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Moreover,wesomehowmakesenseofeveryphenomenon,thatis,weincludeitnotonly
inthesphereoftemporalspatialexistence,butalsointhemeaningsphere.Thismaking
senseincludesanelementofevaluation.Butthequestionoftheformofbeingofthissphere,
and the question of the character and form of the interpreting evaluations, are purely
philosophical(butnotofcourse,metaphysical)questionswhichwecannotdiscusshere.The
followingisofimporttous:whateverthesemeanings,inordertoenterourexperience(our
socialexperience)theymustreceivesometemporalspatialexpression,thatis,takeona
semioticformwhichwecanhearandsee(ahieroglyph,amathematicalformula,averbal
linguisticexpression,adrawing,etc).Eventhemostabstractthinkingisimpossiblewithout
suchtemporalspatialexpression.Consequently,entryintothesphereofmeaningscanonly
beachievedthroughthegatesofchronotopoi."(ibidpp.527528).
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Thenotionof'heteroglossicspace'willbediscussedinmoredetailinthesectionon
Engagement,2.3below.
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SeeAppendixOne:"Glossaryofterms"fordiscussionofsomeCMCrelatedtermsused
throughoutthisthesis.
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play. From this perspective, the two texts chosen represent useful
examples of the nature of this contestation, but for the same
reason, they pose challenges for the Appraisal analyst.
Text1 was originally 29 sentences long, while text2 was
derived from a post comprising 38 sentences altogether, but whose
'body' was felt to be complete after sentence 34, since the poster
'signed off' using a closing remark, followed by a postscript (c.f.
appendix B).
In terms of generic structuring and rhetorical staging, this allows a
comparison of the texts as complete structured units. At the same
time, it also allows an investigation of the ways in which Appraisal
analysis can be revealing of how staging takes place in both texts:
the choice of the texts using the 'relevance-in' style was done
advisedly in order to provide such an opportunity. In determining
the unit sentence, orthographic signalling such as fullstops and
capitalisation takes precedence over independent clauses, and
therefore the terms clause and clause complex will be reserved for
particular classes of sentence. Reference to the texts will be made
to text1 and text2 (reproduced in appendix B), sometimes followed
by the clause complex (sentence) number. For example, reference
to text2, sentence 24 is in the form 2:24.
1.3.1 Appraising the two texts: first paragraphs
In the excerpt which follows (Ex.1.1), sentences 1:1 to 1:12 of text1
are reproduced from Appendix B1, in which values of Attitude have
been analysed. These sentences realise the first orthographicallysignalled paragraph in the text. The use of colour to highlight
different types of Attitude enables any regularities, or clustering of
evaluative positioning to be observed. The framework itself will be
presented in detail in section 3 below, but some idea of the nature
of the text and its use of evaluative positioning in a type of metaevaluative field can be gained by the first paragraph reproduced
here.
Briefly stated, the system of Attitude is concerned to identify
all types of evaluative assessments, either negative or positive,
which may appear in texts. The framework recognises three subtypes of Attitude: Affect (concerned with assessments based on
emotional responses), Judgement (concerned with assessments of
human behaviour and social norms), and Appreciation (concerned
with assessments of objects, events and artefacts in terms of
aesthetic and social value). The framework also makes a distinction
between those Attitudes which are inscribed or made explicitly, and
those which may be implied, or activated in the text by other
means. In addition, each subtype of Attitude recognises a variety of
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Itisintendedthat,inModule3,thedataproducedfromtheanalysisofacorpusofemail
textswillbediscussedforthispurpose.AsoutlinedinModule1,thiscorpuscomprises5
texts written by three different posters, as well as the edited posts of three threads or
'conversations',aswellasavarietyofotherpoststakenfromotherthreadsandmailinglists.
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This thesis contends that rhetorical text units are semantic, (as
distinct from structural units that might be revealed by analysis
confined to the level of lexicogrammar, and the sentence), and
override any orthographic means by which such utterance
boundaries are signalled. This is seen as analogous to the nature of
moves and move complexes outlined by Ventola (1988) for spoken
interactive texts based on service encounters, and that of
exchange complexes put forward by Hoey (1993), in which he
proposes that the 'interactive development' of a text be linked to its
Theme-Rheme development. In this approach, transactions (in the
sense of the IRF framework of Sinclair & Coulthard) are classed as
an unordered sequence of exchange complexes. The sequencing of
exchange complexes in this model, he suggests could be mapped
on to the identification of 'stages of dialogue' in his ProblemResponse framework in which negative evaluation of a response
does not signal an exchange boundary so much as a Re-Initiation in
the sequence.
Francis (1994) offers another useful perspective with which to
cross-reference the findings revealed by Appraisal analysis in texts
of this type. She points out that 'labelling discourse' has "a clear
topic-shifting and topic-linking function" and that retrospective
labels in particular, have the ability to present the argument up to
that point as 'fact', since the "head noun of a retrospective label is
always presented as the given information in its clause"(ibid: 86).
This suggests a clear link between the nature of provoked Appraisal
and the use of retrospective discourse labels.
More particularly, the idea of rhetorical text units is related to
that described by Gregory (1985), and by Cloran (1993). In
Gregory's approach, transitions are regarded as variable rhetorical
units which mark textual boundaries between other rhetorical units,
which Gregory calls phases, and these are signalled by linguistic
features that are marked in co-text. For email interactive texts the
problem of deciding on the boundaries of an exchange (or
'interactive unit') are multiplied, and therefore the concept of the
move and the move complex which theoretically would comprise
units in any exchange, or exchange complex, I believe needs to be
enhanced by looking at the nature of the evaluative positioning
taking place. The nature of this evaluative positioning is in turn
dependent on textual meanings as outlined earlier, and this thesis
takes the position that the Appraisal framework which is concerned
to articulate the interpersonal meanings of propositions, must also
refer to the nature of the co-textual organisation, and ultimately to
its intertextual location: the institutionalised genres and orders of
discourse to which each text refers. Therefore, the notions of move
and exchange complex, together with the idea of a dialogic
orientation of Addressers to a projected/constructed audience (the
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2:352:35a comprisesthesignoffsequence,whichinthiscaseincludesapostscriptas
well:hence35a.
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(e.g. *he sort of gave up).1 Focus can also be described as the
degree to which a value is represented as peripheral or central to
some 'core meaning'. In 1:24, the writer hedges the negative
Judgement of Tenacity levelled at other groups with the phrase in
some sort of objective sense.
2.2.2 Force
FORCE, on the other hand, is a means of scaling attitudes through
various linguistic means such as grading ("In some families"; "with
a minimum of negative feelings and consequences." 2:11),
numbering (*there are several things wrong here), repeating (*it
was terrible, terrible), citing quality ("these radical shifts and
changes" 2:11), or using metaphor (*he was up to his ears in debt),
for example. Force may be realised by separate lexical operators
(very, to some degree, a bit, etc), or it may involve intensification
in the grade or scale introduced within a lexical item expressing
Attitude - for example, like versus love versus adore. Martin & Rose
(op cit: 38-43) offer a number of examples of how sets of 'graders'
might be activated in context. In the analyses which I use here,
values of GRADUATION are sometimes tagged in the text itself, but
since their main function is to contribute to the signification and
scaling of Attitude, very few of these appear in the tables in
appendix D. This was because the occurrence and patterning of
Attitudinal values was the focus of this analysis, rather than their
scaling. The occurrence of GRADUATION in a text, however, can
sometimes function as an indicator that some form of evaluation is
being expressed, much in the same way that negative polarity can
alert the analyst to an evaluative position that is acknowledged
through its negation.
2.3 Engagement
In this section I introduce the ENGAGEMENT framework as part of
Appraisal. Engagement provides a means of highlighting how
Addressers can indicate, readers may interpret, and interpreters
identify, signals as to the state of the relationship constructed
between Addresser and Addressee and/or Overhearers at any one
point in the discourse. It is construed as operating via inter-related
typologies outlined in Table 2.1 and 2.2 below: from one
perspective,
the
dialogistic
(or
'heteroglossic',
versus
1
Asdescribedabove,referencestothetextswilltaketheform(2:4)(asanexamplereferring
toText2,sentence4);madeupexamplesare*asterisked;anditemsinterpretedasprovoking
Appraisalvaluesitalicisedinthecontextofplaintext,orunderlinedinthecontextofitalics.
RefertoappendixB:Text1&2.
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17
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Table 2.1:
Engagement from the perspective expansion - contraction
Dialogic contraction:
Disclaim:
Referencetotextsotherthanthetwowhicharethefocusofthisstudy,areidentifiedbya
labelandnumberingcode.Forexample"wvn60.23:1"referstothe60thpostinwhichthe
"wideversusnarrow"threadwasembedded,andthe23rdpostdeemedtohavemaintained
thetopic.Thelastnumberreferstothenumbered sentences forthat post/text.Seealso
section5below,andAppendixEforareproductionofthe"alastbouquet"threadinwhich
text1appearsaspost[alb103.43/27vi]or[JSD6]the6th(vi)inthe"justsaydelete"sub
thread.
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Table 2.2:
Engagement from the perspective intra /extra-vocalisation
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ThisrelatestowhatRavelli1995termsadynamicperspective.
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example
counterexample
(2:4)Ihadanticipated[..]
*Ihadanticipateda
birthdaypresent.
fear
(2:25)oneofherposts
*oneofherpostsstatedher
thoughtsonthematter
stated[]herdesireto
shockherself
(2:26)Myonlyregretsince *theonlybruisingIhave
Ihavebeenhere
receivedsincebeinghere
[judgement:capacity:
negative:evoked]
(2:2)I'mgladyouanswered *It'snaturalyouanswered
Roy'squestion
Roy'squestion[judgement:
normality]
(2:33)Iamnotsafe.
*Iamnotamonster.
[judgement:normality]
(2:14)myfirstobservation
*myfirstobservationfrom
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/confidence;trust
dissatisfaction
/ennui;displeasure
satisfaction
/interest;admiration
fromthecomfortofmy
formerobserverhood
(2:6)Roygotthebruntof
myindignation
(2:5)Ivaluehonestyin
communication
thevantagepointofmy
formerobserverhood.
*Roygotthegistofmy
explanation
*Shewashonestin
communicating[judgement:
veracity]
Table 3.1
Not all of these values are realised in the two texts analysed here,
but where possible, actual examples from the text have been given,
together with made-up (*asterisked) counter examples for
illustrative purposes.
3.2.1 Affect: Comment on some examples
Because Affect refers to largely individually reported subjective
emotion, as distinct from Judgement which deals with social
sanction and esteem, sources of Affect are also considered as
'Appraisers'. When the Affect is reported as 'happening to myself',
perhaps caused by some other person or action, as, for example, "I
have been surprised that no-one identified..."(2:18), the Appraiser
and the Appraised would seem to be one and the same, but in this
type of situation, the cause of the emotional reaction is classed as
the Appraised, or 'target' of the evaluation - that no-one
identified1 In this system it needs to be distinguished for purposes
of analysis, that there is always a 'reporter' (or 'animator' in
Goffman's 1974 terms) who may not appear in the text, but
appraisal values of Affect are classed as originating in an 'emoter'
as a source. In 2:18, for example, Appraiser and source are
coterminous. All statements of any kind represent an 'assessment'
of the state of the world, whether the assessor is explicitly named
or not (for example via intra-vocalisation) and this way of classing
the values of Affect locates them in the person who feels or
manifests such emotional orientation, rather than the Addresser
who reports their assessment of the origin of the Affect. In reporting
such an assessment of the nature of someone else's "evaluative
positioning", the Addresser 'avers' that such an emotion "occurred".
Grammatically, responsibility for the proposition may be unsourced
(even though understood as located in the Addresser), while the
Attitude itself is sourced in the emoter. For example, in "*John looks
happy", the emoter and hence the source of the Attitude is 'John',
1
IngrammaticaltermsthiswouldbeclassedasaprojectedMentalprocessclause.
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capacity:negative
capacity:positive
example
(2:10)[babies..force
realignmentof[the
family's]]habitualpatterns
(2:3)Ifeelasanynew
memberisgoingtofeel
(1:21)NDhasoftenbeen
takentotaskfornot
stickingtoitstask.
(1:22)inmanywaysweare
quiteproductive
counterexample
*babiescausedistressto
familymembers[affect:
insecurity]
*Ifeelupset[affect:
insecurity]
*NDhasoftenbeentaken
totaskforbeingexclusive.
[judgement:propriety]
*inmanywayswearequite
narrowminded.
[judgement:propriety:
negative]
(2:22)Iamignorantof
*Iampissedoffwithlist
Listjargon
jargon.[affect:
dissatisfaction]
(2:9)Theyrefreshthegroup *Theyobservethegroup
dynamic.
dynamic.
SOCIALSANCTION
value
veracity:negative
veracity:positive
propriety:negative
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example
counterexample
*youweretryingtofool
me
(2:7)hewastryingtobe
*hewastryingtocheckhis
honestabouthisperceptions perceptions[judgement:
tenacity]
(2:28)[she]didnot
*[she]didnothandlethis
deservethis(i.e.'Ishould
well[judgement:capacity]
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propriety:positive
nothavedonethis':targetof
negativeproprietyisthe
self)
(2:28)someonewithher
*someonewithherlegs
courtesy
[appreciation:reaction:
evoked:neg.orPOs
dependentoncotext]
Table 3.2
33
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35
36
37
example
(2:13)adisruptedfamily
composition:positive
(1:12)thisfluidplan
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counterexample
(2:14)NDisa
dysfunctionalfamily
[judgement:capacity:
negative]
*thiscaringplan
[judgement:capacity:
positive:viainabilityof
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reaction:negative
reaction:positive
valuation:negative
valuation:positive
(2:20)Ihaveboring
reports
(1:11)Mygoal[..]isto
haveaspleasantandas
delightfuladayasIcan
(2:21)thefalsesecurityin
thatapproach
(1:4)[task]hasmore
positiveconnotations
planstobe'caring']NB:
thisisoneofthesliding
pointsofthissystemandits
interstrataltension
grammarsemantics
*Thereportsboredme
[affect:dissatisfaction]
*Mygoalistobeas
cheerfulasIcan.
[judgement:tenacity]
*thestupidityinyour
approach[judgement:
capacity:negative]
*doingthistaskhasmoral
obligations[judgement:
propriety]
Table 3.3
3.4.1 Appreciation: Comment on some examples
As noted above, ascribing values of Appreciation is sometimes
associated with an indistinct boundary between someone's
activities and their skill in performing them (which would therefore
normally need to be described under values of Judgement), and the
product of that skill as performance or 'thing'. The example which is
frequently quoted involves a skilful batsmen in a cricket match,
who can be judged as a 'brilliant batsman' or that 'he batted
brilliantly' (i.e., [judgement: capacity: positive]), or whose
performance can be described as a 'brilliant innings' (in which case,
a value of [appreciation: reaction: impact: positive] is used as a
token of provoked [judgement: capacity: positive]). The need for
such a distinction only becomes obvious in context. When analysing
texts, the main usefulness of these distinctions is in the search for
patterns - patterns which help to trace the rhetorical organisation
and development of any text as a semantic unit, and patterns
which help to characterise the preferred and typical stylistic
features of any writer or register. The means by which writers use
values of Appreciation as tokens of Judgement is often that of
experiential metaphor, that is, an activity which a social actor may
undertake is construed as the product of that activity - which can
then be evaluated - rather than the social actors themselves, or
their actual behaviour as process. This is one means by which a
writer might set up a textual persona, or style which appears
'objective' or non-judgemental.
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This also relates to what Quirk et al (1972: 265) distinguish as dynamic and stative
adjectives:"Forexample,astativeadjectivesuchastallcannotbeusedwiththeprogressive
aspectorwiththeimperative:*He'sbeingtall ;*Betall.Ontheotherhand,wecanuse
carefulasadynamicadjective:He'sbeingcareful,Becareful."
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See Appendix D for the sequence of appraisal values, and appendix B1 for a visual
representationoftheclusteringofthesevaluesineachtext.
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Clause complexes
words
clauses
Embedded
clauses
Lexical densityclauses
Lexical densitywords
3.9
38
39
Table 3.4
In Table 3.5 (following page), only a gross comparison of attitudinal
values is shown. This was achieved via a calculation of the
percentage of attitude values identified for each category, as a
function of the total number of attitudinal values identified for each
text. A comparison of values as a function of word and clause count
is also discussed below, as well as an extended discussion of the
patterning of sources and targets of appraisal evident in the two
texts. In future research, cross comparisons will involve a larger
sample of texts. This would then form some basis for a cross
comparison in terms of marked and unmarked structures and
evaluative moves within and between the selected texts. In
conducting this research, Appraisal analysis will be teamed with
other means of investigating stylistic and discoursal patterning in
the texts (cf. Module 1).
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Text1
APPRECIATION
TOTAL VALUES
composition
37%
Text2
15
3
12%
12
5
valuation
reaction
JUDGEMENT
TOTAL VALUES
59%
24
53%
51
propriety
veracity
normality
8
3
23
2
4
tenacity
11
capacity
AFFECT
TOTAL VALUES
2
5%
18
2
35%
34
happiness
unhappiness
1
1
1
12
8
disinclination
satisfaction
security
insecurity
inclination
dissatisfaction
TOTAL overall
41
97
45
Percentagesareroundedouttothenearestwholenumberinthetables
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For a different genre, that of teacher anecdotes, McCabe found that 30% of the total
AttitudetokensbelongedtoAffect,32%toAppreciation,and38%toJudgementinacorpus
of12texts(personalcommunication).
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uses less than half the values of Appreciation as does text1 (12.3%
against 36.5%) when calculated as a function of all values used in
each text. If this is normalised to values per 1,000 words however
(c.f. Chart 3.1), it appears that text2 uses a higher proportion of
values Judgement: Capacity and Propriety, whereas text1 uses a
higher proportion of values of Judgement: Tenacity. In comparison,
the writer of text1 appears more concerned to evaluate using
values of Appreciation: Valuation, and Reaction than does text2.
3.5.6 Ratios of values of Judgement
Within Judgement, the best basis for comparison between texts is
that between values of Capacity and Tenacity. Text1 uses Tenacity
as the highest percentage of any single attitudinal value identified
(26.8% of all values in text1, or 18.5 per 1,000 words), and text2
accords a similarly high ratio to values of [judgement: capacity]
(18.5% of all values, or 20.3 per 1,000 words). This tends to
indicate that the writer of text2 is concerned to evaluate human
capability, whether negative or positive, while text1 is concerned to
evaluate the nature of human reliability and dependability. A similar
comparison of Judgement weightings given to the values of
Propriety identified in the texts reveals that the writer of text2
seems much more concerned with correctness and morality than
the writer of text1. Text2 makes judgements of Propriety in 23.7%
of all its value statements (or 26 per 1,000 words), whereas
Propriety represents 19.5% (or 13.4 per 1,000 words: cf. Chart 3.1)
of text1's overall identified values. It needs to be stressed once
more, that these weightings take into account those attitudinal
values which were evoked, or provoked by co-textual signals, and
so some of these evaluations are not inscribed or made overtly in
the texts. This was felt to represent a clearer demonstration of the
possible attitudinal values interpretable in the texts, and it also
highlights one of the areas in which differences in textual persona
can be examined: text2 is rich in attitudinal positioning, but these
are not generally explicitly inscribed. The writer uses a series of
moves in order to effect her evaluative positions, and these
rhetorical strategies which depend on ambiguity of source, target,
or attitudinal value seem to be characteristic of this writer's 'style'.
3.6 Sources and Targets of Attitude in the texts
While the weightings of attitudinal values favoured by each of the
writers might be somewhat indicative of their respective
interpersonal positionings, a closer look at the identified values of
Judgement: Capacity, Tenacity, and Propriety, along with the targets
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Inthisthesis,adistinctionisalsosometimesmadebetweenthe Addresserandthewriter.
TheAddresserinthissenseissimilartotheimpliedauthorwhereas'writer'referstothereal
author thosematerialentitieswhichmustbethesourceofallwritingnotcomposedby
machine,butwhoarenotactually'present'intheirtextsasanentity.
2
Asdiscussedpreviously,monologisticisusedinsteadofmonologicinordertodifferentiate
monologistic statementsfromwhatmightbeconfusedwiththecommonunderstandingof
theterm monologue. Whilethesetextsareinfact monologues inonesense,oneoftheir
valuesforresearchintotextualinteractionisthat projectionintodialogue(Hoey,2001)is
indicatedinthesetextsbythemodebleedingandotherstrategiesforsignallinginvolvement,
asoutlinedinPartIofthismodule.
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sections 1.3.1 & 3.3.3 above). The target, however, is not human
behaviour in itself, but a 'task'. The lexical item difficult also has a
difference in meaning when applied to a human target: It was
difficult of him to do that. Therefore, this utterance has been
double-coded as both Judgement and Appreciation.
As noted earlier (3.3.3), instances of ambiguous attitude are
regarded as relevant for the marking of boundaries between phases
or rhetorical stages. In appendix B1, these doubly-coded attitudes
are grouped with those of invoked appraisal (in purple) since they
seem to have similar rhetorical functions in context. When
calculating type-token ratios for any text (as was done in Table 3.5)
each identified instance of Attitude is taken into account as if it
were a discrete item: any ambiguity in construal of attitudinal value
is not regarded in this sense as merely summative (in which case
such double-coding would give a halved value for statistical
purposes) but multiplicative. This is because sites of
textual/semantic ambiguity and contradiction are assumed to occur
in textually strategic locations - and thus to have significance for
the rhetorical staging at the discourse semantic level of text
organisation.
4.1.1 'Work' as target of appraisal in text1
In the section which follows sentence 1:5, the writer deals with
being in a work group/working in a group. In this section, targets of
Attitude relate to the writer's workday and the demands it makes of
him. Here he appraises the nature of going to work, or doing a job which, in the larger scheme of his text, he compares to the nature
of 'being in a workgroup or performing a task', which in turn is the
theme or topic of the text as a whole. The last larger section of the
text switches to discussing and evaluating the email list as a group
and the nature of its task as he sees it. What appears as a small
side-track in his discussion - in the form of appraisal sourced to his
company, and targeted at 'attending a seminar' versus 'discussing
work in a diner' - is actually apropos the discussion of the list as a
work group, especially since the metaphor of the diner to describe
list activity is common on this list, and was mentioned in the
quoted material to which the writer is ostensibly responding (c.f.
section 5). In this sense, the reference to the diner is intra-textual,
as well as inter-textual (within the list as community) and extratextual (makes reference to the material world of the writer, not
shared by his present interlocutors). These references to entities
both inside and outside the text, I contend are of great significance
in the construction of textual identity and its relationship to
Addressees, especially within these types of communities of
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Thetypologyforlabellingunitsofdiscourseorganisation,ormoves ofthiskind,isstill
underconstruction,anditsstatewillbedescribedinmoredetailinModule3.Anearly
versionmaybeseeninDon1997
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6. Conclusion
This short exercise in analysis using the system of Attitude, was
made in order to demonstrate some of the ways that this type of
analysis can be used to characterise the unfolding of the text, the
evaluative positioning which the Addresser favours, and the interrelated nature of field (and hence, experiential and ideational
values) and evaluative stances. It was also presented as a way in
which such values may be investigated as contributing to further
understanding of the workings and basis for rhetorical structure
potential in this mode of interaction. This was linked to the need to
look at indicators of relative interactivity and the construction of
tenor in texts created in this context of interaction, as was
discussed in Part I of this module.
In Module Three, this framework, in conjunction with a number
of other approaches, will be used to investigate and comment on
the analyses of a corpus of texts from a particular written-speech
community of practice in order to characterise its conventional
patterns of exchange and negotiation, and within this, present a
means for investigating the nature of textual persona, or identity,
as the creative use of such conventions in making contextdependent meanings. It is envisaged that the framework presented
here, together with that presented in Module One, will prove a
useful means for describing expository texts in general,
characterising the context of interaction of other CMC text-based
interfaces, and extend the Appraisal framework to take into
account written interactive texts, and the means they provide of
checking Appraisal values against the nature of responses made.
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