Lingua inglese scienze politiche

Session 2

Evaluation Speakers and writers employ it to convince an audience of what should be seen as right and

proper and what not.It can reflect and even impose, overtly or

covertly, a value system.

Evaluation

• Evaluation is the engine of persuasion. • Persuading with language

Evaluation is…

“the indication that something is good or bad” (from the point of view of the speaker/writer)

Hunston 2004: 157

Sometimes different terms are used e.g.Stance, attitude, opinion, appraisal

Text work

• We will be analysing texts in class on a regular basis here is the first example:

• Working in pairs, look at the headline and the first paragraph or first group of sentences.

• Can you identify words or phrases that seem to you to be evaluative

• (i.e they express a stance or a subjective attitude)

Evaluation as persuasion

The persuader uses evaluative language to convince his or her audience that their own opinions are good, alternative ones are not good, that their proposals are worthy and logical (that is, good), those of their opponents illogical or dangerous (that is, bad), that they themselves are honest and trustworthy (good) and maybe that others who disagree with them are not (bad).

Phylogenetically

• In evolutionary terms, it is of extreme importance for an organism to judge whether an incoming stimulus, a change in its environment, is likely to bode well or ill (and of course how well or ill) because such evaluations are the basis for action, for the decision whether to flee or fight.

First impressions

• Indifference can set in at a later moment, but the initial process of evaluation is bi-dimensional: is it dangerous? (yes = bad, no = good); can I eat it? (yes = good, no = bad).

• After an initial evaluation this can set in as a a set of values (like/dislike) from repeated experience

• signalling one’s evaluations has two major functions.

• First of all, it expresses group belonging by (seemingly) offering a potential service to the group by warning of bad things and advertising good ones.

• Moreover, it can assure an audience that the speaker/writer shares its same value system. In this way it helps ‘to construct and maintain relations between the speaker or writer and hearer or reader’ (Thompson and Hunston 2000: 6

• The goodness and the badness can, of course, come in many forms, we can use a two-term Linnaean-style binomial notation in describing prosodies, for example:

• [good: pleasurable], [good: profitable], [good: being in control]; [bad: dangerous], [bad: difficult], where the colon is to be read ‘because’.

Functions of evaluation

1. To express the speaker/writer’s opinion and in so doing to reflect the value system of that person and their community

2. To construct and maintain relations between speaker/writer and hearer/reader (interpersonal)

3. To organise the discourse (textual)

Overt or Covert Evaluation?

Covert Evaluation

evaluation can be implicit or ‘conceptual’, with no obvious linguistic clues, exploiting the audience’s ability to recognize a good – or bad – thing when they see it.

No linguistic cluesGoal orientatedBased on what we recognize to be desirable

Overt Evaluation

• Lexical• Grammatical• Discourse /Textual

Evaluation

• Lexical– Adjectives: splendid, terrible, surprising…– Adverbs: happily, unfortunately, plainly…– Nouns: success, failure, tragedy…– Verbs: succeed, fail, win, lose…

Evaluation

• Grammatical e.g.– Superlatives: the best, the worst…Comparatives: better,

worse …– Choice of tense:• “Skinner (1957) argued that language was learned through a

process of stimulus-response, with large amounts o f controlled repetition. Chomsky (1959) argues that language could never be learned in this way, and that we are all endowed at birth with a language acquisition device”

(From Batstone, 1994)

– the thematised it structure (it is frightening to think that…)

Grammatical and textual

• Transitivity, which tells us who does what to whom largely by placing participants in a particular order and thus assigning responsibility – and often blame - for an action, can generally be seen as combining grammatical and textual evaluation.

Evaluation

Discourse / Textual

John argued with SueSue argued with JohnJohn and Sue argued

The words in red are themes

Evaluation

• Discourse / TextualIn newspaper editorials the most importantevaluation is placed at the end.

Denotation and Connotation

obstinate, stubborn, firm, decisive, resolute, pig-headed

Same basic meaning – denotation – different connotations

Note: Our choice of word is also an evaluation

Assumptions and evaluations• [1] My husband runs his own business and is a workaholic.• [2] Last year he kept putting off our plans for a break and I got

so fed up I went away with four friends.• [3] We had a great time, even though I missed him.• [4] I want a holiday for just us this year but he keeps saying

that I’d probably have a better time if I went with them.• [5] How can I get him to see I’d rather go with him?

Schemata and scripts• [1] My husband runs his own business and is a workaholic.• [2] Last year he kept putting off our plans for a break and I got

so fed up I went away with four friends.• [3] We had a great time, even though I missed him.• [4] I want a holiday for just us this year but he keeps saying

that I’d probably have a better time if I went with them.• [5] How can I get him to see I’d rather go with him?

Woman’s personal evaluation

• She likes holidays.

• She disapproves of her husband’s reluctance to spend them with her.

Ideological Assumptions

• taking holidays is normal• continuous work is not• couples are expected to take their holidays together• other arrangements are acceptable only in extreme

circumstances• plans of both members should be taken into consideration

• NB the writer has to reassure readers she is normal.

We had a great time, even though I missed him.

NB

• We are looking mostly at linguistic evaluation. There are many other ways of evaluating or triggering evaluations which are not verbal

• E.g. the use of photographs or other images, • juxtaposition,• taking things out of context

Further lessons

• We will be looking at how evaluation can be upscaled or downscaled (intensified or mitigated, toned down)

• And we will look at some texts which usually contain evaluation e.g. headlines and editorials and op-eds

Essential reading

• Hunston, S. and G. 2000 Thompson. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. OUP pp 6-20

Extra reading

Appraisal website Appraisal and engagement.http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/textSpecial/martin-intro.pdf