Systemic Functional Linguistics # * Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics, among functional linguistics, that considers language as a social semiotic system. It was devised by Michael Halliday, who took the notion of system from J. R. Firth, hi ...

(SFL), appraisal refers to the ways that writers or speakers express approval or disapproval for things, people, behaviour or ideas. Language users build relationships with their interlocutors by expressing such positions. In other approaches in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

(including

linguistic anthropology Linguistic anthropology is the interdisciplinary study of how language influences social life. It is a branch of anthropology that originated from the endeavor to document endangered languages and has grown over the past century to encompass mos ...

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any or all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and society's effect on language. It can overlap with the sociology of ...

corpus linguistics Corpus linguistics is the study of a language as that language is expressed in its text corpus (plural ''corpora''), its body of "real world" text. Corpus linguistics proposes that a reliable analysis of a language is more feasible with corpora ...

), alternative terms such as evaluation or

stance Stance may refer to: Sports *Stance (American football), the position an American football player adopts when a play begins * Stance (martial arts), the distribution, foot orientation and body positions adopted when attacking, defending, advancin ...

are preferred.

J.R. Martin James Robert Martin (born 1950) is a Canadian linguist. He is Professor of Linguistics (Personal Chair) at The University of Sydney. He is the leading figure in the ' Sydney School' of systemic functional linguistics. Martin is well known for his ...

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. However, there is debate about the different sub-systems that should be recognised, and various researchers have since suggested modifications of the initial description. The analysis of appraisal has also become influential outside Systemic Functional Linguistics, in various types of discourse analysis.

References

Discourse analysis Evaluation Systemic functional linguistics {{sociolinguistics-stub