Evaluative Meanings and Disciplinary Values - eTheses Repository ...

evaluation (Martin & Rose, 2007, p. 28; White, 2004). These basic distinctions are
represented in simple diagrammatic form in Figure 8.1 below.
Appreciation
Affect
Judgment
Figure 8.1. Attitude: How people see things
This chapter thus discusses the similarities and differences in three types of attitude
meanings expressed by the pattern A DJ PR EP N in two corpora representing the RAs of
applied linguistics and business studies respectively. My analysis of the meanings expressed
by the variant forms of this pattern will propose that there are nine semantic groups that
express attitude in ALC and BC. These will then be allocated into each sub-system (viz.
judgment, affect, appreciation) based on their evaluating meanings. 37 We will see that
Judgment includes the semantic groups BIAS, USEFULNESS, IMPORTANCE and CERTAINTY; Affect
includes OPTIMISM, ENTHUSIASM and NERVOUSNESS; and Appreciation includes SKILFULNESS
and WISDOM. After discussing judgment in section 8.1, section 8.2 will deal with affect.
Section 8.3 will finally treat appreciation.
8.1. Judgment
This section presents how differently academic writers in applied linguistics and business
studies express their judgment of things through the pattern A DJ PR EP N in academic
discourse.
People often express their assessment of a behaviour, a thing or a problem based on
cultural, social or communal norms in academic discourse. Things are basically assessed as to
whether they are good or bad or positive or negative, because all various values in
judgment (e.g. significant or insignificant, clear or unclear, appropriate or inappropriate)
are simply based on these essential values (cf. Thompson & Hunston, 2000; White, 2004).
Judgmental values are more likely to be realized through adjective choice (e.g. important,
37 For instance, I like this movie can be interpreted as judgment, affect and appreciation depending on speakers attitude of
mind in appraisal, whereas it would be allocated into affect in the framework of current study. This is because the current
study prioritizes the literal meanings (of adjectives) for their allocation into each sub-system.
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