.2 Explicit and Implicit Judgement .................................................... 44
4.3.3 Positive and Negative Judgement ................................................. 47
4.4 APPRECIATION ................................................................................... 50
4.4.1 Subtypes of Appreciation ............................................................... 50
4.4.2 Positive and Negative Appreciation............................................... 56
4.5 SUMMARY ........................................................................................... 60
Chapter 5. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS .................................... 61
5.1 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................... 61
5.2 IMPLICATIONS .................................................................................... 64
5.3 LIMITATIONS ...................................................................................... 64
5.4. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH ................................. 65
REFERENCES ................................................................................................ 66
APPENDIX



vi

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Grammatical realizations of Affect ........................................................10
Table 2.2 Subtypes of Affect...................................................................................11
Table 2.3. The system of Judgment ........................................................................13
Table 2.4 Categories of Appreciation ....................................................................15
Table 2.5 Subtypes of Appreciation ......................................................................16
Table 2.6 Monogloss and Heterogloss ..................................................................17
Table 4.1 Frequency of Attitude resources in ENRs and VNRs ..........................26
Table 4.2 Distribution of Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs ...........................28
Table 4.3 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs ....33
Table 4.4 Positive and Negative Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs ...............36
Table 4.5 Distribution of Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs ...................39
Table 4.6 Explicit and Implicit Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs .........44
Table 4.7 Positive and Negative Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs........47
Table 4.8 Attribution of Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs ................50
Table 4.9 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs ....56


vii

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1. The language stratification and meta-functions ...................................6
Figure 2.2 Appraisal System .....................................................................................8
Figure 2.3 Sub-systems of Attitude ..........................................................................9

Figure 4.1 Sub-types of Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs .............................28
Figure 4.2 Authorial and Non-authorial Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs ...34
Figure 4.3 Positive and Negative Affect resources in ENRs and VNRs ..............36
Figure 4.4 Social Esteem and Social Sanction resources in ENRs and VNRs ....38
Figure 4.5 Explicit and Implicit Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs ........45
Figure 4.6 Positive and Negative Judgement resources in ENRs and VNRs ......48
Figure 4.7 Attribution of Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs ................51
Figure 4.8 Positive and Negative Appreciation resources in ENRs and VNRs...57


viii

CONVENTIONS

Italics are used for quotes, technical terms, emphasis, and examples
Bold is deployed to mark the first use of technical terms
In the numbered examples: Bold marks the use of what is being
demonstrated
ENR (1-20): English data numbered from 1 to 20
VNR (1-20): Vietnamese data numbered from 1 to 20.


1

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter starts with the rationale, followed by the aim and
objectives of the study, research questions, the significance of the study, and
the scope of the study. The organization of the study is presented as the last
section of the research.
1.1 RATIONALE

It is undeniable that the media in general and news reports in specific not
only contributes to enriching human being's scientific general knowledge but
also helps people to keep pace with temporary social issues. According to
White (1998: 266), “News journalism ranges across the greatest diversity of
discourses, including not only those of politics, the law, and the emergency
services, but those of economics, bureaucracy, medicine, religion, the social
and physical sciences, the humanities, and education”. News reporting is
considered a powerful method to disseminate information by which an
informed public discourse may be established and maintained.
Recently, when the COVID-19 pandemic has hit almost all countries and
territories worldwide, causing great disruption for all aspects of life,
journalists are working round the clock to provide readers with
comprehensive, up-to-date reporting on the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Their coverage primarily focused on ways that local authorities and people
have responded to the pandemic, the impact of the virus on people's life, as
well as the pandemic from the perspectives of specialists, researchers, and
scientists.
As the pandemic progressed in the U.S., Vietnam, and throughout the
rest of the world, the two governments have implemented series of measures
such as enforcing lockdowns and promoting social distancing norms aimed at


2

halting the spread of the virus since its initial outbreak. Although sharing the
same goal of bringing the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic under
control to safeguard people‟s lives and health, the American and Vietnamese
governments‟ work in response to the COVID-19 seems dissimilar.
From the perspective of Appraisal Theory, many scholars (Martin,
2000; Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004; Martin and Rose, 2007) have paid

much attention to evaluation. Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation form
the Appraisal Framework in language. Appraisal Theory is developed in the
framework of systemic functional linguistics with a view to describing and
explaining how people evaluate others and things. It has been widely applied
to help the listeners and readers understand the speaker‟s or writer's position,
outlook and attitude deeply. Attitude, along with Engagement and
Graduation, forms the Appraisal Framework in language. It plays an integral
role in the expression of interpersonal meanings of the language. Attitude
consists of three sub-systems: Affect - expressions of feelings and emotions;
Judgement - evaluations of human behaviours; and Appreciation assessment of things and entities.
Appraisal Theory has been applied in a wide variety of studies with
different genres, which proves its significance as a theoretical framework to help
understand the evaluative language. However, there has not been any study of
attitudinal resources in English and Vietnamese news reports towards the
American and Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID – 19 due
to its recent outbreak worldwide, which means there is a gap available for my
thesis. For the sources of inspiration mentioned above, I have been inspired to
choose the topic An Attitudinal study on the American and Vietnamese
governments‟ response to the COVID-19 pandemic in news reports as my
research paper.


3

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
1.2.1 Aims
This study was carried out to investigate the similarities and differences
between the American and Vietnamese governments' response to the
pandemic in terms of Attitude.
1.2.2 Objectives

The objectives of the study are:
1.

To find out Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgement

and Appreciation

employed

in

the news reports about American and

Vietnamese governments' response to the COVID-19 pandemic;
2.

To

examine

the

frequencies

of

occurrence

of


the

Attitudinal resources employed in the news;
3.

To investigate the similarities and differences between the

American and Vietnamese governments' response to the pandemic in
terms of Attitude.
1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The study aims at investigating the following questions:
1. What types of attitudinal resources are used in English and
Vietnamese

news

reports about

the American and Vietnamese

governments' response to the pandemic?
2. What are the frequencies of the occurrence of Attitudinal
resources in the news?
3. What are the similarities and differences between the American and
Vietnamese

governments'

response


to

the pandemic in terms of

Attitude?
1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
Though the Appraisal Theory is composed of three domains,


4

precisely Attitude, Engagement and Graduation, this study focuses on the
Attitudinal resources, namely Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation due to
their considerable significance in revealing attitudes meeting the aim of the
study. In this study, I would like to investigate the Attitudinal resources in
forty news reports about the American

and

Vietnamese

governments'

response to the pandemic in the same period from February 2020 to
September 2020 from reliable websites.
1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The findings of the study are expected to offer both theoretical and
practical contributions to the field of Attitudinal research. Theoretically, the
findings of the study help fulfil some gaps of the research on Attitudinal
resources from the perspective of evaluative language and provide the

information for further research in this field to be done. Practically, the study
is considered to help learners and teachers of English know how to use
Attitudinal resources effectively in their teaching and learning, especially
writing skills.
1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The study is organized into five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1, Introduction, presents

the

rationale,

aims,

and

objectives, research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the
study, and the organization of the study.
Chapter 2, Literature Review, provides the theoretical background
on which the study is based and briefly presents a review of previous
studies related to this study.
Chapter 3, Research Methods and Procedures, deals with the
research methods, research procedures, data collection, data analysis.
Chapter 4, Findings and Discussions, focuses on describing,


5

analyzing, comparing, and discussing attitude in news about American and
Vietnamese government's response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Chapter 5, Conclusion, gives a summary of the results of the study.
It also offers limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.


6

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is concerned with the theoretical background of the study
as well as the literature review on the prior research related to the study.
2.1 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1.1 Appraisal Theory
The Appraisal System was first developed by James Martin (1996,
2000) and Peter White (1997), and then further developed by Martin and
White (2005) under the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics.
Advocates of SFL assume that there are three metafunctions of language,
namely ideational, interpersonal and textual. Appraisal belongs to the
interpersonal metafunction, the function that indicates relationships among
people, which is generalized in 2.1.

Figure 2.1. The language stratification and meta-functions (Martin & White, 2005)

The theory considered to be a significant development within the
paradigm of Systemic Functional Linguistics focuses on how writers and
speakers express their feelings, how they amplify them, and how they may
incorporate additional voices in their discourses (Martin & White, 2005).


7

According to Martin & White (2005:22), "Appraisal is concerned with

evaluation: the kinds of attitudes that are negotiated in a text, the strength of the
feelings involved and the ways in which values are sourced and readers
aligned". It

can

be

inferred

from the

given overview

of Appraisal

Resources

taken from Martin and White (2005) above that evaluative

language consists of three primary types, Engagement, Attitude, and
Graduation, respectively. Engagement is the category that refers to the
resources for introducing voices into a discourse analysis through projection,
modalization or concession. This broad term is later divided into two smaller
branches, concerning whether the key choice for Engagement has to do
with voice or more than one voice. Graduation is the scaling of interpersonal
force or for sharpening/blurring the focus of value relationships. It is made up of
force and focus: the former emphasizes the choice to raise or lower the
intensity of gradable items while the latter involves the decision of
sharpening or softening an experiential boundary.

This study adopts the remaining category, Attitude, as the theoretical
framework. Attitude can be divided into three domains of feelings, namely
Affect, Judgement and Appreciation, while Engagement has two subsystems:
Monoglossic and Heteroglossic; and Graduation also contains two areas: Force
and Focus. The outline of the Appraisal System is presented in Figure 2.2 as
follows:


8

Figure 2.2 Appraisal System (Martin & White, 2005: 38)

2.1.2 Attitude
White (2015a, p.2) claims that Attitude refers to the sub-system of
evaluative meaning by which addressees are positioned to adopt a positive or
negative view vis-à-vis experiential phenomena or propositions about those
phenomena. Attitude covers feelings that are either explicitly stated or
implicitly stated. The explicit feelings or inscribed attitude are the feelings
that are clear enough to be seen without employing interpretation, while the
implicit feelings or the invoked attitude are the ones that are the results of the
interpretation of what is actually said. Moreover, each of the three subtypes of
Attitude is grouped into two regions: the positive Attitude and the negative
Attitude. Under the Appraisal coding practice, positive and negative values
are typically indicated by “+” and “-” respectively.
Attitudinal meanings are divided into the following three broad
subtypes: Affect, Judgement and Appreciation, as presented in Figure 2.3.


9


Figure 2.3 Sub-systems of Attitude (Martin & White, 2005: 42-58)

In detail, Affect covers emotions concerned with Dis/inclination,
Un/happiness, In/security and Dis/satisfaction. Judgement consists of two
broad categories, namely Social esteem and Social sanction. Appreciation is
divided into three subtypes: Reaction, Composition, and Valuation.
2.1.2.1 Affect
Affect is the emotional response to the person, thing, happening, or state
of affairs. According to Martin & White (2005), Affect can be realized by
quality,

mental

and

behavioral

processes,

modal

adjuncts,

nominalizations. These realizations can be viewed in Table 2.1.

and


10


Table 2.1 Grammatical realizations of Affect
(Martin & White, 2005: 46)
Grammatical

Types

Examples

realizations

affect as ‘quality’
-describing participants

Epithet

a sad captain

- attributed to participants

Attribute

the captain was sad

- manner of processes

Circumstance

the captain left sadly

affect as ‘process’


his departure upset him

- affective mental

Process

he missed them

– affective behavioral

the captain wept

affect as ‘comment’

Modal Adjunct

sadly, he had to go

Subject, Object

joy, sadness, sorrow

- desiderative
affect as ‘nominalizations’

Affect

is


also

divided

into

four

subtypes:

Dis/inclination,

Un/happiness, In/security and Dis/satisfaction.
Dis/inclination is concerned with how the speaker is inclined or
disinclined to something. Some lexical items related to the type are miss, long
for, yearn for, etc.
Un/happiness deals with the emotional feeling of the speaker, whether
he is happy or sad. The specific words in this region are cheerful, gloomy,
buoyant, adore, hate, etc.
In/security covers the speaker's emotions which are related to his
ecosocial well-being such as anxiety, fear, confidence, and trust as presented
in Table 2.2.
Dis/satisfaction deals with the feelings of achievement and frustration
in relation to the activities in which we are engaged. It covers the speaker‟s
emotions concerned with ennui, displeasure, interest, and pleasure as


11

presented in Table 2.2.

The subtypes of Affect system are presented in Table 2.2.
Martin and White (2005: 46-52) also state that Affect is classified into
Authorial Affect and Non-authorial Affect. Authorial Affect involves the
author‟s feelings and indicates how they have responded emotionally to the
evaluated person, thing or situation. Whereas, Non-Authorial Affect, White
(2015b) states that it is the case where it is not the author‟s emotions which
are described but those of other human individuals or groups.
Table 2.2 Subtypes of Affect (Martin & White, 2005: 49-51)
UN/HAPPINESS

Bebaviour

Composition

Unhappiness
 misery

- whimper/ cry

- down/ sad/ miserable

 antipathy

- rubbish/ abuse/ revile

- dislike/ hate/ abhor

 cheer

- chuckle/ laugh/ rejoice


- cheerful/ buoyant/ jubilant

 affection

- shake hands/ hug/ embrace

- be fond of/ love/ adore

Happiness

IN/SECURITY

Behavior

Composition

Insecurity
 disquiet

- restless/twitching /shaking

- uneasy/ anxious/ freaked out

 surprise

- start /cry out /faint

- startled/ jolted/ staggered


 confidence

- declare/assert / proclaim

- together/ confident/assured

 trust

- delegate/commit/ entrust

- comfortable with/ confident

Security

in/about/ trusting
DIS/SATISFACTION

Behavior

Composition

Dissatisfaction
 ennui

- fidget/ yawn/ tune out

- flat/ staled/ jaded

 displeasure


- caution/ scold/ castigate

- cross/ bored with angry/


12

UN/HAPPINESS

Bebaviour

Composition
sick of/ furious/ fed up with

Satisfaction
 interest

- attentive/busy/industrious

- involved/ absorbed/

 pleasure

- pat on the back/compliment/

engrossed

reward

- satisfied/ impressed/pleased/

charmed/ chuffed/ thrilled

DIS/INCLINATION

Bebaviour

Composition

Fear

tremble/ shudder/ cower

wary/ fearful/ terrorised

Desire

suggest/request/ demand

miss/ long for/ yearn for

2.1.2.2 Judgement
The second category of Attitude is Judgement. This Appraisal category
deals with the speaker/writer‟s ethical attitude towards human behavior, such
as admire, criticize, praise, condemn, etc. In Judgement system, adverbs
usually act as the circumstance of manner, adjectives as epithet or
attribute, and some nouns and verbs containing attitudinal meaning also
express the meaning of Judgement. Judgement is divided into two broad
categories and five narrow subtypes within these two categories (Martin
& White, 2005). Two broad categories are Social esteem and Social
sanction by reference to social norms or rules.

Social esteem is the region of judgements in which the evaluation of
people‟s conduct is based on social ethics and a standard of appropriateness.
In this region, there are three kinds of judgements: Normality, Capacity and
Tenacity.
Normality is concerned with how unusual someone is. The familiar
words classified in this domain are normal, natural, familiar, lucky, etc.
Capacity is related to how capable someone is. The typical words
classified in this domain are powerful, vigorous, healthy, fit, etc.


13

Tenacity covers how resolute someone is. The specific words
classified in this domain are plucky, reliable, tireless, loyal, etc.
Social sanction is the region of judgements in which the evaluation of
people's conduct is based on legal/religious rules. Unlike those underlying
Social esteem, the rules on which Social sanction is based are usually
codified and written. The rules may be legal or moral, so judgments of
Social sanction turn on questions of legality and morality. This region
comprises judgements of two traits involving Veracity and Propriety.
Veracity covers how truthful someone is. The typical words classified
in this region are truthful, candid, tactful,…
Propriety is concerned with how ethical someone is. The typical words
classified in this region are polite, ethical, law abiding,…
Illustrative realizations for Social esteem and Social sanction are
presented in Table 2.3 below.
Table 2.3. The system of Judgment
(Source: Martin and White, 2005)
Social Esteem


Positive (admire)

Negative (criticize)

Normality

lucky, fortunate, …;

unlucky, hapless,

“How special?”

normal, natural, familiar …;

star-crossed …;

cool, stable, predictable …;

odd, peculiar, eccentric …;

in, fashionable, avant …;

erratic, unpredictable …;

celebrated, unsung …

dated, daggy, …;
obscure, also-ran …

Capacity


powerful, vigorous, …;

mild, weak, whimpy …;

“How capable?”

sound, healthy, fit …;

unsound, sick, crippled …;

adult, mature, …;

immature, childish, …;

witty, humorous, droll …;

dull, dreary, grave …;

insightful, clever, gifted …;

slow, stupid, thick …;


14

Social Esteem

Positive (admire)


Negative (criticize)

balanced, together, sane …;

flaky, neurotic, insane …;

sensible, expert, shrewd …;

naive, inexpert, foolish …;

literate, educated,…;

illiterate, uneducated, …;

successful, productive …

unproductive…;

Tenacity

plucky, brave, heroic …;

timid, cowardly, gutless …;

“How

cautious, wary, patient …;

rash, impatient, …;


dependable?”

persevering, resolute …;

hasty, capricious, reckless …;

reliable, dependable …;

unreliable, undependable …;

flexible, adaptable, …

stubborn, obstinate, wilful …

Social sanction

Positive (praise)

Negative (condemn)

Veracity [truth]

truthful, honest, credible …;

dishonest, deceitful, lying …;

“How honest?”

frank, candid, direct …;


deceptive, devious …;

discrete, tactful …

blunt, blabbermouth …

Propriety

good, moral, ethical …;

bad, immoral, evil …;

[ethics]

law abiding, fair, just …;

corrupt, unfair, unjust …;

“How far beyond

sensitive, kind, caring …;

insensitive, mean, cruel …;

Reproach?”

unassuming, modest, …;

vain, snobby, arrogant …;


polite, reverent …;

rude, irreverent …;

altruistic, charitable …

selfish, greedy, avaricious …

2.1.2.3 Appreciation
Appreciation has a positive and negative dimension, and it is divided
into three variables: Reaction, Composition, and Valuation. Reaction is
related to affection. It is further sub-divided into two systems: impact
(whether the phenomena grab our attention and quality (whether the speaker
likes the phenomena). Composition is related to our view of order. It is further
sub-divided into two systems: balance (whether the phenomena are orderly,
have a sense of balance and connectedness in them) and complexity (whether
the phenomena are easy or difficult to comprehend). Valuation is related to


15

our considered opinions (whether the phenomena are worthwhile).
Appreciation can be illustrated by lexical items mentioned in Table 2.4
Table 2.4 Categories of Appreciation
Appreciation

Positive

Negative


REACTION

arresting, captivating, …;

dull, boring, tedious …;

impact

fascinating, exciting, …;

dry, ascetic, uninviting …;

lively, dramatic, intense …;

flat, predictable, …;

remarkable, sensational …

unremarkable, pedestrian …

okay, fine, good …

bad, yuk, nasty …;

lovely, beautiful, splendid …;

plain, ugly, grotesque …;

appealing, welcome …


repulsive, revolting, …

COMPOSITION

balanced, proportioned …;

unbalanced, flawed …;

balance

consistent, considered, …;

contradictory, …;

„Did it hang together?‟

shapely, curvaceous, …

shapeless, amorphous, …

COMPOSITION

simple, pure, elegant …;

ornate, byzantine …;

Complexity

lucid, clear, precise …;


arcane, unclear, woolly …;

„Was it hard to follow?‟

intricate, rich, detailed, …

plain, monolithic, …

VALUATION

penetrating, profound, …;

shallow, insignificant …;

innovative, original, …;

derivative, prosaic…;

inimitable, unique …;

dime-a-dozen, common;

authentic, real, genuine …;

fake, bogus, glitzy …;

appropriate, helpful, …

ineffective, useless, …


„Did it grab me?‟

REACTION
quality
„Did I like it?‟

„Was it worthwhile?‟

However, from the metafunctional perspective, Reaction of the
Appreciation framework is related to interpersonal significance, Composition
to the textual organization and Valuation to ideational value (Martin & White,
2005: 57). Table 2.5 summarizes this relation: