Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature

Bc. Radoslava Pekarov

Evaluative Language in Journalistic

Discourse
Masters Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph. D.

2011

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

..
Authors signature

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank to my supervisor Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D., for his guidance, valuable
advice and resources he provided me with.

Table of Contents
1.

Introduction ............................................................................................................... 5

2.

Evaluation in journalistic discourse .......................................................................... 8

2.1

Galtung and Ruges (1965) criteria of newsworthiness ................................... 10

3.

Methods and procedures ......................................................................................... 23

4.

The Appraisal Theory ............................................................................................. 27

4.1

Classification of appraisal ................................................................................ 30

4.2

Analysis ............................................................................................................ 45

4.2.1

4.2.1.1

Affect expressing our feelings ........................................................ 46

4.2.1.2

Judgement .......................................................................................... 48

4.2.1.3

Appreciating things ........................................................................... 54

4.2.2

5.

Amplifying attitudes ................................................................................. 57

4.2.2.1

Amplifying the force of attitudes ...................................................... 57

4.2.2.2

Sharpening and softening focus......................................................... 63

4.2.3

4.3

Attitude ..................................................................................................... 45

Sources of attitudes ................................................................................... 65

4.2.3.1

Projecting sources .............................................................................. 66

4.2.3.2

Modality ............................................................................................ 71

4.2.3.3

Concession ......................................................................................... 74

Discussion ........................................................................................................ 76

Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 83

Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 86
Summary ......................................................................................................................... 92
Resum............................................................................................................................ 94
Appendix ......................................................................................................................... 96

1. Introduction
The thesis focuses on journalistic discourse, namely on evaluative features of
journalistic discourse. It draws on Fowlers (1991) view who challenges the medias
claims of their impartiality. To start with, if we consider the articles which occur in the
newspapers thousands of events occur every day, however, only few of them reach the
reader: the newsworthy events must be picked from those which are regarded as not
interesting for the readers of the newspapers, and thus here in the very beginning of
writing an article evaluation begins. This topic is discussed in the chapter devoted to
Galtung and Ruges factors which explain on what basis certain topics are more relevant
than others and thus picked to be published.
The hypothesis of this work is that quality newspapers use such language means
which are evaluative. The research of the thesis was focused on this aspect of
newspapers language employing the appraisal framework which is an approach which
enables to explore, describe and explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt
stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and
relationships (White 2005). By means of this approach it is possible to identify
attitudes, judgements and emotive responses that are explicitly presented in texts as
well as those which are indirectly implied, presupposed or assumed (White 2005).
This approach is thus suitable for the thesis as its aim is to look at journalistic discourse
and find out whether and to what extent journalists use evaluative language.
All in all, it is explained here that not only are the newspapers evaluative, but
they are necessarily evaluative: the evaluation occurs from the beginning of the process
of news production and the news is not a summary of facts as several people with
different interests infer with the process and influence what goes to the newspapers, in
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which form and wording. This is discussed in the second chapter which shows that the
same event can be depicted in a different manner with a different amount and type of
evaluative expressions.
The second chapter provides an introduction to journalistic discourse which is
further analysed. There is described a process of news production it is displayed here
that a report of an event is by no means a presentation of facts collected by a journalist.
It is rather a cooperation of a team of persons involved in the process. It explains why
some news is preferred than another on the basis of Galtung and Ruges (1965) and
Harcup and ONeills (2001) criteria. Further, there are explained roles of the people
who participate in the news production creating the final result that is given to the
reader.
The next chapter presents the material that was analysed for the purposes of the
thesis: the research for the thesis contains an analysis of the usage of language of the
chosen quality newspapers, namely of the online versions of the Guardian, the
Independent and the Telegraph. The methods and procedures that were employed in the
theses and in the research for the thesis are described here. This part further contains a
list of the articles on which appraisal was applied and provides a total number of words
and of the individual articles that were analysed.
The fourth chapter introduces the main part of the thesis the appraisal network.
There are presented two versions of appraisal, as for the purposes of the thesis a
simplistic one (described by Martin and Rose 2007) was more suitable, however, the
other, a complex one is generally applied in all studies I came across when looking for
some additional materials concerning appraisal and its application. The two frameworks
are briefly compared. On the basis of this comparison is shown that the simplistic
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version can be applied as well acquiring the same results with a lesser emphasis on the
categorisation. The analysis as such begins from the section 4.2 providing definitions of
the individual categories of appraisal together with examples and further explanations
showing that evaluative stances occur in articles of the quality press and how appraisal
is employed by them.
The occurrences of appraisal in the examined articles were counted and the
results are presented in the chapter 5 including a commentary concerning their
significance for the thesis. In this chapter some problematic areas encountered in the
course of the analysis are also pointed out.

2. Evaluation in journalistic discourse

In this section the process of news production is discussed. Although the
emphasis is put on the products of this process in the thesis, it is necessary to realise that
evaluation is not only present in the articles we read, but rather it is an inherent part of
newspapers as such and thus evaluation that occurs in the newspapers is rather a
consequence of the process which is described below.
Journalistic discourse has earned substantial attention from the part of linguists.
Bell (1995) provides four reasons for the attention paid to journalistic discourse, First,
the media provide an easily accessible source of language data for research and teaching
purposes. Second, the media are important linguistic institutions. Their output makes up
a large proportion of the language that people hear and read every day. Media usage
reflects and shapes both language use and attitudes in a speech community. For second
language learners, the media may function as the primary or even the sole source of
native-speaker models. Third, the ways in which the media use language are interesting
linguistically in their own right; these include how different dialects and languages are
used by different segments of media to construct their own images and their
relationships to an unseen, unknown audience. Fourth, the media are important social
institutions. They are crucial presenters of culture, politics, and social life, shaping as
well as reflecting how these are formed and expressed (23). Various products of media
are indeed all around us and touch perhaps every sphere of our life and as Bell (1995)
maintains they influence our views. Journalistic products are all around us whether they
are spread via radio, TV, the Internet or printed newspapers. Additionally, scarcely can
anyone remain untouched by them as topics covered by the media include all areas of
our life: for example, they talk about what we eat (e.g. German dioxin scare spreads to
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meat, Telegraph), what we do in our free time (e.g. Protests in Egypt and unrest in
Middle East as it happened, Guardian), about our work and how much we get paid
whether to expect increases in incomes or on the other hand, reductions in working
places (Businesses divided over UK minimum wage increase, Telegraph;
Unexpected rise in UK unemployment, Guardian, 16 February 2011) and so on.
Newspapers thus obviously influence their readers since on the basis of what they
publish the readers can decide that they will not eat certain meat or they will not spend
their holiday in Egypt. The fact that they have a substantial influence is confirmed by
the Resolution 1003 on the ethics of journalism which says that ...information and
communication play a very important role in the formation of citizens' personal attitudes
and the development of society and democratic life (Parliamentary Assembly, Council
of Europe 1993) with the media playing the role of a mediator, providing an
information service (Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe 1993). Furthermore,
according to this document journalism should not alter truthful, impartial information
or honest opinions, or exploit them for media purposes, in an attempt to create or shape
public opinion. Fowler (1991) says that this is indeed what journalists in general claim,
i.e. that he or she collects facts, reports them objectively, and the newspaper presents
them fairly and without bias, in language which is designed to be unambiguous,
undistorting and agreeable to readers. This professional ethos is common to all the news
media (Fowler 1991: 1). However, what we encounter in actual articles is not
impartial report of news: they skillfully work with facts and create an article that is
subsequently offered to the readers as Fowler says that newspapers language is not
neutral but on the contrary, it is a highly constructive mediator (1991: 1).

2.1 Galtung and Ruges (1965) criteria of

newsworthiness
The evaluation from the part of the newspapers is present from the very
beginning of the process of writing an article. From all of the events that happen every
day must be chosen those ones which will be reported and published. Galtung and Ruge
(1965) summarized criteria of newsworthiness which were later revised by Harcup and
ONeill (2001). These are shown in Table 3 below, criteria by Galtung and Ruge (1965)
being shown in the left column, those ones by Harcup and ONeill (2001) in the right
column.
Table 1 Criteria of newsworthiness as established by Galtung and Ruge (1965) in the left column and revised
by Harcup and O'Neill (2001) in the right column

F1 Frequency
F2 Threshold
F2.1 Absolute intensity
F2.2 Intensity increase
F3 Unambiguity
F4 Meaningfulness
F4.1 Cultural proximity
F4.2 Relevance
F5 Consonance
F5.1 Predictability
F5.2 Demand
F6 Unexpectedness
F6.1 Unpredictability
F6.2 Scarcity
F7 Continuity
F8 Composition
F9 Reference to elite nations
F10 Reference to elite people
F11 Reference to persons
F12 Reference to something
negative

1. The power elite

2. Celebrity
3. Entertainment
a) picture opportunities
b) reference to sex
c) reference to animals
d) humour
e) showbiz/ TV
4. Surprise
5. Bad news
6. Good news
7. Magnitude
8. Relevance
9. Follow-up
10. Newspaper agenda

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By frequency Galtung and Ruge (1965: 66) mean the time-span needed for the
event to unfold itself and acquire meaning compared to the frequency of the relevant
news medium. They exemplified this by a murder: it happens on one day and it is
possible to report it on the other day which is in accordance with frequency in which
newspapers are published, i.e. daily. On the contrary, when during a war hundreds of
people die to single out one murder ... would make little sense - one will typically only
record the battle as such... (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 66).
The second criterion, says that an event needs to pass a certain threshold to be
recorded, i.e. the event has to have certain intensity and the greater the intensity is, the
greater the opportunity for the event to be reported, or as Galtung and Ruge (1965: 66)
put it, the more violent the murder the bigger the headlines it will make.
The criterion of unambiguity provides that the less ambiguity the more the
event will be noticed (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 66) which does not, however, imply
that simple events rather than complex ones are preferred. It means that an event which
can be clearly and unambiguously interpreted is more likely to be reported than the ones
which are confusing and allow for more interpretations.
Meaningfulness covers two dimensions cultural proximity and relevance.
Cultural proximity says that the receiver will pay particular attention to the familiar, to
the culturally similar (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 67) and leaves out what is not
culturally close to him/ her or what he/ she is not familiar with. For example, the
Slovaks get more excited about the news concerning the upcoming championship in ice
hockey held in Slovakia than the Czechs. Relevance provides that even if an event
concerns a culturally distant place, it may become interesting for the reader if it
contains some information with culturally familiar content, e.g. presence of a nations
member at some natural disaster in a foreign and culturally distant country.

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Under the criterion of consonance is meant a situation when a person expects,

with meaning of the verb expect to be predict or even want, something to happen.
When the development of the situation is divergent from these expectations, it will not
be registered, according to this hypothesis of consonance (Galtung and Ruge 1965:
67).
The sixth criterion points out that within the criteria of culturally meaningful and
consonant with what is expected the more unexpected the event is, the greater the
chance to be reported. It includes an event which is either rare or unpredictable.
Continuity is the seventh criterion which says that once an event became news, it
remains in the attention for some time although its amplitude is drastically reduced
(Galtung and Ruge 1965: 67). This is because it has become familiar and easy to
interpret (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 263).
The starting point for the criterion of composition is that a person responsible for
the content of the reported news tries to achieve a balanced composition. Consequently
when happens that the responsible person receives many pieces of news from abroad
and only a few of them from home which are additionally less important, the threshold
value will be lowered for the domestic news and which makes it to the headlines. Thus a
balanced composition will be preserved.
According to the ninth and tenth criteria, reference to elite nations and reference
to elite people, events with such connection are more likely to be reported because the
actions of the elite are, at least usually and in short-term perspective, more
consequential than the activities of others: this applies to elite nations as well as to elite
people (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 68).
The criterion of reference to persons speaks about the tendency of the media to
connect a certain piece of news with a concrete person or a group of persons who is/ are

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explicitly named which enables identification of the reader with the person depicted in
the news.
Finally, reference to negative provides that negative news will be preferred to
positive news (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 69). This is due to the several reasons: it fulfils
the criterion of frequency as the negative is much easier and takes shorter time than the
positive (e.g. it takes shorter time for a house to be burnt by fire than to build it) and
thus a negative event can more easily unfold itself completely between two issues of a
newspaper and two newscast transmission (Galtung and Ruge 1965: 69); negative news
is considered as consensual and unambiguous and is seen as more unexpected than
positive news.
Harcup and ONeill (2001) question the validity of the criteria by Galtung and
Ruge (1965) and provide their own set of news values which are listed in Table 3 above.
I, however, assume that they are not that novel as is claimed by Harcup and ONeill
(2001) for the category of the power elite and of the celebrity which includes elite
people as well as institutions and organisations could be subsumed under F9 and F10
reference to elite nations and elite people; surprise under F6 unexpectedness; bad news
under F12 reference to something negative; magnitude under F2 threshold; and
relevance under F4 meaningfulness; follow-up under F7 continuity. The only categories
not mentioned by Galtung and Ruge (1965) and introduced by Harcup and ONeill
(2001) are the category of entertainment, of good news and of newspaper agenda. The
group termed as Entertainment consists of 5 subgroups: picture opportunities, reference
to sex, reference to animals, humour, showbiz/TV. The showbiz/TV covers stories
about TV stars particularly those featured in soap operas and docusoup (Harcup and
ONeill 2001: 275). This description can be easily subsumed under Galtung and Ruges
(1965) factor F10 Reference to elite people despite the fact that Harcup and ONeill

13

(2001) object this factor asking how this category can be useful when it does not
distinguish between the President of the USA and Spice Girls. However, the point of the
category is that it expresses that known or famous people are interesting for the press
and their readers. Whether one creates two categories for these persons or not, the result
is still the same: they are identified in both cases (i.e. when Galtung and Ruges or
Harcup and ONeills criteria are applied) as news values. The subcategory called
picture opportunities says that If a story provided a good picture opportunity then it
was often included even when there was little obvious intrinsic newsworthiness. When
combined with a top celebrity or a royal, the combination seemed to almost guarantee
inclusion (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 274). Concerning the remaining subgroups of
entertainment reference to sex, reference to animals and humour, Harcup and ONeill
(2001) conducted their research solely on tabloid press and compiled their set of criteria
on the basis of their results, thus I do not assume these three are applicable on quality
newspapers.
Two remaining categories of newsworthiness to be discussed are good news and
newspaper agenda. The former is defined as stories with particularly positive overtones
such as rescues and cures (Harcup and ONeill 2001: 279). In the latter are included
stories that set or fit the news organisations own agenda (Harcup and ONeill 2001:
279).
To sum up, the criteria of newsworthiness were listed and defined above.
Galtung and Ruge (1965) and Harcup and ONeill (2001) maintain that the more criteria
are fulfilled by an event, the more likely is that the news will be published.
Fowler (1991) also holds that news is not simply about reporting facts and
speaks about some artificial criteria for the events to be picked and published: news
is socially constructed. What events are reported is not a reflection of the intrinsic

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importance of those events, but reveals the operation of a complex and artificial set of
criteria for selection (2).
When the topic is chosen, the evaluation of the event continues: it needs to be
decided whether it is suitable to put it to the front page or not, and further, how much
space it will be awarded as the news that has been thus selected is subject to processes
of transformation as it is encoded for publication; the technical properties of the
medium television or newsprint, for example and the ways in which they are used,
are strongly effective in this transformation (Fowler 1991: 2). First of all, when
comparing the front pages of the online versions of the Guardian, Independent and the
Telegraph from 11 April 2011, we discover that scarcely is any of the leading news
identical in all three newspapers. (The print screens of the front pages of the websites of
the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph are provided in the appendix.)
Table 2 Leading news by the Guardian, 11 April 2011

The Guardian
1. Brown's hacking inquiry halted by civil service
2. Scholars outrage at Manning torture
3. Clegg ally threatens to quit over NHS
4. Zuma: Gaddafi accepts path to peace
5. UN and France attack Gbagbo base
6. Masters 2011: Schwartzels late charge seals the green jacket
7. Kroenke to take control of Arsenal
8. Aston Villa 1-0 Newcastle United
Table 3 Leading news by the Independent, 11 April 2011

The Independent
1. Britain's nuclear timebomb: Government's doomed 6bn plan
to dispose of nuclear waste
2. Nothing like a quiet weekend at the beach
3. Desperate search for food as Gbagbo fights on
4. Incendiary devices: Books as bombs
5. Payouts over NOTW phone hacking could reach 40m
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Table 4 Leading news by the Telegraph, 11 April 2011

The Telegraph
1. Gordon Brown: I made a big mistake on banks
2. HMS Astute shooting: Able seaman charged
3. Libya: Kol Gaddafi accepts road map to peace
4. 100 victims of phone hacking
5. Obama plans health cuts
6. Schwartzel wins masters
Only one of the topics (i.e. the one discussing phone hacking) is common to all
three newspapers, further one other topic covered by the Independent (the one covering
Gbagbo although the headlines cover the event from the differing viewpoints, it is
understood that a situation around Gbagbo, the ex-president of the Ivory coast, is
reported) and two topics covered by the Telegraph (headlines concerning Gaddafi and
Schwartzel winning the Masters) are also published by the Guardian. The criteria of
newsworthiness provided above are obviously not employed in the same manner by the
individual newspapers. Thus even here the evaluation which of the criteria is more
newsworthy for the relevant newspaper occurs.
Further, when a topic is chosen it needs to be decided how long it will be or
which information and how much of the information available will be used in the
article. If we look at Table 2 numbers of words of the individual articles are stated in the
brackets. Although the Guardian shows the tendency to produce articles longer than the
remaining newspapers reaching the highest number of words used in the articles in total,
Table 2 reveals that some of the topics were less relevant for the Guardian: in three
cases out of 15 the Guardian produced shorter articles than the remaining analysed
newspapers. Obviously, even if a newspaper evaluates some topic as newsworthy, it is
still further re-examined how much space is desirable to provide for that particular piece
of news.
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As the sample contains articles covering a particular event by all three analysed
newspapers, it enabled me to compare the approach employed by the newspapers
toward an event and see how information concerning a topic is handled by the
newspapers. The most outstanding differences as regards to the amount of information
provided by the newspapers were observed with the articles covering the death of Ian
Tomlinson during the protest against G20 meeting (topic no. 3) where numbers of
words in the individual articles are as follows: the Guardian 1218, the Independent
885, the Telegraph 602. It should be noted that the high amount of words used in the
article does not automatically mean that the newspapers also present a high amount of
relevant or new information. This was observed with the articles dealing with the
criminal Raoul Moat in which the highest number of words occurred in the article by
the Telegraph (1942), the lowest in the Guardian (984). The Telegraph included in the
article a plenty of direct quotations by several people who were nearby the place where
the event happened and mentioning how the people felt or that they heard something at
the back door implying thus that the criminal Raoul Moat could have possibly been
close to them. But else the information concerning the case offered by the Telegraph
was similar.
The situation is, however, different with the death of Ian Tomlinson who was
coincidently caught up in the G20 riots in London and hit to the ground by a police
officer. Mr. Tomlinson managed to walk away several metres but then collapsed and
died. The first statement by the police supported by a post-mortem claimed that Mr.
Tomlinson died of heart attack. However, the Guardian was delivered a footage
showing the police officer striking Tomlinson down. Subsequently another two postmortems were conducted which said Mr. Tomlinson died of severe head injury. Despite

17

the footage and the last post-mortems a criminal prosecution could not be commenced
due to the time that had elapsed and the conflict between the post-mortems.
The newspapers treated the event differently and not only in length but also in
the content. The Guardian devoted the topic the most of the space offering more details
containing more statements by the individuals involved in the case compared to the
Telegraph and the Independent which could be interpreted that the Guardian considered
the topic to be more relevant and newsworthy than the remaining two newspapers.
Obviously, the Guardian included more information, however, not only were
these facts more descriptive or contained more quotations, but also involved statements
and descriptions which were more critical toward the police than the information
provided by the Telegraph and the Independent. Additionally, some of the information
provided by the Guardian could be marked as strongly relevant for the readers but
despite it omitted by the remaining papers. The Telegraph and the Independent said that
the official statement by the police did not agree with what actually happened in that
Mr. Tomlinson died due to the injuries caused by the police officer. This was
supplemented by the Guardian with the following:
a) Tomlinson had his hands in his pockets and his back to the officer when he was hit.
The video footage suggests that no other police officer went to his aid and it was left to
a bystander to lift him to his feet. He appeared to stumble about 100 metres down
Cornhill, clutching his side, before collapsing a second time.
b) Police initially led Tomlinson's wife and nine children to believe he died of a heart
attack after being caught up in the demonstration. In statements to the press, police
claimed attempts by officers to save his life by resuscitation had been impeded by
protesters. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)

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To begin with, saying that police initially led ... to believe strongly denotes that
they even consciously tried to fool the family of the deceased. Further, in the example
b) there is mentioned a claim by the police that they tried to help the person, but this
was not allowed by the protesters. In the example a) this is denied by the video footage
which proves the police to be liars. The conclusion brought by this analysis is that from
some reason the Telegraph and the Independent did not insert in their articles
information suggesting that the police are liars. It could be argued that the Telegraph
and the Independent did not have this information but Mr. Tomlinson died on 2 April
2009, the articles were published in July 22, 2010, i.e. there was a sufficiently long
period of time between the event and the day it was published to acquire the relevant
information. Furthermore, statements by the police tend to be made available to the
press in general and so should be that one claiming that the officers tried to help Mr.
Tomlinson. And thus any objections saying that the newspapers had different
information at their disposal are invalid as the information was generally available.
As to the criticism expressed more strongly by the Guardian than the remaining
papers this is illustrated by the example a) emphasising the innocence and notparticipation of Mr. Tomlinson saying that he had his hands in his pockets and his back
to the officer when he was hit. This means that Mr. Tomlinson not only did not take part
in the riot but even if he had taken part in the event, there still would not have been any
reason to use any force against him. This is again emphasised solely by the Guardian.
Further extra criticism against the police expressed by the Guardian is shown in the
example c):
c) The CPS announcement comes five years to the day since another landmark incident
involving police use of force. On 22 July 2005, officers shot dead Jean Charles de
Menezes after mistaking him for a terrorist who was about to detonate a bomb. Then,
19

the family of the innocent Brazilian criticised the CPS for failing to bring criminal
charges against any individual. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
The Guardian reminds its readers of the previous case of unnecessary use of force by
the police when similarly nobody was punished for the death of an innocent person
turning it into a problematic area of the police conduct.
On the basis of the above stated it is possible to conclude that the Guardian
presents less benevolent attitude towards the police, pays attention to their conduct and
publishes more relevant information than the remaining studied newspapers at least
concerning the currently discussed topic. This proves that the newspapers can, indeed,
omit certain though relevant information or provide some extra information which can
shed light on the topic currently discussed or provide a new perspective. Vasterman
(1995) maintains that journalists actually do not report events as news is not out there,
journalists do not report news, the produce news. They construct it, they construct facts,
they construct statements and they construct a context in which these facts make
sense. They reconstruct a reality and dismisses any selection criteria such as those by
Galtung and Ruge (1965). Bell (1991) also speaks of constructions of news in a way
and though the Resolution 1003 on the ethics of journalism (1993) provides that News
is information about facts and data, while opinions convey thoughts, ideas, beliefs or
value judgments on the part of media companies, publishers or journalists, he presents
a four-layer model of news producers consisting media companies, publishers or
journalists. Bell (1991) provides a four-way division of roles that points to a division
of responsibility for linguistic form as well as news content (38). He explains that the
process of news production is influenced by principal, author, editor and animator.
Principal contains two tiers the business institution which includes proprietors and
commercial managers, and the news institution which includes professional news
20

executives. Their roles played in the process of news production despite the convention
of editorial independence from commercial interests... (38) are those of owners who
possess the ultimate control and care about efficiency and profit (38). Proprietors,
despite the fact that they do not directly interfere in the language of a newspaper, set
the editorial policies which affect news language (40), and news executives serve as
the channel for implementing proprietors policies (40). The latter mentioned
additionally determine the ideological framing of news and its linguistic expression ...
and set routine guidelines for their journalists language use (40), for example in
prescribing who will be labelled as a terrorist and who as a guerrilla (Schlesinger,
1987: 229).
The second segment that participates in the news production, the author (a
journalist) is the actual producer of the news language. Bell (1991), however, points out
that the author is not always as original as it may appear (40): he/ she often draws on
the previous articles written on the same topic, press releases, and most prominently on
what people involved in a case say about it - the articles in my sample, indeed, consist
of direct or semi-direct quotations and paraphrased utterances from a greater part. And
thus the journalist is as much as a compiler as a creator of language, and a lot of news
consists of previously composed text reworked into new texts (Bell 1991: 41).
The third segment, editors, have three functions: overseeing, copy editing, and
interpreting (Bell 1991: 42). The function of overseeing lies in the retrospective
critique of a reporters writing, or input to general language prescriptions such as the
newspapers stylebook (Bell 1991:42). Copy editing is about cutting and modifying
(Bell 1991:43) of a text produced by a journalist. The final function, conducted by an
interpreter, lies in determining the significance of the story, how much prominence it

21

receives and how it is displayed (Bell 1991:43). Interpreters are responsible for
headlines, type size and order of the stories.
The fourth group consists of the animators who play the physical and technical
roles necessary to communicate authors stories to their audience (Bell 1991:43). In
broadcast it is personified a by the newsreader, in newspapers by the typesetter who is
responsible for accurately keying in the print journalists copy (Bell 1991:44).
However, the validity of the role of the typesetter nowadays with the use of computers
is rather questionable and should be preferably presented in a manner that the typesetter
used to play this role.
Thus the final result the readers can find in the newspaper is less based on the
actual event, but rather it is a cooperation of several segments in the news production.
During the process of the news production several versions of an article are created as a
result of modifications caused by the internal policy of the newspapers, by the authors
themselves, by the work of editors and finally news presenters.
In sum, what we read in an article is not simply a result of collecting of facts by
a journalist which are subsequently reported but rather a careful process of selection of
proper topics, proper wordings which are finally presented in a proper font.
In the following section the methods and procedures employed when collecting
the sample are introduced.

22

3. Methods and procedures

This chapter describes methods and procedures employed in the thesis especially
concerning the research.
Central to the study are articles from three different British quality newspapers,
namely from the online versions of The Guardian, The Independent and The Telegraph.
On the basis of the Appraisal theory 45 articles were analysed (15 articles from each
newspaper). Among the studied articles are only those ones which appeared on the main
sites of the online versions of the chosen papers - the aim was to examine such articles
which could be regarded as hard news. Another prerequisite for the choice of an article
was its topic it was required that the topic was handled by all of the chosen papers. By
doing so the individual approaches towards particular events employed by the
newspapers could have been compared. This enabled me to observe the differences in
the discourse of the individual papers and to consider how much attention was devoted
to the same event depicted in all the newspapers on the basis of the length of the
articles. Altogether 32,595 words were analysed as is shown in Table 5 below together
with the number of words analysed in the individual papers.

Table 5 No. of words analysed

No. of
words
Guardian

12,646

Independent

10,538

Telegraph
Total

9,411
32,595

23

Table 6 contains the list of the articles that were analysed together with number of
words of the individual articles stated in the brackets.
Table 6 List of articles analysed (no. of words in brackets)

6
7

10

11

Guardian

Independent

Telegraph

Raoul Moat dead after

single gunshot ends
standoff with police
(984)
Former MI5 chief
delivers damning
verdict on Iraq invasion
(816)

Raoul Moat kills

himself during police
stand-off (1085)

Ian Tomlinson death:

police officer will not
face criminal charges
(1218)
Nick Griffin told: we
don't want that kind of
party at the palace (572)

Riot officer faces no

charge over G20 death
(885)

Pakistan president will

'put David Cameron
straight' over terror
claims (965)
Northern Rock savings
fall but 'bad bank' is in
the black (627)
Cloned meat: British
consumers have eaten
parts of least two bulls
(490)
BP oil spill mostly
cleaned up, says US
(487)

A humanitarian disaster
at home, a diplomatic
crisis abroad (741)

Naomi Campbell: I
didn't know if 'dirty
diamonds' were Charles
Taylor's gift (1014)
David Cameron and
Pakistan's Asif Ali
Zardari show united
front on terrorism (947)

Naomi Campbell
accused over Charles
Taylor trial evidence
(845)
UK-Pakistan
relationship
'unbreakable' (535)

Naomi Campbell gave

Charity man hands

Raoul Moat dies after

shooting himself during
armed police stand-off
(1942)
Iraq war increased
terrorist threat to the
UK, former MI5 chief
tells Chilcot Inquiry
(402)
G20 riots: policeman
escapes charges over
Ian Tomlinson's death
(602)
Nick Griffin denied
entry to Buckingham
Palace garden party
(452)
Pakistan president to
challenge David
Cameron's 'uncalled for'
terrorism remarks (660)
Northern Rock's 'bad
bank' makes a profit,
'good bank' a loss (332)
Meat from second
cloned cow offspring
entered food chain
(671)
BP oil spill: majority of
oil in the Gulf of
Mexico 'eliminated'
(408)
Naomi Campbell: I
handed 'blood
diamonds' to Mandela
charity (899)
Britain and Pakistan
have 'unbreakable'
relationship, insist
Cameron and Zardari
(541)
Naomi Campbell

Iraq invasion 'increased

terror activity against
UK' (972)

Palace bans Nick

Griffin from palace
garden party (762)

Northern Rock plans to

resume credit cards and
loans (595)
Second cloned cow
offspring used in food
chain (670)
Most of BP oil spill has
gone, says US (436)

24

12

Guardian

Independent

Telegraph

me uncut diamonds,
says former Mandela
charity chief (535)
Nick Clegg's first day
(2197)

Naomi Campbell gift

diamonds to police
(506)
Coalition proving
doubters wrong, says
Clegg (526)
Bank 'surprised' at
inflation strength (743)

diamonds handed in to
South African police by
charity head (551)
Nick Clegg: Coalition
has brought reform, not
'insipid mush' (265)
Bank of England
Governor warns that
Britons face higher
inflation for longer
(547)
Universities minister
apologises to A-level
students missing out on
places (827)
'Last' brigade of US
combat troops leaves
Iraq (312)

13

Inflation eases but stays

above 3% (662)

14

A-level results 2010: A- 1 in 12 A-levels have

level pass rate rises to
new A* grade (1136)
97.6% (597)

15

Last US combat troops

leave Iraq (535)

Goodbye Iraq: Last US

combat brigade heads
home (93)

The sample was collected in July and August 2010.

Concerning the Appraisal, theoretical background for the thesis is predominantly
based on Martin and Rose (2007) where the appraisal framework is clearly structured
and explained though does not go into such a detail of the Appraisal as other works
dealing with the theory (e.g. Martin and White 2005; White 2005). The reason for this
choice is that my aim is not purely to study all the nuances of the individual categories
and subcategories of appraisal or a precise classification of all expressions in the studied
material, but rather the identification of the occurrences of the evaluative expressions in
the newspaper language for which purpose Martin and Rose (2007) serve sufficiently.
Additionally, though the detailed framework contains more categories and
subcategories, it is not explained why such a complex framework is even necessary to
apply, i.e. it is not specified whether any of the subcategories play a specific/
extraordinary role in a text and thus should be distinguished/ highlighted. The
subcategories are only presented and exemplified without mentioning any importance of
25

such a classification. In the following section appraisal is introduced and described:

firstly, there is a brief introduction into the detailed framework and on examples drawn
from Martin and White (2005) it is illustrated that they can be easily subsumed under
the less complex classification provided by Martin and Rose (2007).

26

4. The Appraisal Theory

The appraisal theory is an approach which enables to explore, describe and
explain the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual
personas and to manage interpersonal positionings and relationships (White 2005). By
means of this approach it is possible to identify attitudes, judgements and emotive
responses that are explicitly presented in texts and how they may be more indirectly
implied, presupposed or assumed (White 2005) which is exactly what is intended to be
identified in the course of analysing the newspaper articles.
White (2005) further specifies in which linguistic situations appraisal can be employed:

the linguistic basis of differences in a writer/speakers style by which they may

present themselves as, for example, more or less deferential, dominating,
authoritative, inexpert, cautious, conciliatory, aloof, engaged, emotion.
impersonal, and so on,
how the different uses of evaluative language by speakers/writers act to
construct different authorial voices and textual personas,
how different genres and text types may conventionally employ different
evaluative and otherwise rhetorical strategies,
the underlying, often covert value systems which shape and are disseminated by
a speaker/writers utterances,
the different assumptions which speakers/writers make about the value and
belief systems of their respective intended audiences,
how different modes of story-telling can be characterised by their different uses
of the resources of evaluation,

27

the communicative strategies by which some discourses (for example those of

the media and science) construct supposedly objective or impersonal modes of
textuality. (White 2005)

Appraisal performs these functions:

1. Attitudinal positioning
2. Dialogistic positioning
3. Intertextual positioning
Under intertextual positioning are subsumed such uses of language by which
writers/speakers adopt evaluative positions towards what they represent as the views
and statements of other speakers and writers, towards the propositions they represent as
deriving from outside sources. At its most basic, intertextual positioning is brought into
play when a writer/speaker chooses to quote or reference the words or thoughts of
another (White 2005). When a quotation of words or thoughts of another person appear
in a discourse, it means that according to the author of the discourse these words or
thoughts are relevant for him/ her for a certain reason and thus the most basic mode
evaluative stance to intertextual material is one of implied relevance. (White 2005)
Besides the relevance an utterance can be further evaluated as endorsed or
disendorsed. By means of endorsement the author signals support for an agreement
with the utterance it means that the utterance is seen as reliable and trustworthy. On
the other hand, disendorsement means that the author distances from the utterance.
1. It confirmed meat from a second bull, Parable, had entered the food chain.
(Independent, 4 August 2010) - endorsement
2. Moat had remained at large for a week, allegedly aided by friends and associates.
(Guardian, 10 July 2010) - disendorsement
28

Dialogistic positioning is an area of meaning which has typically been explored

in the linguistics literature under such headings as modality, evidentiality, hedging,
boosting and meta-discursivity. (White 2005) The meanings are negotiatory in that
they are concerned with managing or negotiating interpersonal relations between the
speaker/writer and actual or potential respondents. (White 2005) They include such
cases when a judgement is passed on the degree of discrepancy between the
speaker/writer and potential respondents, i.e. a judgement on what reaction the speaker/
writer expects from his audience.
3. But footage later showed Mr Tomlinson being struck from behind by a member of the
Metropolitan Police's controversial territorial support group. (Independent, 22 July
2010)
But in this sentence means that the author presents something that is in discrepancy to
what the reader expects/ knows/ assumes.
4. The diplomatic carpeting was apparently not enough to assuage Pakistani wrath.
(Guardian, 2 August 2010)
Apparently denotes something self-evident and a low degree of discrepancy.
5. The spot is a stones throw from the polices temporary headquarters in Rothbury,
suggesting he could have been intending to carry out his threat to kill police officers.
(Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
Suggesting here expresses low degree of discrepancy. The same conclusion that a
criminal intended to kill police officers is expected from the readers.
The function of Attitudal positioning encompasses praising and blaming,
with meanings by which writers/speakers indicate either a positive or negative
assessment of people, places, things, happenings and states of affairs (White 2005).

29

6. He is accused of trading in "blood diamonds" to fund the brutal and bloody war in
which more than 120,000 died. (Telegraph, 5 August 2010)
7. Fighting back tears outside CPS headquarters, his son Paul King called for the
officer responsible to be "named and shamed". (Independent, 22 July 2010)
8. An ambulance reportedly sped from the scene, taking the former nightclub bouncer,
37, to a Newcastle hospital. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)
In these cases we have come across examples of negative or positive assessments of
things, people and feelings: the war being marked as brutal and bloody is obviously
negative assessment; fighting back tears denotes negative feeling; and marking
someone as a former nightclub bouncer is a negative assessment of a persons character.

4.1 Classification of appraisal

In this part two appraisal frameworks are considered: one that contains a more
profound categorisation, and briefly another one on which the analysis of the thesis is
based, which is, however, simpler in a number of categories. The aim is to show that the
one applied in this work is sufficient enough to distinguish all the cases of evaluative
stances in the analysed texts. Both frameworks are co-authored by the same person,
namely J. R. Martin, which implies that the simplistic framework is valid and can be
applied.
As to the classification of appraisal, there are distinguished three aspects:
attitude, amplification and source. The Table below shows the most basic division of the
categories of appraisal and subgroups of the individual categories.

30

Table 7 Summary of appraisal

Appraisal

Affect
Attitude
Judgement
Appreciation
Force
Amplification/
Graduation
Focus
Source of attitude/ Monogloss
Engagement
Heterogloss

The individual categories are discussed more in detail later in the section
discussing the analysis being based on Martin and Rose (2007) and applied in the
context of the analysis. The rest of this chapter is devoted to the depiction of the more
complex framework of appraisal supplied with the equivalents of the simplistic
version provided by Martin and Rose (2007) (which, however, is not ignoring the
detailed framework on the contrary, the last pages of the relevant chapter introduce
the standard version of attitude presenting it with headline More detail on kinds of
attitudes (63)).
I. A To start with, the first category to be discussed is the affect. The different
categories can be identified on the basis of these questions, the first five of them being
drawn from Martin and White (2005), and the sixth one from Martin and Rose (2007):
1. Are the feelings popularly construed by the culture as positive ... or negative ones... ?
2. Are the feelings realised as a surge of emotion involving some kind of embodied
paralinguistic or extralinguistic manifestation, or more internally experienced as a kind
of emotive state or ongoing mental process?
3. Are the feelings construed as directed at or reacting to some specific emotional
Trigger or as a general ongoing mood for which one might pose the question Why are
you feeling that way and get the answer Im not sure.
4. How are the feelings graded towards the lower valued end of a scale of intensity or
towards the higher valued end; or somewhere in between?
31

5. Do the feelings involve intention (rather than reaction), with respect to a stimulus that
is irrealis (rather than realis). (Martin and White 2005)
6. Are the feelings to do with un/happiness, in/security or dis/satisfaction? (Martin and
Rose 2007)
Depending on the answers to these questions the following categories of the affect can
be identified:
Table 8 Affect

affect

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

positive
negative
behavioural surge
mental process/ state
reaction to other
undirected mood
low
median
high
realis
irrealis
Un/happiness
In/security
Dis/satisfaction

The subcategory of irrealis is further divided, namely into fear and desire.
Another category out of those in the Table above divided into subgroups is the sixth
category, which is quite complex. This is displayed in Table 9:
Table 9 Un/happiness, In/security, Dis/satisfaction

Un/happiness

Unhappiness
Happiness

In/security

Insecurity
Security

Dis/satisfaction

Dissatisfaction
Satisfaction

32

Misery
Antipathy
Cheer
Affection
Disquiet
Surprise
Confidence
Trust
Ennui
Displeasure
Interest
pleasure

The affect by Martin and Rose (2007) shown below is in comparison to the
detailed framework simpler, however, sufficient enough to identify evaluative language
in an article. To prove this claim I will categorise the examples subsumed under the
individual categories of the detailed framework by Martin and White (2005) according
to Martin and Roses (2007) simplified version of appraisal. This will be done in the
following part of the thesis despite the fact that definitions of the individual categories
by Martin and Rose (2007) are provided later, namely in the part dealing with the
analysis of the newspaper articles which is preferred because there it is discussed in the
context of examples of evaluative newspaper language.
Table 10 Affect by Martin and Rose (2007)

Positive
Negative
Direct
Implicit

Emotional state
Physical expression
Extraordinary behaviour
Metaphor

As for the positive or negative affect, this category is identical with the one by
Martin and Rose (2007). In the second category we distinguish between behavioural
surge, i.e. physical manifestation of feelings, and mental process/ state which again
corresponds with Martin and Roses (2007) category.
Examples by Martin and White (2005: 47):
Behavioural surge: the captain wept
According to Martin and Rose (2007) this would be subsumed under physical
expression.
Mental process/ state: the captain disliked leaving/ the captain felt sad
This should be subsumed under emotional state.

33

The third category includes distinction between reaction to other, i.e. to some
Trigger which is the cause of the emotions, and undirected mood which lacks such a
clear cause of a described emotion. Examples by Martin and White (2005: 47):
Reaction to other: the captain disliked leaving/ leaving displeased the captain
Undirected mood: the captain was said
Both cases would be subsumed under the heading of emotional state according to
Martin and Rose (2007).
Further distinction between low, median and high affect has to do with gradation
which is discussed by Martin and Rose (2007) solely in the part dealing with gradation/
amplification of attitude and thus the examples below would by Martin and Rose (2007)
classified simply as emotional state.
Low

the captain disliked leaving

Median

the captain hated leaving

High

the captain detested leaving (Martin and White, 2005: 48)

The fifth category distinguishing between irrealis and realis affect is provided
with the following examples (Martin and White, 2005):
Realis:

the captain disliked the leaving

Irrealis:

the captain feared the leaving

These would be classified as emotional state by Martin and Rose (2007).

Irrealis is further divided into fear and desire:
Fear:

tremble, wary

The first one is the example of physical expression, the second one is the example of
emotional state.
Desire: suggest, miss
Both would be identified as emotional state by Martin and Rose (2007).
34

Finally, the sixth category is divided into un/happiness which is concerned

with affairs of heart sadness, hate, happiness and love, in/security which covers
emotions concerned with eco-social well-being anxiety, fear, confidence and trust,
and dis/satisfaction which includes emotions concerned with telos (the pursuit of
goals) ennui, displeasure, curiosity, respect (Martin and White 2005: 49). The
following examples are drawn from Martin and White (2005) where they were
subsumed under the individual subgroups of the sixth category. Subsequently they were
classified according to Martin and Rose (2007).
Martin and White (2005)

Martin and Rose (2007)

Misery:

whimper

physical expression

sad

emotional state

rubbish

physical expression

dislike

emotional state

chuckle

physical expression

cheerful

emotional state

shake hands

physical expression

be fond of

emotional state

restless

physical expression

uneasy

emotional state

start

physical expression

startled

emotional state

declare

physical expression

together

emotional state

delegate

physical expression

comfortable

emotional state

Antipathy:

Cheer:

Affection:

Disquiet

Surprise

Confidence

Trust

35

Ennui

Displeasure

Interest

Pleasure

fidget

physical expression

flat

emotional state

caution

physical expression

bored with

emotional state

attentive

physical expression/ emotional state

involved

emotional state

pat on the back

physical expression

satisfied

emotional state

It should be noted that Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish also implied and
direct affect, while Martin and White (2005) do not include these into their
classification for some reason but discuss it in an independent section of the book
together with implied and direct judgement and appreciation.
On the basis of above stated it is obvious that it is possible to identify the affect
by applying both types of the framework, whether it is the more complex one or the
simpler one. The point is that the simpler one could be considered as a general one,
while the other as a specific one. It should be also noted that the examples by Martin
and White (2005) did not include any examples of metaphor or extraordinary behaviour
which Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish as separate categories which is shown below.
I. B Judgement, unlike affect, does not contain many differences between the
versions by Martin and White (2005) and Martin and Rose (2007). The tables below
provide overviews of the two versions of judgement, Table 11 showing a more complex
classification, while Table 12 provides us with a simpler version.

36

Table 11 Judgement (Martin and White, 2005)

Positive (admire)

Negative (criticize)

Normality (how special?)

Capacity (how capable?)

Social esteem

Tenacity (how dependable?)

Positive (praise)

Negative (condemn)

Veracity [truth] (how honest?)

Social sanction
(mortal)

Propriety [ethics] (how far beyond reproach?)

Table 12 Judgement (Martin and Rose, 2007)

direct
Personal
Moral

implied
Admire

Criticize
Praise
condemn

Judgement by Martin and White (2005) distinguish between social esteem which
subsumes normality, capacity and tenacity, and social sanction which includes veracity
and propriety. Judgements by Martin and Rose (2007) tell apart actually the same two
subgroups which are just termed differently personal and moral judgement but do
not mention further classification. Both versions identify judgements as either positive
or negative and use the same terminology to label them as either positive or negative,
i.e. one set of judgements is termed as admiring and criticizing, and the other as praising
and condemning. This means that by employing the simpler version of the framework
we should receive the identical results as the categories are actually identical.
Finally, it is necessary to remind that Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish
between direct and implied judgements, while Martin and White (2005) do not include
these into their classification, but discuss it later in the individual section.
All in all, it is obvious that the framework by Martin and Rose (2007) is
sufficient enough to enable to determine cases of judgement.
37

I. C The third category of attitude Appreciation is first of all divided into

positive and negative. Martin and White (2005) unlike Martin and Rose (2007)
distinguish further nuances between individual evaluations of things and distinguish
realisations of appreciation:
1. Reaction impact: did it grab me?
e.g. positive: arresting, negative: boring
2. Reaction quality: did I like it?
e.g. positive: lovely, negative: ugly
3. Composition balance: did it hang together?
e.g. positive: harmonious, negative: discordant
4. Composition complexity: was it hard to follow?
e.g. positive: simple, negative: ornate
5. Valuation: was it worthwhile?
e.g. positive: penetrating, negative: shallow
Martin and White (2005: 57) further subsume these categories under types of mental
process and metafunctions:
Table 13 Sub-types of Appreciation

Appreciation

Mental process type

Metafunction

Reaction

Affection

Interpersonal

Composition

Perception

Textual

Valuation

Cognition

Ideational

All of these examples would be simply labelled as either positive or negative

appreciation by Martin and Rose (2007) which shows that it is possible to identify

38

evaluation in the texts with the difference lying in the fact that no further classification
is conducted.
II. Another part of appraisal, which is considered here, deals with graduation
termed also as amplification (Martin and Rose 2007). The most basic classification
consists of the categories of force and focus. In focus Martin and White (2005) discern
whether an attitude is softened or sharpened. The same classification is used by (Martin
and Rose 2007).
A more complex network is distinguished in the sub-category of force by Martin
and White (2005).
Table 14 Classification of force

Quality
Intensification

(degree)
Process
(vigour)
Number

FORCE

Mass/ presence
Proximity

Quantification
Extent

Distribution

Time
Space
Time
Space

Martin and Rose (2007) divided this category purely to strengthened/ toned up
attitude and toned down attitude.
Martin and White (2005: 148) describe several ways of realisations of
intensification and quantification and provide examples. Similarly, Martin and Rose
(2007) provide a list of language items which are used to graduate attitude which,

39

though shorter, includes the realisations below with the exception of repetition. Table
15 displays realisation of graduation by Martin and Rose (2007).
Table 15 Realisation of graduation by Martin and Rose (2007)

usage of intensifiers, e.g. highly, last, several, worst, biggest, modal

verbs
usage of attitudinal lexis which is lexis with attitude (Martin and
Rose, 2007: 42), e.g. frantic, huge, dramatic, heavy
usage of metaphors
swear words

What follows are realisations by Martin and White (2005) which are supplied with their
equivalents by Martin and Rose (2007).
a) an isolated lexeme which solely, or at least primarily, performs the function of
setting the level of intensity (141)
e.g. slightly, very
This is equivalent to intensifiers.
b) semantic infusion where the sense of up/down-scaling is fused with a meaning
which serves some other semantic function (141),
e.g. happy

ecstatic

Attitudinal lexis would be applied here.

c) repetition, e.g. laughed and laughed and laughed
Repetition is not mentioned by Martin and Rose (2007), however, when the analysis
was conducted, repetition was despite partly taken into account and is briefly discussed
later in the relevant part of the thesis. It should be though noted that it did not occur
very frequently and not in the manner presented by Martin and White (2005), i.e. as a
sequence of words following one another but rather as phrases consisting of several
words repeated throughout the article several times.

40

Realisations of isolated intensifications are (Martin and White 2005):

a) grammatical, e.g. very easy, greatly reduced
b) lexical, e.g. amazingly easy, crystal clear
These distinctions are again covered by intensifiers which tend to be grammatical and
by attitudinal lexis which includes lexical realisations (Martin and Rose, 2007). We
should be, though, aware of what Sinclair (1994) points out:

The meaning of words chosen together is different from their independent

meanings. They are at least partly delexicalized. This is the necessary correlate
of co-selection. If you know that selections are not independent, and that one
selection depends on another, then there must be a result and effect on the
meaning which in each individual choice is a delexicalization of one kind or
another. It will not have its independent meaning in full if it is only part of a
choice involving one or more words. (23)

Sinclair here explains that lexical words used in a context partly lose their feature of
having an independent meaning and the boundary between lexical and grammatical
words is slightly blurred here.
The second sub-group of force, quantification, can be realised via (Martin and
White 2005):
a) isolation, i.e. usage of an isolated term acting as a modifier of a graduated entity
(151)
e.g. many, large
b) infusion, i.e. estimation of quantity is carried, not by a modifier, but by the noun
head itself (151)
41

e.g. a throng of digital imaging products (vs. many digital imaging products) (151)
hes a mountain of a man (152)
c) metaphor
e.g. Very shortly we were struggling through mountainous seas. (152)
In this set of realisations Martin and Roses (2007) one is applied similarly as it was in
realisations of intensifications: isolation is included in intensifiers and infusion in
attitudinal lexis or in metaphors.
Realisations are further (Martin and White 2005):
a) figurative, e.g. crystal clear, came out like a jack in a box
b) non-figurative, e.g. very, greatly, rapidly
This distinction is basically about a question whether an intensifying word or an
utterance has metaphoric meaning or not.
Finally, it should be noted that what is not used by Martin and White (2005) and
is applied in Martin and Rose (2007) is a category of swear words which, however, is
not important for the thesis anyway as no examples of swearing words occurred in the
sample. Martin and White (2005) explain that they omitted it intentionally: In order to
scale our presentation of attitudinal resources down to something manageable we have
focused on gradable lexical items construing evaluation. This places swearing beyond
the scope of our study, since it involves non-gradable lexis (68). The category is,
however, mentioned in the relevant part of the thesis and supplied with an example
drawn from Martin and Rose (2007).
III. Finally, third part of the appraisal framework by Martin and White (2005) is
provided, namely Engagement. The basic division of engagement consists of
monogloss which includes situations in which occurs a single source of an utterance,
42

and of heteregloss which covers such circumstances when more sources of an utterance
appear. Heterogloss is further divided in the following subgroups by Martin and White
(2005).
Firstly, heterogloss is divided into expansion which allows for dialogically
alternative positions and voices (Martin and White 2005: 102) and dialogic contraction
which acts to challenge, fend off or restrict the scope of alternative positions (Martin
and White 2005: 102). Further categorization of heterogloss is displayed in Table 16.
Table 16 Heterogloss - overview

Disclaim
Contract
Proclaim
HETEROGLOSS

Deny
Counter
Concur

Affirm
Concede

Pronounce
Endorse

Entertain
Expand
Attribute

Acknowledge
Distance

Examples of these categories are drawn from Martin and White (2005) and are
classified according to Martin and Rose (2007).
Disclaim
o

Deny
There is nothing wrong with... (118)

modality negotiating
information

Counter
Even though we are getting divorced... (120)

concession

Surprisingly, there seems to have been... (121)

concession

Proclaim
o

Concur
43

Affirm

naturally, of course (134)

concession

Concede

admittedly, sure (134)

concession

Pronounce
I contend... (127)

modality negotiating
information

The facts of the matter are that... (127)

projecting sources names

for speech acts

Endorse
All five show that..., (126)
five studies demonstrate that... (126)
According to Martin and Rose (2007) all five and five studies would be marked
as a source of attitude and would be further classified as projecting sources
names for speech acts.

Entertain

perhaps, this may be (134)

modality negotiating
information

Attribute
o

Acknowledge
Halliday argues that..., (134)

projecting sources
projecting clauses

...its said that... (134)

projecting sources
projecting clauses

Distance
Chomsky claimed to have shown (134)

projecting sources
projecting clauses

44

While all the categories of sources of attitudes by Martin and White (2005) are
covered by Martin and Rose (2007), it does not apply vice versa Martin and Roses
(2007) category of scare quotes was not discussed by Martin and White (2005). Scare
quotes are discussed and exemplified in the respective part of the thesis.
All in all, this part intended to prove that though less complex categorisation is
applied in the thesis, the same results can be acquired. I believe that this was achieved
as all the examples were classified according to Martin and Rose (2007) which was
used for the purposes of the analysis.

4.2 Analysis
In this part the individual categories of appraisal are defined and supplied with
examples from my sample. In the light of the examples the categories are characterised,
or rather clarified.

4.2.1 Attitude
Attitude is characteristic of evaluating peoples feelings, peoples character and
the value of things. Evaluation can be either positive or negative, stated directly or
implied. Attitude is divided in the following subgroups: affect which subsumes
evaluations of feelings; judgement which concerns of assessment of peoples character;
and appreciation which includes evaluation of things. When talking about attitude, it is
important to realise that it is not created only by individual words, but rather one comes
across whole utterances which contain evaluative stances as White (2005) points out.
Both types of creating attitudinal constructions, i.e. single-word expressions and
several-words utterances, will shown in the following sections on the individual
categories of Attitude. Examples are drawn from my sample.
45

4.2.1.1 Affect expressing our feelings

Concerning the feelings, Martin and Rose (2007) explain that there are good and
bad feelings and thus affect can be marked as positive and negative. Further, people can
express what they feel directly or we can sense it from their behaviour and similarly
affect can be expressed directly or implied. When emotions are named explicitly or
expressed physically, e.g. by tremble or shakes, the affect is expressed directly;
description of unusual behaviour is considered as indirectly expressed feelings. Unusual
behaviour signalises that something is wrong, however, we cannot say exactly which
emotion is expressed. Further, metaphors can be employed to manifest certain emotions.
Examples below show both one-word expressions of affect as well as whole utterances
conveying evaluation of a persons emotional state.
1. The diplomatic carpeting was apparently not enough to assuage Pakistani wrath.
(Guardian, 2 August 2010)
Pakistani wrath is a clear-cut example of the affect: it expresses negative emotions of
the Pakistans foremost representatives.
2. As the siege wore on Moat apparently relaxed and allowed police to bring him food
and water. (Independent, 10 July 2010)
Relaxed illustrates that certain expressions of emotions cannot be strictly classified into
one or another category of affect: relaxed can relate either to the physical state when it
was possible to observe, for example, on his body that he was no longer strenuous, or it
can refer to emotional state when he started to communicate with the police. In this case
both of the meanings are included which is shown in Table 17 below where relaxed is
classified as boththe emotional state and physical expression.

46

3. Fighting back tears outside CPS headquarters, his son Paul King called for the
officer responsible to be "named and shamed". (Independent, 22 July 2010)
This example demonstrates usage of phrases consisting of several words to describe
emotions.
4. Yesterday evening there was a sense of panic as marksmen flooded into the village,
which was cordoned off. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)
In the category of Affect, i.e. category of evaluating of peoples feelings, we can come
across an utterance which expresses evaluation of feelings, although no carrier of
feelings is mentioned, at least not directly. In this sentence the carrier is implied and is
necessary to determine him/ her from the context of the text who is in this case the
people of the city where a criminal was hiding. Thus though not mentioned explicitly
who is affected, it still should be marked as Affect.
5. The news, which will be welcomed by conservationists fighting the slick, comes as BP
began an attempt to permanently seal off the leaking well with a mixture of mud and
cement.
(Telegraph, 4 August 2010)
From this example it is obvious that the evaluation of feelings need not necessary refer
to the present timethe author of the article describes future positive feelings of the
conservationists.
An example of the metaphor did not occur in my sample and thus the example is
drawn from Martin and Rose (2007) to illustrate it. It is displayed in Table 17 below.

47

Table 17 Affect

Positive
Negative
Direct
Implicit

Emotional state

... will be welcomed

Reacting with fury...
...wrath, ...relaxed..., Fighting back tears...

Physical expression

...relaxed...

Extraordinary behaviour
and Rose,

wander from window to window (Martin

Metaphor
like the

2007: 32)
ice cold in a sweltering night, eyes dull
dead (Martin and Rose,
2007: 32)

4.2.1.2 Judgement
The second group of attitude, judgement, is concerned with evaluation of human
behaviour or a persons character. It can be described negatively or positively and thus
someone could be e.g. good, bad, brilliant or stupid. They can be expressed similarly as
with affect explicitly and implicitly. Judgements are divided into personal judgements
which denote either admiration or criticism, and moral judgements which indicate
praise or condemnation.
A. Personal Judgements
Personal judgements expressing positive evaluation of a character are subsumed
under admiration, the negative ones under criticism. Martin and White (2005) term this
type of judgement social esteem. They are concerned with the way in which peoples
behaviour lives up to or fails to live up to socially desirable standards (Eggins and
Slade 1997:131). Iedema et al. (1994, qtd. in Eggins and Slade 2001: 131) explains that
positive values of social esteem can result in an increase in esteem in the eyes of the

48

public while negative values diminish or destroy it (202). Below are provided
examples together with further explanations.
1. It now appears that Moat could have been living under the noses of police in
Rothbury for several days. (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
In this example criticism of the police is implied when an author of the utterance
indicates that the police was not competent enough to arrest a Mr. Moat although he
occurred very close to them for several days.
2. The former head of MI5 delivered a devastating critique of the invasion of Iraq today,
saying it substantially increased the threat of terrorist attacks in Britain and was a
significant factor behind the radicalisation of young Muslims in the UK. (Guardian, 20
July 2010)
This personal judgement implicitly says that the person who expressed criticism is a
competent person who knows the case and understands the circumstances and thus her
opinion should be accepted.
Judgements in the form of stating what peoples jobs are often appear in the
sample which could be regarded as a sole description or may be understood as
additional or evaluative information. From the point of view of appraisal stating ones
job makes a person enables to create certain view of him/ her or of his/ her utterance
concerning its relevancy for an article: it can evoke both negative and positive response
of the readers. It can result in readers acceptance of the person or his/ her statement
(e.g. as being valuable and trustworthy) but on the other hand it may also serve for
challenging the worthiness or credibility of the person or of his/ her utterance. The
example 15 says that the person is relevant and trustworthy. However, when someone is

49

said to be a former nightclub bouncer (Guardian, 10 July 2010), it again evokes a

certain image of the person, however, this time a negative one.
3. It is expected that Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of defence staff, Sir John Sawers, the
head of MI6, and Cameron's national security adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, will meet
their Pakistani counterparts in an attempt to ease suspicions... (Guardian, 6 August
2010)
In this case stating the occupations of the persons expresses that the persons involved in
the case are important and at the same time it implies that the issue is taken seriously by
the Prime Minister (This happened in an effort to calm down the tension between
Pakistan and UK caused by Camerons improper remarks concerning the way Pakistan
dealt with terrorism).
4. The young mother, who did not wish to be identified, heard rustling behind a closed
door as she arrived... (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
5. Chris Robertson, who was visiting his mother when armed officers told them to lock
themselves in the house... (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
6. Trisha Best, 40, who watched the drama unfold, described Moat as looking very
tired and very scruffy. (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
These three sentences come from the same article from the Telegraph. The persons
mentioned in the sentences are objectively unimportant for the case but still are marked
by the newspapers as witnesses of the situation that took place in the city where these
persons occurred. They do not provide any relevant information. Their role in the article
is important due to the attributes given them by the papers, i.e. the underlined segments.
No. 6 provides a woman who watched the scene and thus should be able to provide
relevant information, however, she does not say anything important. The role of the
judgement in no. 5 is rather that it can happen to anyone being anywhere, i.e. that even a
50

person not living in a certain place could be endangered. In no. 4 the woman did not
wish to be named and thus she was at least evaluated by the newspapers as a young
mother. The other attribute could additionally imply that not only did she want to
remain anonymous, but also that she could have been still worried and anxious about
the situation. This, however, was not marked as an affect as it is not clear whether it was
the case. The article on this topic in the Telegraph contain several of these judgements
mentioning permanent inhabitants (among them those who lived really close to the
place the criminal was hiding), visitors, old and young persons, mothers, offspring and
whole families. The Telegraph is the only one among the three newspapers analysed
which employed this practice of emphasising the fact that people from various groups
were in danger. This tactics enables the readers to identify with the persons mentioned
in the article who were, in addition, explicitly named. This is in accordance with
Galtung and Ruges (1965) factor of newsworthiness F11 Reference to persons which
says that personification makes the event more newsworthy.
7. The 17-stone steroid addict shot himself. (Independent, 10 July 2010)
This is a criticism from the part of the author of the article. It may seem that it is simply
a description of a person, however, to be a steroid addict is a negative characteristics
and denotes that people do not need feel sorry about him. In addition, an article
covering the same topic in Guardian did not contain this characteristic of the criminal
which means that it was not considered to be important to mention, on the other hand,
the Independent wanted to emphasise this negative feature of the criminal.
B. Moral Judgements
Positive moral judgements denote praise, negative ones denote condemnation.
Martin and Rose (2007) explain that a shift from Incident to Interpretation takes place
51

here: while moral judgements involve Interpretation, personal ones do not. In

Interpretation a person is judged on the basis of moral grounds. Martin and White
(2005) state that moral judgements called by them social sanction tend to be codified
in writing, as edicts, decrees, rules, regulations and laws about how to behave as
surveilled by church and state with penalties and punishments as levers against those
not complying with the code. Sharing values in this area underpins civic duty and
religious observances (52).
Eggins and Slade (1997: 131) provide that these are evaluative judgements
concerned with moral regulation or whether the behaviour of a person or a group of
people is seen as ethical or truthful. The examples of moral judgements are as follows:
8. Campbell is said to have received a "blood diamond" from Taylor, whose [sic] faces
charges including criminal responsibility for murder, rape, sexual slavery and the use
of child soldiers. (Independent, 5 August 2010)
By introducing Taylors charges and some of the details of them the author gives Taylor
an attribute of a morally unacceptable person since being a criminal lowers a persons
credit which is even emphasised by the seriousness of the crimes. Guardian did not
consider naming of any of the crimes as important as they are subsumed under war
crimes and crimes against humanity in its article. Independent thus puts an emphasis
on the cruelty of Taylors deeds.
9. Then, the family of the innocent Brazilian criticised the CPS for failing to bring
criminal charges against any individual. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
Innocent is explicitly stated moral judgement. The other underlined phrase is an
example of criticism. In this set of examples we come across what Martin and Rose
(2007) call judgemental legalese (e.g. innocence, criminal, offence, perpetrator). They
52

explain that we might argue that these technical judgements should be left out of an
appraisal analysis, since each in a sense refers to an ideational meaning that is precisely
situated within legal institutions, rather than an interpersonal meaning like appraisal.
But we are not sure their technicality totally robs them of their evaluative role. Most
seem to us to carry with them some of their everyday attitudinal power, certainly for lay
readers (36). And indeed, legal English contains utterances that are very formal and
impersonal used within a specific context aiming to describe situation as precisely as
possible. On the other hand, the example sentence above is intended to raise emotions
of the readers so that they feel sorry for the innocent Brazilian and judge the action of
the police negatively due to the fact they did not bring criminal charges. This is
emphasised by the fact that other papers did not mention this fact.
10. The father of three went on the run a week ago after shooting his ex-girlfriend and
killing her new lover. (Independent, 10 July 2010)
This example shows that the same phrase can denote a different type of judgement
under different circumstances: being a father of children is understood as something
positive, however, being a father of three and commit a suicide makes a person
irresponsible.

Martin and Rose (2007) show that similarly as with affect also in cases of
judgement metaphor can occur. However, none of them was found in my sample and
thus the following example is drawn from Martin and Rose (2007):
11. And today they all wash their hands in innocence... (Martin and Rose, 2007: 34)
In this case, obviously, the judgement denotes very negative evaluation of the peoples
characters.

53

Table 18 Judgements - overview

personal

Admire
Criticize

moral

Praise
condemn

direct

implied

...leader replied bluntly...,

...one of the world's most
revered statesmen...
The 17-stone steroid
addict...
innocent

The former head of

MI5...

Our leaders are too holy

and innocent. And
faceless.

...whose [sic] faces

charges including
criminal responsibility
for murder, rape, sexual
slavery and the use of
child soldiers.

...he bungled four other

autopsies, ... failing to
bring criminal charges
against any individual, ...
insurgents...

...living under the noses

of police...,
I envy and respect the
people of the struggle...

4.2.1.3 Appreciating things

The two above described categories, affect and judgement, concern people. This
category evaluates things. The category of appreciating things includes attitudes about
TV shows, films, books, CDs; about paintings, sculptures, homes, public buildings,
parks; about plays, recitals, parades or spectacles and performances of any kind;
feelings about nature for that matter panoramas and glens, sunrises and sunsets,
constellations, shooting stars and satellites on a starry night. (Martin and Rose
2007:37) Under appreciating things we also understand evaluation of relationships and
qualities of life, questions, issues and applications (Martin and Rose, 2007).
1. A formal joint statement was punctilious in praising the role Pakistan has played in
fighting terrorism... (Guardian, 6 August 2010)
The content of the statement is labelled as praising which is normally positive, yet in
connection with another evaluative word punctilious it rather sounds as mocking the
content of the statement as overpraising which is negative.
54

2. Chris Robertson, who was visiting his mother when armed officers told them to lock
themselves in the house, said... (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
The word armed can be understood as a simple description of what the polices
clothes looked like, however, from the point of view of appraisal this indicates that
when the police was armed, the situation was considered to be very serious and
dangerous. This is emphasised by the fact that the phrase is repeated several times in the
article and by making the presence of the armed police officers urgently omnipresent it
is not allowed to forget about the seriousness.
3. Other members of the Royal Family who were due to attend the event included the
Duke of York, The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent. (Telegraph,
22 July 2010)
By mentioning these guests visiting the event the author implies the significance of the
event.
Although not explicitly mentioned by Martin and Rose (2007) metaphors can
occur also in the category of appreciation:
4. ... Friday's meeting will be a good opportunity to discuss further what action is
being taken [by Pakistan], a spokeswoman for No 10 said, in words designed to lower
the temperature without backing down. (Guardian, 2 August 2010)
The underlined phrase is a negative appreciation of the spokeswomans words: the
utterance is evaluated by the author of the article as an insignificant response trying to
calm down the atmosphere however not carrying any important message.
Although not listed in the basic division of the appreciation by Martin and Rose
(2007) the sentences 2-4 are examples of implied appreciation. This classification is for
some reason only presented in the more detailed versions of appraisal, unlike with affect
55

and judgement, however, I decided to include it into the simplistic framework. Without
doing so, it would be difficult to label these as appreciation.
Concerning the appreciation it is worth of mentioning the articles on Northern
Rock bank of 3 August 2010. The bank was split into a good bank which was to keep
safer debts and bad bank where more dangerous debts were transferred. The
attributes good and bad are clearly evaluative but the nicknames of the banks are placed
within the quotation marks, which means that the source of the phrases is other than the
newspaper, i.e. there is not employed language of the newspaper which is central to the
study, so these were not analysed. However, if we compare the articles by the individual
papers, we see that the Independent does not use the nicknames at all, the Guardian uses
each nickname several times (7 times) and combines the usage of the proper names of
banks with their nicknames. The Telegraph, however, employed a completely different
attitude when solely the nicknames are used when talking about the banks. And thus
although the source is heteroglossic (comes from more authors), the attitude of the
Telegraph could be considered as evaluative. The topic of heterogloss will be presented
more thoroughly in the sections below.
Finally, in Table 19 the summary of appreciation is provided.
Table 19 Appreciating things

explicit

implied

Positive

Comments... were greeted

approvingly

negative

...statement was
punctilious in praising...,

...the event included the Duke

of York, The Duke and
Duchess of Gloucester and
the Duke of Kent.
...words designed to lower the
temperature...

56

4.2.2 Amplifying attitudes

The headline of this chapter expresses a feature of attitudes, namely that they are
gradable. When the meaning of attitudes is strengthened or weakened, i.e. their meaning
is intensified or toned down, we talk about amplifying the force of attitudes. Words
that include degrees of intensity are included such as happy, delighted, ecstatic (Martin
and Rose 2007: 42) belong to this category as well. When the attitude is softened or
sharpened, we talk about sharpening or softening a focus, i.e. sharpening or
softening categories of people and things, using words such as about, exactly, or real,
sort of, kind of (Martin and Rose 2007: 42). In the following subsections the individual
subgroups will be exemplified and commented.

4.2.2.1 Amplifying the force of attitudes

Their occurrences in the text serve to grading or marking the seriousness or
importance of an event. The application of force has a certain effect with respect to
alignment and solidarity. Upscaling of attitude frequently acts to construe the speaker/
writer as maximally committed to the value position being advanced and hence as
strongly aligning the reader into that value position (Martin and White 2005: 152). By
means of amplification of force of attitude the author of the phrase expresses his/ her
endorsement and presents it to the readers/ listeners. This works also the other way
round: when the evaluative term is downscaled the speaker/ writer has only a partial or
an attenuated affiliation with the value position being referenced (Martin and White
2005: 152), i.e. he/ she is not identified with the values expressed in the utterance.
The force of the attitude can be intensified or toned down by the following
language means:
usage of intensifiers, e.g. highly, last, several, worst, biggest, modal verbs
57

usage of attitudinal lexis which is lexis with attitude (Martin and Rose, 2007:
42), e.g. frantic, huge, dramatic, heavy
usage of metaphors
swear words
1. I can understand if Mr. (F. W.) de Klerk says he didnt know, but dammit, there must
be a clique, there must have been someone out there... (Martin and Rose, 2007:46)
The example is drawn from Martin and Rose (2007) as in my sample no swear words
occurred.
2. Yesterday evening there was a sense of panic as marksmen flooded into the village,
which was cordoned off. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)
The underlined verb is normally used in connection with natural disaster, however, in
the case it denotes a high number of the marksmen coming to the area, the old meaning
is transferred into a new one. The verb flooded amplifies the force of attitude in several
ways: 1. the author throughout the article describes the seriousness of the situation
whether directly or implicitly and mentioning the plentiful presence of marksmen
intensifies the seriousness; 2. the presence of marksmen always denotes that something
significant occurred in a place, but when they flood the area, i.e. a high number of them
arrived, it means the situation is very serious; 3. the power of utterance marksmen
flooded the area compared to marksmen arrived to area is substantially stronger and
has greater effect.
3. The former head of MI5 delivered a devastating critique of the invasion of Iraq today,
saying it substantially increased the threat of terrorist attacks in Britain... (Guardian, 20
July 2010)
4. Dr Nat Carey, a Home Office pathologist, was not able to analyse this fluid which
could have provided crucial information. (Telegraph, 22 July 2010)
58

These are examples of usage of attitudinal lexis employed by the analysed newspapers.
Though the word critique is used in following senses: 1. A critical review or
commentary, especially one dealing with works of art or literature; 2. A critical
discussion of a specified topic; 3. The art of criticism; v. To review or discuss critically
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language 2000), i.e. not in a
negative meaning, I assume that in this case the noun critique is used in a negative
sense. The shift of meaning from neutral to evaluative occurred with the verb critique as
is mentioned by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000:
432): Critique has been used as a verb meaning to review or discuss critically since
the 18th century, but lately this usage has gained much wider currency, in part because
the verb criticize, once neutral between praise and censure, is now mainly used in a
negative sense. But this use of critique is still regarded by many as pretentious jargon,
although resistance appears to be weakening. Although it only a negative meaning of
the verb critique is described here and even further in the dictionary is stated that noun
critique is used in a neutral context, in this sentence the shift towards negative meaning
occurred. This is based on the context of the rest of the article which in general says that
the former head provided a negative assessment. Thus we have a negative evaluation of
the invasion of Iraq which is amplified by devastating. In the other example the
amplifier crucial stands, however, before a neutral word information. What is here then
amplified? The information could have been also marked as being important or
significant, and still the meaning would be preserved and information would be still
evaluated positively. In a scale consisting of these words arranged in an order of their
strength we could see that crucial is the strongest of them:

59

The strength of the words

Crucial

stronger

Significant
Important

weaker

The relevance of this information is in the article depicted not only as important but as
very important when marked as crucial.
5. He died several minutes later after staggering about 100 yards into Cornhill, near St
Michael's Alley, and collapsing. (Independent, 22 July 2010)
6. ... at a time his country is struggling to cope with its worst floods for 80 years.
(Telegraph, 3 August 2010)
These sentences bring examples of usage of intensifiers in the newspaper articles.
Several is not an exact period of time, it is by no means an objective figure, it is only
expressed by someone who evaluated certain time period as longer or shorter and here it
was assessed as several minutes. The length of period of time is toned down.
7. Almost 2bn of savings have been pulled out of Northern Rock as a result of the
government stopping its 100% guarantee for deposits and the nationalised lender's
move to shut its offshore businesses. (Guardian, 3 August 2010)
Usage of almost intensifies the high amount of money that was withdrawn from the
bank. If instead of the word almost for example less than were used, it would express
still the same amount of money, however, it would sound to be banal and insignificant
for the bank.
On the basis of my research I assume that also a whole utterance can serve as
amplification of meaning:

60

9. Moat's death brings to an end a huge manhunt involving police officers from 15
forces, Scotland Yard sharpshooters and armoured 4x4 cars. An RAF Tornado was also
deployed to utilise wartime technology in a bid to find the gunman. (Independent, 10
July 2010)
In this segment the author describes a manhunt as huge which already is the
amplification. The description of the effort to find the person is intensified by the
remaining underlined phrases where the amount of resources (whether human or
technological) which were employed with the final emphasis on the usage of the
technology which is used in wars. The extent of the search is also described in the
Guardian:
10. Hundreds of officers were involved in the search, with 14 additional forces brought
in, including 40 officers from the Metropolitan police's C019 sniper unit and 20
armoured police cars shipped in from Northern Ireland. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)
The picture created by the Guardian is very similar to the sentence 9 but without
mentioning the wartime technology the situation seems to be less critical.
11. Police told the newspaper seller's widow and nine children that he died of a heart
attack after being caught up in crowded streets around the protests. (Independent, 22
July 2010)
This is another example of the amplification via a phrase: there is a higher level of
intensity when the author explicitly says who left after the deceased. There is obviously
a difference between using the phrase told the family and told the widow and nine
children. The fact that nine children left after the person killed by the police officer who
eluded the charges sounds more serious than if the reader is not aware of the number of
semi-orphans. This information is not mentioned in the Telegraph but is used by the

61

Guardian and the Independent which could be interpreted in a way that the latter
mentioned newspapers wished to make a greater impact on the readers.
These examples could be subsumed under what Martin and White (2005) call
repetition: ... assembling a list of terms which are closely related semantically (144):
widow and nine children means the relatives of the deceased; naming of all of the police
units and technology means that the action was really huge. Thus in these cases
semantically close expressions are used.
As mentioned above in the section 4.1 repetition was labelled also as a source of
amplification in accordance with Martin and White (2005) as it was not mentioned by
Martin and Rose (2007) and is also stated as an intensifier by Labov (1972). Repetition
is characteristic of the repeating the same lexical item ... or by assembling of lists of
terms which are closely related semantically (Martin and White 2005: 144). However,
when exemplified by both Labov (1972) and Martin and White (2005) only such
examples of repetition were provided where a phrase or a lexical item followed one
another, i.e. Its hot hot hot (Martin and White 2005: 144). I assume that also such cases
of providing a piece of information which occurs several times throughout a text could
be considered as repetition. It, however, requires conducting more profound research
which would enable to make generalisations. These cases thus are not included in the in
the section 4.3 which summarises the numbers of occurrences of appraisal.
12. BP said it had reached a significant milestone...
"It's a milestone," said a spokeswoman... (Guardian, 4 August 2010)
These two pieces of information say the identical thing with the first occurring two lines
of the text later. The information that they reached a milestone is positive news and thus
positive news is amplified when repeated.

62

13. ... while overall, girls achieved more A*s than boys.
Girls got more A* grades overall than boys (8.3% compared with 7.9%), but boys got
more A* grades in science and maths-based subjects.
The figures show that girls got more A* grades overall than boys (8.3% compared with
7.9%), but boys got more A* grades in science and maths-based subjects. (Independent,
19 August 2010)
In this case two pieces of information are amplified: 1.) girls are better than boys in
overall, while 2.) boys are better in science and maths-based subject.

4.2.2.2 Sharpening and softening focus

Focus is a category of amplification which includes resources for making
something that is inherently non-gradable gradable (Martin and Rose 2007: 46). Unlike
the previous category where the meaning was either toned up or down, focus is rather
characteristic of sharpening and softening of the meaning and applies most typically to
categories which, when viewed from an experiential perspective, are not scalable
(Martin and White 2005: 137). Sharpened and softened can be things, qualities and
numbers.
The effect of sharpening is to indicate maximal investment by the authorial
voice in the value position (either negative or positive) being advanced and hence to
strongly align the reader into the value position being advanced (Martin and White
2005: 139). With softening the effect is different when the attributed term carries a
negative meaning and different when it is a positive meaning. The effect of softening of
a negative term is to indicate a lessening of the speaker/ writers investment in the
value position and hence to offer a conciliatory gesture directed towards maintaining
solidarity with those who hold contrary views (Martin and White 2005: 139). On the
other hand, softening of a positive term implies that it is expected that the positive
63

assessment is being construed as potentially problematic for writer-reader solidarity

(Martin and White 2005: 140). This means that when it is anticipated that a positive
assessment could be considered as improper by the readers, it is softened in order to
present an attitude consistent with readers ones. The text, though produced by a single
source, becomes dialogistic in that the reaction is construed as a certain response to
what is expected to come. This notion is more profoundly discussed in the section
dealing with the source of attitudes.
12. ... Britain's most wanted man, ended early this morning when the fugitive shot
himself. (Guardian, 10 July 2010)
Here is focus sharpened: the fugitive shot himself not only in the morning but early in
the morning.
Other examples of sharpened focus: just after 7pm, strictly 300 metres, a single
gunshot. On the other hand if the phrases were arranged this way: approximately after
7pm, around 300 metres, these would be marked as means for softening the focus.
Concerning the gunshot if we omit the attribute the meaning will be still preserved, thus
the insertion of it is simply aimed to attract attention and make it sound more
dramatically.
Table 20 Summary of amplification

Force

Focus

Intensifiers
Attitudinal lexis
Metaphors
swearing
Phrases
Sharpen
soften

highly, last, several

frantic, huge, dramatic
...marksmen flooded into the village
Dammit, there must be a clique...
seller's widow and nine children
...early this morning...
...around 300 metres...

Eggins and Slade (1997) categorize amplification as one of four main categories
of appraisal together with affect judgement and appreciation defining it in a more

64

general sense as the way speakers magnify or minimize the intensity and degree of the
reality they are negotiating (125). They indeed deserve this placement within
categories of evaluation since amplification is actually an evaluation of a reality from
the part of the originator of an utterance as well whether one evaluates that something
happened really early as in early in the morning, that something was of a big intensity
as in frantic search meaning very intense. Additionally, if we consider as an example a
ratio of 49.2 % participants, as whole numbers are often preferred it can be assessed as
a) almost 50 % of participants, b) approximately 50 % participants, c) less than 50 %
(less than a half) of participants, and d) over 49%. In all cases a ratio of 49.2 % is
evaluated: in a sense it is a high result in a) but not changing the meaning that the ratio
was under 50 %; usage of b) is not incorrect but can denote both a higher and smaller
ratio than 50 % thus a slight shift of meaning occurs here; in c) the amount is
marginalised and in d) is emphasised. This play with numbers is most striking in the
articles presenting the good results of students from A-level exams (19 August 2010,
Guardian: A-level results 2010: A-level pass rate rises to 97.6%, Independent: 1 in 12
A-levels have new A* grade, Telegraph: Universities minister apologises to A-level
students missing out on places).
Obviously, in this specific case some evaluation occurs, however, it requires
further research to be able to make a conclusion to what extent the feature of evaluation
is present in amplification.

4.2.3 Sources of attitudes

Sources of attitudes, i.e. who the source of the evaluation is and thus is
responsible for the evaluation, is the last part of the appraisal. Basically Martin and
Rose (2007) distinguish between heteroglossic and monoglossic source. Heterogloss
means that the source of an attitude is other than the writer (Martin and Rose
65

2007:49), while monogloss is a situation when the source is simply the author and is
called also a single voice (Martin and Rose 2007:49). Heteregloss is further divided
into the following categories: projecting sources, modality and concession. Table 21
provides an overview of heterogloss including further categorization which is discussed
below.

Table 21 Sources of attitude

Projecting sources

Modality

Projecting clauses
Names for speech acts
Projecting within clauses
Scare quotes
Negotiating services
Negotiating information

Concession

4.2.3.1 Projecting sources

Projecting resources is about quoting and reporting what other people say or
think. Projection is the relation between what a person says and what a person said
(Martin and Rose 2007:49). Projection includes cases of quoting someones exact
words, which are typical of usage of quotation marks, and reporting which means
reporting general meaning that was said which occurs without quotation marks.
Besides saying it is also possible to present what one thinks or feels (Martin and Rose
2007:49-50).
1. "The fourth female calf died at less than a month old. No meat or products from this
young animal entered the food chain." (Guardian, 4 August 2010) QUOTATION
2. The Prime Minister, whose effigy has been burning on the streets of Karachi in recent
days, has insisted he will not back down from his remarks. (Independent, 3 August
2010) REPORT
66

3. ... I couldnt make out what he was saying but I think they just told him to lie on the
ground and he has been lying there ever since with all those guns trained on him."
(Telegraph, 10 July 2010) REPORT OF THINKING OR FEELING
Projection can be used repeatedly introducing still new and new sources of evaluation.
4. "When I am with Nelson Mandela - and I think everyone in the world feels the same
way - my focus and attention is on him," she said. (Independent, 5 August 2010)
In this segment we are provided with examples of thinking in the first case, of feeling in
the second one, and of saying in the third underlined segment. These are examples of
what Martin and Rose (2007) call projecting clauses. Besides saying or thinking we can
introduce additional source by naming speech acts which are a type of projection
between sentences.
5. The first police account, that he died from a heart attack, was confirmed by a
pathologist, Freddy Patel, in the initial postmortem. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
6. The Prime Minister's remarks in India last week, accusing Pakistan of exporting
terror... (Independent, 3 August 2010)
7. Opinion polls show Americans are tired of nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and
Iraq. (Telegraph, 19 August 2010)
The sentences above exemplify usage of speech acts as a source of utterances by other
person than the author.
Another category among projection sources is projection within clauses where
they explicitly assign responsibility for opinions to sources (Martin and Rose 2007:
51). This means that responsibility for an utterance attribute to other person than the
author of the article which, however, does not mean that the source is always explicitly
mentioned or named.

67

8. The IPCC itself was late in mounting an inquiry, claiming there was nothing
suspicious about the death... (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
9. A 75-ton cap placed on the well in July has been keeping the oil bottled up inside
over the past three weeks, but is considered only a temporary measure. (Independent, 4
August 2010)
10. Initially it was believed Moat posed a serious risk only to his former girlfriend and
police officers. (Telegraph, 10 July 2010)
Example no. 8 explicitly states who the source is while the remaining two sentences
only attribute the responsibility for the utterances to another person.
Finally, in the category of the projecting source a term scare quotes is
employed. It denotes situations where punctuation is used to signal that somebody
elses words are being used... In spoken discourse speakers might use special intonation
or voice quality to signal projection of this kind, and sometimes people use gesture to
mimic quotation marks, acting out the special punctuation (Martin and Rose 2007: 52).
11. A Metropolitan police spokesman said the force offered its "sincere regret" over the
death of Tomlinson. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
12. The "cross-examination" of Campbell, as a prosecution witness, was branded
"totally improper" by defence barrister Courtenay Griffiths QC. (Independent, 5 August
2010)
13. Mr Griffin described the decision as "an outrage" and "thoroughly anti-British".
(Telegraph, 22 July 2010)
Martin and Rose (2007) explain that the effect... is to disown the evaluation embodied
in the highlighted terms, attributing it to an alternative, unspecified, but usually
recoverable source (52). It should also be noted that at least in the cases of these
sentences the phrases within quotation marks or scare quotes express strongly some
68

kind of evaluation: while cross-examination is a neutral expression, regret is

emphasised by sincere, the cross-examination is not only improper but even totally
improper which is again stronger. And the same applies to the last sentence: outrage is
stronger than insult or offence which could be used instead and would be weaker, thus
outrage should be considered as amplified attitude.
Table 22 Projection

Projecting clauses

Names for speech

acts
Projecting within
clauses
Scare quotes

"When I am with Nelson Mandela - and I think everyone in

the world feels the same way - my focus and attention is on
him," she said.
police account, remarks, opinion polls
...an inquiry, claiming there was nothing..., ...but is
considered only a temporary measure, Initially it was
believed ...
"sincere regret", "cross-examination", "totally improper",
"an outrage", "thoroughly anti-British"

In these sub-classes only those sources of attitude have been introduced which
are explicitly mentioned thus obviously creating dialogistic environment. However,
even a monologue, written or spoken, may be regarded as dialogue in which the
reader/ listeners questions or comments have not been explicitly included but which
retains clear indications of the assumed replies of the reader (Hoey 1994: 29). It should
be noted that Martin and White (2005) hold the view that graduation introduced in the
previous section presents us with dialogic utterances as they enable speakers/ writers to
present themselves as more strongly aligned or less strongly aligned with the value
position being advanced by the text and thereby to locate themselves with respect to
communities of shared value and belief associated with those positions (94). Martin
and White (2005) accept a view that all verbal communication, whether written or
spoken, is dialogic (92) and agree with Voloinov (1986: 94-95) who explains:

69

The actual reality of language-speech is not the abstract system of linguistic

forms, not the isolated monologic utterance, and not the psychophysiological act
of its implementation, but the social event of verbal interaction implemented in
an utterance or utterances.
Thus, verbal interaction is the basic reality of language.
Dialogue, in the narrow sense of the word, is, of course, only one of the forms
a very important form, to be sure of verbal interaction. But dialogue can also
be understood in a broader sense, meaning not only direct, face-to-face,
vocalized

verbal

communication

between

persons,

but

also

verbal

communication of any type whatsoever. A book, i.e., a verbal performance in

print, is also an element of verbal communication. It is something discussable in
actual, real-life dialogue, but aside from that, it is calculated for active
perception, involving attentative reading and inner responsiveness, and for
organized, printed reaction in the various forms devised by the particular sphere
of verbal communication in question Moreover, a verbal performance of this
kind inevitably orients itself with respect to previous performances in the same
sphere, both those by the same author and those by other authors... Thus the
printed verbal performance engages, as it were, in ideological colloquy of large
scale: it responds to something, objects to something, affirms something,
anticipates possible responses and objections, seeks support and so on.

Consequently, in written or verbal utterances we tend to either react or respond to some

event/ topic/ circumstances or when stating an utterance we already expect or
presuppose a certain response from the listener/ reader and adjust our response in a
particular manner. Modality and concession are two groups which subsume such

70

features of discourse that give us a hint of such expectations, presuppositions or

responses. Such cases are included in the categories of modality and concession.

4.2.3.2 Modality
Another means which enables introduction of other sources into a text is
modality. Usage of modal verbs in a text enables or prevents to a lesser or greater extent
to react or oppose to what was said or written. Martin and Rose (2007) distinguish two
kinds of modality: one for negotiating services, the other for negotiating information.
The following scale depicts how demands for a service can be negotiated. The scale
expresses how obliged you are to act (Martin and Rose 2007:53). Halliday (1994)
calls this type of modality modulation and distinguishes it from the other scale which
he labels modalization.

do it

positive

you must do it
you should do it
you could do it
dont do it

negative

This scale expresses how probable a statement is:

it is

positive

it must be
it should be
it might be
it isnt

negative
71

Both of these scales display certain polarity, i.e. the choice between positive
and negative (Halliday 1994: 88), of modality and thus each end of the scale
represents either positive or negative polarity. And while polarity is about a choice
between yes and no, modality enables to move between them in intermediate
degrees (Halliday 1994: 88) which denote e.g. probability or possibility in a text.
Martin and Rose (2007: 53) explain that modality can be used as a resource for
introducing of additional voices into a text, and this includes polarity. Negative
polarity, unlike the positive one, implies two voices: when using negative polarity, we
expect someone to oppose us, i.e. we expect another voice. For example, a sentence You
could do it which is close the negative end of the scale, expresses a certain level of
tentativeness and expect someone else to oppose. On the other hand, You must do it
does not provide much space for anyone to disagree or manifest disapproval. Similarly
it works with negotiating information: claiming that something is true or must be true
(though, the second one leaving some space for doubt) is stronger than saying it might
be true; the first two mentioned phrases are more assertive and allow little doubt, unlike
the third example which presupposes objections. And thus modality, like polarity,
acknowledges alternative voices around a suggestion or claim. Unlike polarity, it
doesnt take these voices on and deny them; rather it opens up a space for negotiation,
in which different points of view circulate around an issue... (Martin and Rose, 2007:
54). Halliday (1994) distinguishes five types of modality: usuality, probability,
obligation, inclination and ability which are represented by the following examples
from the sample:
1. The President must now balance the demands of maintaining a crucial alliance with
Britain... (Independent, 3 August 2010)

72

In this sentence the author of the utterance does not expect anything else to happen and
refuses any doubts about it. Thus the other voice is here excluded. However, the
remaining examples represent the negative polarity of the modality which means these
allow objections or rather enable negotiations concerning the individual circumstances
described.
2. It said it could not bring a charge for criminal assault because too much time had
elapsed; a charge must be brought within six months. (Guardian, 22 July 2010)
To say could not instead of e.g. did not is somewhat weaker and apologetic it
presupposes blaming which is toned down by the usage of the modal.
3. Pakistan will be pleased with the outcome after it became concerned that Britain was
going to run a pro-India policy that might damage Pakistan's interests. (Guardian, 6
August 2010)
This sentence provides information in a very tentative and hesitating manner. The
author expects negotiations.
4. British consumers should prepare for lingering higher inflation... (Telegraph, 17
August 2010)
In this sentence a recommendation occurs which is stronger than in the previous
sentences, however, still enables or expects someone else to oppose.
Modality can also occur within projections discussed above which can be
interpreted as heteroglossic with respect to both projection and modalization... (Martin
and Rose 2007: 56).
5. Mr Laidler, 35, a fellow doorman who has known the gunman since he was three,
claimed that Moat had managed to get a message to his friends... (Telegraph, 10 July
2010)

73

6. Campbell denied being a "boastful person" and flirting with Taylor during the
dinner. (Independent, 5 August 2010)
7. The former head of the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund has admitted receiving
alleged "blood diamonds" from the British supermodel Naomi Campbell. (Guardian, 6
August 2010)
Alleged and claimed allow for doubt and thus enable negotiations, unlike denied which
refuses any discussion concerning the utterance.

4.2.3.3 Concession
Concession is also termed as counterexpectancy. In this part of heterogloss a
speaker/ writer presupposes that his/her listeners/ readers will react in a certain way and
on the basis of these expectations the speaker/ writer choose wording which is in
contrast with what is expected he/ she counters their expectations. To reach this aim
concessive conjunctions and continuatives are used.
Concessive conjunctions are those ones which counter expectations with but
being the most common conjunction to signal concession (Martin and Rose 2007: 57).
Other concessive conjunctions are: however, although; even if, even by; in fact, at least,
indeed; nevertheless, needless to say, of course, admittedly, in any case, etc (Martin and
Rose 2007: 57).
Continuatives work similarly as conjunctions but occur inside the clause rather
than at the beginning ... include words like already, finally, still, only, just, even.
Continuatives that express time indicate that something happens sooner or later, or
persist longer than one might expect... Other continuatives indicate that there is more or
less to a situation that has been implied... (Martin and Rose 2007: 58).

74

1. But Bhutto Zardari announced that he would spend tomorrow working to help the
victims of the country's devastating floods, whom his father has been accused of
neglecting. (Guardian, 6 August 2010)
But signals that Bhutto Zardari was not expected to do this activity the other.
2. Even if Nick Clegg is not officially in charge David Cameron has insisted he
remains the boss while on holiday the Liberal Democrat leader will be keen to
demonstrate his prime ministerial qualities over the next fortnight, beginning today.
(Guardian, 16 August 2010)
Martin and Rose (2007) explain that usage of even if expresses that happens something
more than is expected. And thus Nick Clegg though not being a Prime minister will still
do the prime ministerial job (he was to substitute David Cameron while him being on a
two-week holiday).
3. However, the budget constraints being imposed by the Government may see even
larger increases. (Telegraph, 17 August 2010)
However again introduce a statement which is discrepancy with what is expected. Even
signals that an event which occurs is more than expected.
4. But already the terrorists that Mr Cameron claims Pakistan should be doing more to
tackle, .... (Independent, 3 August 2010)
Already expresses that an event/ a situation occurred sooner than expected.
Table 23 provides a summary of concession.

Table 23 Concession

Concessive conjunctions

but, however, although

Continuatives

already, still, only

Concession

75

In this section the individual categories of appraisal were introduced and

provided with some examples in order to clarify what is under the names of the
categories and definitions meant. It was not always a simple task to determine which of
the lexical items or phrases belong to this or that category as sometimes the borderlines
between them are blurred or at least not crystal clear. This aspect together with some
figures brought by the research is discussed in the next section.

4.3 Discussion
The appraisal theory is a relatively recently established method for analysis of
discourse connected predominantly with two names James R. Martin, who coauthored both books (one of them with P. R. R. White) this thesis draws on, and Peter
R. R. White who additionally established the appraisal website. Other works dealing
with appraisal simply build on their research providing no more information or answers
when something is unclear. Some of them have been already mentioned in the
individual sections.
To start with, though repetition is by Martin and White (2005) accepted as a
means of amplification, they provide solely examples when the words occur close to
each other. This may be caused by the fact that their study is applied so far generally,
i.e. not in specific genres or areas and thus specific features of journalistic discourse are
not either taken into account. And while we cannot encounter a locution as they laughed
and laughed and laughed in a newspaper article, we often come across a same utterance
for two or more times in the course of reading, e.g. when was several times repeated
that girls earned more As from the exam and thus emphasising that they did better.
Similarly were treated scare quotes which were usually repeated twice in a text often
containing strongly evaluative message (e.g. thoroughly anti-British, Telegraph 22 July,
76

2010) first time within scare quotes and second time in a whole sentence as a reported
speech which is not considered as language of the newspapers but rather as language of
the originator of the utterance whether it was placed within the quotation marks or only
paraphrased. It is maintained that the journalist has no power over what is uttered by a
person involved although it is dependent on him/ her whether it is included in an article.
Reported speech in general, whether within quotation marks or paraphrased, was
excluded from the analysis due to the above stated reasons. It is necessary to be aware
of this as reported speech forms a substantial part of the articles analysed which is
actually in accordance what Bell (1991) says, ... journalists... report what other people
tell them rather their own observations... news is what people say more than what
people do (52-53). The figures below show ratios of occurrences of appraisal to the
sum of words consisting of all the text, i.e. reported speech including. The reason for
this approach is obvious: articles are carefully built up step by step from all the sources
available to create a certain impression. Further, it would be difficult to conduct the
analysis without the context of the whole article as such.
Another problematic area is also concerned with scare quotes and is also
mentioned in the section dealing with appreciation: the newspapers employed a
different practice when speaking about Northern Rock banks, topic no. 6. While the
Independent used solely the proper names of the two nationalised banks, the Guardian
used both their proper names and nicknames and the Telegraph almost exclusively their
nicknames good bank and bad bank which could be regarded as a more evaluative
approach from the part of the Telegraph. On the other hand, it could have also served as
means of easier understanding of the topic. The usage of the evaluative nicknames was
not counted as appreciation either.

77

I would like to propose that amplification and concession could be also carriers of
evaluative stances. The former mentioned has been already discussed in the relevant
section providing an example of situation when a ratio of 49.2 % could be interpreted as
almost 50 % which implies a high figure or less than 50 % which implies a small figure
and this carries an evaluation whether 49.2 % is a high or a small result. As regards to
concession, or counterexpectancy, i.e. sooner or later than expected, or better or worse
than expected, it is always about what the journalist evaluates as expected or
unexpected. And thus in an utterance: The stones were only handed to police
yesterday... it implies not only that it was later than expected, but also that the journalist
considers it later than desirable.
In the tables below are presented the numbers of occurrences of the individual
categories of appraisal in the analysed articles. Concerning the figures in the tables, it
should be made clear that one word could be included in two categories, e.g. the worst
is both an example of negative appreciation and of amplification, or rage is included in
affect and amplification.
Table 24 No. of occurrences of attitude in the Guardian

No. of words affect

G1
G2
G3
G4
G5
G6
G7
G8
G9
G10
G11
G12

judgement appreciation amplification

984

13

16

816
1,218
572
965
627
490
487
1014
947
535
2197

0
0
2
4
0
3
0
3
7
0
8

8
9
7
8
1
0
1
11
9
5
6

3
2
6
10
1
0
4
5
5
0
15

1
1
2
6
3
2
3
2
7
0
9

78

No. of words affect

judgement appreciation amplification

G13
G14
G15

662
597
535

1
3
0

0
1
2

0
7
3

4
19
2

total

12,646

33

74

74

77

Table 25 No. of occurrences of attitude in the Independent

No. of words affect

I1
I2
I3
I4
I5
I6
I7
I8
I9
I10
I11
I12
I13
I14
I15
total

judgement appreciation amplification

1085

10

14

972
885
762
741
595
670
436
845
535
506
526
743
1136
93
10538

0
2
0
5
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
3
0
14

5
4
4
17
1
5
1
7
3
7
2
5
4
1
74

0
3
7
29
3
1
2
3
3
2
0
4
2
0
69

1
7
1
17
8
2
6
3
1
2
0
10
7
3
82

Table 26 No. of occurrences of attitude in the Telegraph

No. of words affect

judgement appreciation amplification

T1

1942

23

14

28

T2
T3
T4
T5
T6
T7
T8
T9
T10

402
602
452
660
332
671
408
899
541

0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0

3
7
4
6
0
5
2
10
1

0
2
2
5
1
1
4
5
2

0
2
0
3
3
2
7
2
3

79

No. of words affect

551
265
547
827
312
9411

T11
T12
T13
T14
T15
total

judgement appreciation amplification

0
0
1
0
0
3

5
2
3
3
0
74

0
0
10
2
2
50

3
0
14
4
7
78

Table 27 presents a statistics based on the figures displayed in the tables above.
It shows average occurrences of the individual categories of attitude per 1000 words.
The procedure employed was as follows: first, the ratio of occurrences of the individual
categories in every article per 1000 words was counted. Then the average occurrences
of the individual categories in all of the articles per 1000 words were counted from the
values reached by the previous procedure. For example, I calculated the number of the
occurrences of affect per 1000 words from G1, then from G2, G3 etc. Subsequently the
values of affect earned from G1-G15 were counted up and divided by 15 to receive the
average occurrence of affect in the Guardian. The results are presented in Table 27
which provides the average amounts of the occurrences of the individual categories of
appraisal in the individual newspapers.
Table 27 Occurrences of attitude in the individual newspapers per 1000 words ()

in

affect

judgement

appreciation

amplification

Guardian

2.42

5.69

5.57

6.54

Independent

1.08

7.28

6.15

9.17

Telegraph

0.32

6.66

4.88

7.84

These numbers were further transferred into the following graph to provide a clear
overview:

80

Graph 1 Comparison of occurrences of attitude in the individual newspapers

[]

10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
affect

judgement

appreciation

amplification

This graph displays the amount of the evaluative language as employed by the
individual newspapers. It needs to be emphasised one more time that these results
mirror the tendency of the individual newspapers as shown in the 15 articles from each
of them which is not a sufficient amount to make any conclusions. However, as the
same topics were covered by each of the newspapers, it could be summed up that in
general and within this sample the newspapers tend to use the evaluative language with
the Guardian showing the tendency to employ more expressions denoting affect with
2.42 words of affect per 1000 words, while the Telegraph tended to use the least of the
expressions of affect, namely 0.32 words of affect per 1000 words. Affect in general
was the least employed category of appraisal in the articles analysed reaching
substantially lower numbers which could be understood as an effort of the newspapers
to avoid evaluations of peoples feelings. Amplification, on the other hand, was
81

employed the most frequently by all the newspapers. This displays their tendency to
either emphasise or tone down and either soften or sharpen some event, features,
numbers mentioned etc.
While in the category of affect the Guardian reached the highest values, the
Independent achieved the highest ratios of occurrences per 1000 words in the remaining
categories. Within the 15 topics dealt with by the newspapers the Independent thus
shows the most striking tendency of usage of the evaluative language.

82

5. Conclusion
This thesis deals with journalistic discourse and presents the view even quality
newspapers tend to be evaluative (that it is not solely the feature of tabloid newspapers).
Quality newspapers do not present their articles in a fantastic manner or do not make
quick conclusions as tabloid press does, yet one needs to be careful about relying on
what they produce. As Fowler (1991) puts it, There are always different ways of
saying the same thing, and they are not random, accidental alternatives. Differences in
expression carry ideological distinctions (and thus differences in representation) (4).
This means that though a same event is covered by the newspapers, the different
outcomes are possible.
In the thesis journalistic discourse is studied from several angles having the
same idea in mind: the evaluation from the part of the quality newspapers. First, the way
an event is chosen to be reported is discussed. Galtung and Ruge (1965) and Harcup and
ONeill (2001) introduced sets of criteria which explain which news are interesting
enough for the press to be chosen as news. Also Vastermans (1995) view is mentioned
that there is not actually news but rather constructs produced by the journalists giving
thus whole influence on what is news to the journalists or rather the team of the persons
that is involved. It is further pointed out that even if a piece of news is decided to be
newsworthy, there is a long process between its occurrence and the final form printed in
the newspapers. This is explained by Bell (1991) who describes the whole procedure
which takes place during the news production. In this procedure it is decided whether
the news is determined to go to the front page or not, its length, the amount of
information, and font size. As each of the newspapers that were examined produced
articles on the same topic with differences in length and sometimes even with different
83

amount of information it is obvious that even here some evaluation occurs. Fowler
explains it saying that, the institutions of news reporting and presentation are socially,
economically and politically situated, all news is always reported from some angle (10)
summarising thus what Bell (1991) included under the term principals in his
procedure of news production.
The core of the thesis is formed by the description of the appraisal framework
supplied with the examples from the sample. First of all, two different versions of the
framework are discussed, one being more complex, the other simplistic. In this section
it is argued that it is possible to use both versions of the appraisal framework and
achieve basically the same results. The application of the appraisal framework as
provided by Martin and Rose (2007) turned out to be more suitable for the research as it
supplied enough information, however, did not distinguish between the different
categories in such a detail as did the one by Martin and White (2005). From the point of
the aim of the thesis, it was solely important to be able to identify the cases of the usage
of evaluative language by the quality newspapers that were analysed.
On the basis of the research it is possible to conclude that all three analysed
quality newspapers tend to use evaluative language in their discourse. This tendency is
shown in the part dealing with the analysis of the newspapers where each of the
categories of appraisal is supplied with examples from the sample and in the chapter 5
which provides total numbers of occurrences of evaluative attitudes as identified by the
appraisal framework.
The research further revealed that although the framework is developed
relatively well by both Martin and Rose (2007) and Martin and White (2005), it still
requires further research to be able to work with the framework without any restrictions
84

 on some occasions several difficulties occurred (these are discussed in the section 4.3)
concerning the application of the framework. It must be noted that the framework is
relative recent (worked out during 1990s) and described solely by the authors
mentioned above with other works drawing on their works and thus not presenting new
views on the framework. Further, it is suggested in the thesis that even amplification
could be possibly categorised as a source of attitude drawing on the opinion of Eggins
and Slade (1997) who consider amplification as important as the categories of attitude
affect, judgement and appreciation.
As regards the results acquired from the research showed that although using the
evaluative expressions the analysed newspapers tend to avoid employing expressions of
affect, i.e. evaluation of peoples feelings. Among the analysed newspapers the
Guardian reached the highest ratio of usage of affect per 1000 words. The remaining
categories of appraisal occurred more frequently in general in all of the studied
newspapers with the category of amplification earning the highest ration of occurrences
per 1000 words in all the examined newspapers. It was further found out that in the
remaining three categories the Independent dominated: in this newspaper the highest
ratios of occurrences were earned in the categories of judgement, appreciation and
amplification.

85

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Schlesinger, Philip (1987) Putting reality together: BBC news. London: Methuen.
Sinclair, John McH (1994) Trust the text. In: Coulthard, Malcolm (ed.) Advances in
written text analysis. London: Routledge. 12-25.
Vasterman, Peter (1995) Media Hypes. 9 April 2011.
http://home.planet.nl/~vaste142/mchype/hype3.html.
Voloinov, V. N. (1986) Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
White

P.

R.

R.

(2005)

The

appraisal

website.

15 March

2011.

http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/index.html.
Protests in Egypt and unrest in Middle East as it happened. The Guardian. 25
January 2011. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Unexpected rise in UK unemployment. The Guardian. 16 February 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
German dioxin scare spreads to meat. The Telegraph. 9 January 2011.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.

87

Businesses divided over UK minimum wage increase. The Telegraph. 8 April 2011.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.

Analysed articles:
Raoul Moat dead after single gunshot ends standoff with police. The Guardian.
10 July 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Former MI5 chief delivers damning verdict on Iraq invasion. The Guardian. 20 July
2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Ian Tomlinson death: police officer will not face criminal charges. The Guardian.
22 July 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Nick Griffin told: we don't want that kind of party at the palace. The Guardian.
22 July 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Pakistan president will 'put David Cameron straight' over terror claims. The
Guardian. 3 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Northern Rock savings fall but 'bad bank' is in the black. The Guardian. 3 August
2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Cloned meat: British consumers have eaten parts of least two bulls. The Guardian.
4 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
BP oil spill mostly cleaned up, says US. The Guardian. 4 August 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Naomi Campbell: I didnt know if dirty diamonds were Charles Taylors gift. The
Guardian. 5 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
David Cameron and Pakistans Asif Ali Zardari show united front on terrorism. The
Guardian. 6 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
88

Naomi Campbell gave me uncut diamonds, says former Mandela charity chief. The
Guardian. 6 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Nick Cleggs first day. The Guardian. 16 August 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Inflation eases but stays above 3%. The Guardian. 17 August 2010.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
A-level results 2010: A-level pass rate rises to 97.6%. The Guardian. 19 August
2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Last

US

combat

troops

leave

Iraq.

The

Guardian.

19

August

2010.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/.
Raoul Moat kills himself during police stand-off . The Independent. 10 July 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Iraq invasion increased terror activity against UK. The Independent. 20 July 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Riot officer faces no charge over G20 death. The Independent. 22 July 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Palace bans Nick Griffin from palace garden party. The Independent. 22 July 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
A humanitarian disaster at home, a diplomatic crisis abroad. The Independent.
3 August 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Northern Rock plans to resume credit cards and loans. The Independent. 3 August
2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Second cloned cow offspring used in food chain. The Independent. 4 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Most of BP oil spill has gone, says US. The Independent. 4 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.

89

Naomi Campbell accused over Charles Taylor trial evidence. The Independent.
5 August 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/.
UK-Pakistan relationship unbreakable. The Independent. 6 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Charity man hands Naomi Campbell gift diamonds to police. The Independent.
6 August 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Coalition proving doubters wrong, says Clegg. The Independent. 16 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Bank surprised at inflation strength. The Independent. 17 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
1 in 12 A-levels have new A* grade. The Independent. 19 August 2010.
http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Goodbye Iraq: Last US combat brigade heads home. The Independent. 19 August
2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/.
Raoul Moat dies after shooting himself during armed police stand-off. The Telegraph.
10 July 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Iraq war increased terrorist threat to the UK, former MI5 chief tells Chilcot Inquiry.
The Telegraph. 20 July 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
G20 riots: policeman escapes charges over Ian Tomlinson's death. The Telegraph.
22 July 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Nick Griffin denied entry to Buckingham Palace garden party. The Telegraph. 22 July
2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Pakistan president to challenge David Camerons uncalled for terrorism remarks.
The Telegraph. 3 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.

90

Northern Rocks bad bank makes a profit, good bank a loss. The Telegraph.
3 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Meat from second cloned cow offspring entered food chain. The Telegraph. 4 August
2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
BP oil spill: majority of oil in the Gulf of Mexico eliminated. The Telegraph.
4 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Naomi Campbell: I handed blood diamonds to Mandela charity. The Telegraph.
5 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Britain and Pakistan have unbreakable relationship, insist Cameron and Zardari. The
Telegraph. 6 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Naomi Campbell diamonds handed in to South African police by charity head. The
Telegraph. 6 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Nick Clegg: Coalition has brought reform, not insipid mush. The Telegraph.
16 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Bank of England Governor warns that Britons face higher inflation for longer. The
Telegraph. 17 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Universities minister apologises to A-level students missing out on places. The
Telegraph. 19 August 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.
Last brigade of US combat troops leaves Iraq. The Telegraph. 19 August 2010.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.

91

Summary
This diploma thesis deals with journalistic discourse of the chosen quality
newspapers, namely with the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph. It considers
evaluative language that occurs in the newspaper articles. The aim of the work is to
point out that despite the fact that quality newspapers unlike tabloid one are seen as
reliable, it is not always possible to rely on the information the reader is given by them.
The thesis can be basically divided into two parts. The first part contains an
introduction to journalistic discourse, or rather it presents the procedure of changing an
event into a piece of news reported by the newspapers. There are described criteria
which are considered to determine whether an event becomes news or not. Further, it is
explained here that it is not only about a journalist who comes and simply reports facts,
but rather a whole team of people participates in the procedure and influences the
content of the newspaper article from the factual point of view as well as ideological
point of view. The fact that newspapers are inherently evaluative is emphasized here
and this is mirrored in the type of information which is published, in its amount and also
in the choice of language means to describe the event.
The main part is devoted to the analysis of the newspaper articles based on the
approach described predominantly by P. R. R. White and J. R. Martin called appraisal
or appraisal framework. This approach enables to identify evaluative stances in a text.
There are two types of the framework, one being more complex, the other simplistic,
with the latter being employed in the thesis. It is explained here that it is possibly to
reach basically the same results with both frameworks.

92

The research showed that even the quality newspapers tend to use evaluative
language in their articles. The examples of occurrences of the individual categories of
appraisal are provided in the relevant categories enabling thus easier comprehension of
the approach and at the same time it illustrates how the individual analyzed newspapers
use evaluative language in the articles. The numbers of occurrences of evaluative
stances are counted and summarized in an individual chapter which provides a
comparison of the usage of the individual categories of appraisal by the analyzed
newspapers within the sample.

93

Resum
Tto diplomov prca sa venuje jazyku vybranch nebulvrnych novn,
konkrtne ide o Guardian, Independent a Telegraph. Zaober sa hodnotiacim prejavom
zo strany novn, ktor s obsiahnut v novinovch lnkoch. Cieom prce je poukza
na t skutonos, e napriek tomu, e tieto noviny s povaovan za kvalitn na rozdiel
od bulvrnych, ani v ich prpade nie je mon sa spolieha na to, e itate dostane
serizne a nezaujat informcie.
Prcu je mon rozdeli na dve zkladn asti. Prv as obsahuje vod
k urnalistickmu jazyku, resp. predstavuje postup, ako je urit udalos spracovan na
novinov lnok. S tu zmienen kritri povaovan za determinanty toho i sa
z udalosti stane novinka alebo nie. alej je tu vysvetlen, e v tomto procese nejde len
o tvoriv innos novinra, ale vystupuje tu cel sbor ud, ktor sa podiea na
vytvran obsahu lnku, ako z pohadu faktickho aj ideologickho, a teda novinov
lnok nie je len popis toho, o sa udialo. V tejto asti je zdraznen, e noviny ako
tak s nevyhnutne hodnotiace teleso, o sa prejavuje jednak v tom, ktor informcie sa
do lnku dostan, v akom mnostve, ale aj vo vobe jazykovch prostriedkov.
Hlavn as sa venuje analze novinovch lnkov na zklade analytickej
metdy popsanej predovetkm P. R. R. Whiteom a J. R. Martinom nazvanej
appraisal alebo appraisal framework. Ide o metdu, ktor umouje identifikova
hodnotiace postoje v texte. V prci je vysvetlen, e existuj dva typy tejto metdy,
jedna obsiahlejia, druh jednoduchia, ktor bola vyuit pri analze, ale s obomi je
mon zska prakticky zhodn vsledky.
Aplikcia tejto metdy na novinov lnky priniesla poznatok, e aj nebulvrne
noviny vyuvaj hodnotiace jazykov prostriedky. Prklady jednotlivch kategri tejto
94

metdy s uveden v prslunch astiach spolu s komentrmi, o umouje ahie

pochopenie tejto metdy a zrove ilustruje, ako konkrtne analyzovan noviny pracuj
s hodnotiacimi jazykovmi prostriedkami vo svojich lnkoch. Vskyty jednotlivch
prpadov s spotan a zhrnut v samostatnej asti, o poskytuje v rmci skmanej
vzorky porovnanie vyuvania hodnotiacich jazykovch prostriedkov jednotlivmi
novinami.

95

Appendix
Picture 1 The front page of the online version of the Guardian, 11 April 2011, www.guardian.co.uk

96

Picture 2 The front page of the online version of the Independent, 11 April 2011, www.independent.co.uk

97

Picture 3 The front page of the online version of the Telegraph, 11 April 2011, www.telegraph.co.uk

98