THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES VÕ NGUYỄN THÙY TRANG A STUDY OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: AN APPRAISAL APPROACH DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES Da Nang - 2023 THE UNIVERSITY OF DA NANG UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES VÕ NGUYỄN THÙY TRANG A STUDY OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC NEWSPAPER ARTICLES: AN APPRAISAL APPROACH DOCTORAL THESIS IN SOCIAL SCIENCE AND HUMANITIES Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS Code: 92. NGUYEN VAN LONG Da Nang - 2023 i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person‘s work has been used without due acknowledgements in the thesis. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institution.
Da Nang, November 2023 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The journey to the doctorate has not been as seamless as one might anticipate. There have been twists and turns as well as unforeseen obstacles. This journey has left me sweating, and at times, it has brought me to the brink of despair. However, with the greatest support, I have completed my doctoral thesis, and had a unique and enjoyable experience in its substance.
To those who supported me completing this thesis, I would like to send my heartfelt thanks and appreciation. The mission would not have been accomplished without their encouragement, orientation, and support. First, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Nguyen Van Long, for he is really patient, knowledgeable, and supportive during my entire research process.
His informative comments, constructive critiques, and strong encouragement have been crucial in molding this thesis. Furthermore, I sincerely thank the members of my thesis committees. There were several periodic committees to evaluate the progress and quality of my thesis, even the seminar section was held online due to the social distancing during the Covid-19. Despite unexpected difficulties, the committee members spent hours giving suggestions for the improvement of the thesis.
Therefore, I would like to thank them for their thoughtful suggestions, and constructive comments. Their insights and scholarly advice have greatly enhanced the level of scholarship and accuracy of this thesis. In addition, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my peers and colleagues for their support, encouragement, and provocative discussions during the production of this thesis. This academic adventure has been more memorable and pleasurable because of their friendship and shared experiences.
Last, I must give special thanks to my family for their assistance, encouragement, and unconditional support. Their belief in my abilities, and their tolerance for my mood swings have motivated throughout my academic pursuits. iii ABSTRACT The study aims at investigating and analyzing the use of evaluative language – Attitude and Graduation in English economic opinion articles (EEOAs) and Vietnamese ones (VEOAs) in the light of Appraisal Theory by Martin and White (2005). To conduct the study, from the discourse semantics approach, the descriptive research was adopted, seeking the qualitative and quantitative information to the three research questions on examining semantic features and lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation in EEOAs and VEOAs as well as comparing the similarities and differences in terms of semantic features and lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation between EEOAs and VEOAs.
The data collection included 50 EEOAs and 50 VEOAs. Semantically, based on the Appraisal framework (Martin & White, 2005), the findings revealed that all subtypes of Attitude including Appreciation, Judgement and Affect were realized in EEOAs and VEOAs. In both EEOAs and VEOAs, Judgement resources accounted for the highest proportion, followed by Appreciation resources while Affect just made up a relatively small percentage. There was a tendency that writers deployed a little bit more implicit Attitude resources than explicit ones in both EEOAs and VEOAs despite the different proportions in the subtypes of Attitude in two languages and this reflected the nature of economic opinion articles.
In terms of polarity of Attitude, most Attitude resources referred to more positive meanings than negative meanings due to the qualities of evaluated entities and the communicating purposes of the writers. Regarding Graduation, a semantic system of Force including Intensification and Quantification was realized, and the finding showed that more Quantification resources were used properly to up-grade or down-grade the appraised categories. In terms of lexicogrammatical realizations, explicit Attitude was grammatically realized in different functions via main forms of lexico like Verb phrases, and Adjectives while implicit Attitude was realized via Afford and Flagged. Isolated-lexemes, semantic- infusion and repetition are key means of Graduation realizations.
On the basis of the findings, several implications and suggestions on related fields were put forward. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS.
ix LIST OF FIGURES. xi LIST OF TABLES. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES. SCOPE OF THE STUDY.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE DISSERTATION. 10LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES.
Appraisal on Media texts. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS. APPRAISAL IN DISCOURSE SEMANTICS. Explicitness of Attitude.
Lexicogrammatical realizations of Attitude and Graduation. SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL LINGUISTICS DESCRIPTION OF VIETNAMESE. APPRAISAL RESOURCES IN VIETNAMESE. Resources for expressing Attitude.
Resources for expressing Graduation. AN OVERVIEW OF ECONOMIC DISCOURSES. Economics as discourse. Language of economic discourses.
ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES AND LANGUAGE OF OPINION ARTICLES. Opinion articles and economic opinion articles. Language of opinion articles. Descriptive qualitative method.
Description of Sampling. Annotating Attitude and Graduation. Agreement between annotations. Source of data.
Procedures of data analysis. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY. ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. THE DEPLOYMENT OF ATTITUDE RESOURCES IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES.
The proportions of Attitude resources in EEOAs. Semantic features of Attitude in EEOAs. Realizations of Attitude in EEOAs. Discussion on the deployment of Attitude in EEOAs.
Summary of the deployment of Attitude in EEOAs. THE DEPLOYMENT OF GRADUATION IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. Semantic features of Graduation in EEOAs. The realizations of Graduation in EEOAs.
Discussion on the deployment of Force as Graduation in EEOAs. Summary of the deployment of Force in EEOAs. ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. THE DEPLOYMENT OF ATTITUDE RESOURCES IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES.
The proportions of Attitude types in VEOAs. Semantic features of Attitude in VEOAs. Realizations of Attitude in VEOAs. Discussion on the the deployment of Attitude in VEOAs.
Summary of the deployment of Attitude in VEOAs. THE DEPLOYMENT OF GRADUATION IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. Semantic features of Graduation in VEOAs. The realizations of Graduation in VEOAs.
Discussion on the deployment of Force as Graduation in EEOAs. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF ATTITUDE AND GRADUATION BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF ATTITUDE DEPLOYMENT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. A comparison of semantic features of Attitude in EEOAs and VEOAs.
A comparison of realizations of Attitude in EEOAs and VEOAs. SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES OF GRADUATION DEPLOYMENT IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC OPINION ARTICLES. Summary of the subject matter under research. Summary of key findings.
SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 234 APPENDIX ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS Adj. Adjective phrase Adv. English economic opinion articles E.
Noun phrase No. Preposition phrase Pro .Research Question SFL. Systemic Functional Linguistics Spec. Verb phrase x VEOAs.
Vietnamese economic opinion articles -ve. Total xi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. The language stratification and meta-functions. Judgement and Appreciation as institutionalized Affect.
Types of Affect. Types of Judgment. Types of Appreciation. Graduation system (Martin & White, 2005, p.
Theoretical framework for the thesis. Analytical Framework for the study. Distribution of Attitude subtypes in EEOAs. Distribution of Explicitness of Attitude in EEOAs.
Distribution of Attitude Polarity in EEOAs. Distribution of positive and negative Affect subtypes. Distribution of explicit and implicit Affect subtypes. Distribution of positive and negative Appreciation subtypes.
Distribution of explicit and implicit Appreciation subtypes. Distribution of positive and negative Judgement subtypes. Distribution of explicit and implicit Judgement subtypes. Distribution of Graduation in EEOAs.
Realizations of Intensification in EEOAs. The proportions of realization strategies of Quantification in EEOAs. Distribution of Attitude subtypes in VEOAs. Distribution of Explicitness of Attitude in VEOAs.
Distribution of Attitude Polarity in VEOAs. Distribution of positive and negative Affect subtypes. Distribution of explicit and implicit Affect subtypes. Distribution of positive and negative Appreciation subtypes.
Distribution of explicit and implicit Appreciation subtypes. Distribution of positive and negative Judgement subtypes. Distribution of explicit and implicit Judgement subtypes. Distribution of Graduation in VEOAs.
Realizations of Intensification in VEOAs. The proportions of realization strategies of Quantification in VEOAs. Distribution of Attitude subtypes in EEOAs and VEOAs. 214 xiii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.
Examples of types of Affect. Examples of types of Judgment. Examples of types of Appreciation. Points of Differences between Judgment and Appreciation.
Clauses of Clearing Differences. The gradability of attitudinal meanings. A cline of options for classifying implicit Attitude. Distribution of Attitude in EEOAs.
Distribution of Attitude subtypes in EEOAs. Examples of explicit Affect in EEOAs. Examples of explicit Appreciation in EEOAs. Examples of explicit Judgement in EEOAs.
Frequency of occurrence of lexical sources denoting explicit Attitude. Lexical instantiations of explicit Affect in EEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Affect in EEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly negative Affect in EEOAs.
Lexical instantiations of explicit Judgement in EEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Judgement in EEOAs 115 Table 4. Grammatical realizations of negative Judgement in EEOAs. Lexical instantiations of explicit Appreciation in EEOAs.
Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Appreciation in EEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly negative Appreciation in EEOAs. Realizations of Provoked Attitude in EEOAs. Realizations of Flagged Attitude in the EEOAs.
Realizations of Afforded Attitude in EEOAs. Distribution of Graduation in EEOAs. Grammatical items realizing Intensification in EEOAs. Realizations of Intensification of Quality via grammatical items in EEOAs.
Lexical items realizing Intensification of Quality in EEOAs. Realizations of Intensification of Quality via lexical items in EEOAs. Semantic Infusion realizing Intensification of Quality in EEOAs. Realizations of Intensification of Quality via Semantic Infusion in EEOAs.
Realizations of Intensification of Quality via Repetition in EEOAs. Grammatical items realizing Quantification of Number in EEOAs. Realizations of Quantification of Number via grammatical items in EEOAs. Lexical items realizing Quantification of Number in EEOAs.
Realizations of Quantification of Number via lexical items in EEOAs 146 Table 4. Realizations of Quantification of Number via Semantic Infusion in EEOAs. Realizations of Quantification of Number via Repetition in EEOAs. Distribution of Attitude in VEOAs.
Distribution of Attitude subtypes in VEOAs. Examples of explicit Affect in VEOAs. Examples of explicit Appreciation in VEOAs. Examples of explicit Judgement in EEOAs.
Frequency of occurrence of lexical sources denoting explicit Attitude. Lexical instantiations of explicit Affect in VEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Affect in VEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly negative Affect in VEOAs.
Lexical instantiations of explicit Judgement in VEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Judgement in VEOAs 180 Table 5. Grammatical realizations of negative Judgement in VEOAs. Lexical instantiations of explicit Appreciation in VEOAs.
Grammatical realizations of explicitly positive Appreciation in VEOAs. Grammatical realizations of explicitly negative Appreciation in VEOAs. Realizations of Provoked Attitude in VEOAs .