APPRAISAL ANALYSIS OF THE TEXAS CHAINSAW

MASSACRE (2003) MOVIE REVIEW BY ROGER EBERT

A THESIS

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Sarjana Sastra (S.S.)

by

EVA CRYSTALIA
C11.2012.01309

ENGLISH STUDY PROGRAM FACULTY OF HUMANITIES

DIAN NUSWANTORO UNIVERSITY
SEMARANG
2015
 DECLARATION OF NON-PLAGIARISM

I declare that this thesis is my own work and does not constitute plagiarism. I confirm that I
have fully understood the regulations of Dian Nuswantoro University on plagiarism.

Semarang, 30 September 2015

EVA CRYSTALIA
 STATEMENT OF PUBLICATION

I hereby grant full rights to the Dian Nuswantoro University to display or reproduce this thesis in
any form for educational purposes. Any use or reproduction of this thesis without written
permission from Dian Nuswantoro University is prohibited.

Semarang, 30 September2015

EVA CRYSTALIA
 ADVISORS APPROVAL

This thesis has been approved by the advisor on.to be examined by the board of
examiners.

Advisor,

 PAGE OF APPROVAL

Title of Thesis : Appraisal Analysis Of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Movie Review By Roger Ebert.

Name : Eva Crystalia

Registration Number : C11.2012.01309

This thesis has been approved by the board of examiners, English Study Program, Faculty of
Humanities, Dian Nuswantoro University on

Board of Examiners,

Chairperson Secretary

..

Examiner Advisor

...

Approved by:

Dean of Faculty of Humanities

.
 MOTTO

I must finish this thesis as soon as possible.

(Me)
 DEDICATION

I dedicate this thesis to:

- Me (duh)

- My beloved mother

- My dear grandparents

- Everyone who deserves it.

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

At this happiest moment, I would like to express my thanks to :

1. Allah SWT who has given me an inspiration, blessed me with patience and strength
during the process of writing this thesis.

2. My family; my mother, grandmother, and grandfather for supporting and being the
biggest motivation for me.

3. My best friends

4. All people who have helped me in any way to finish this thesis.

Semarang, ..

Eva Crystalia
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ABBREVIATION
LIST OF TABLES
LIST OF APPENDICES
ABSTRACT
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

In everyday life, giving an evaluation of a phenomenon is normal and naturally done by

people. The evaluation given can be positive or negative. The evaluation given may be expressed
in the form of oral or written. The use of language and choice of words in the evaluation can
indicate the attitude or feelings of the evaluator. In Linguistics, this kind of action comes under
Systemic Functional Linguistic (SFL) framework, specifically Appraisal theory.

SFL is based on the notion that language is functional and operates in a context of
situation (Halliday & Hasan, 1985). Halliday and Hasan state that language simultaneously
functions in three ways, known as metafunctions. The three are ideational meanings,
interpersonal meanings, and textual meanings. Within the interpersonal metafunction is a theory
known as Appraisal (Martin & Rose, 2003; White, 2005), a particular approach to exploring,
describing, and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct
textual personas and to manage interpersonal relationship (Martin & Rose, 2005)

According to Martin (2002) Appraisal is divided into three components; attitude,

engagement, and graduation. Attitude is associated with expressing affect, judgment and
appreciation. Engagement is concerned with the source of the attitude. Graduation refers to force
and focus. These three components allow people to give their evaluation or personal opinion on
everything.

Along with the development of technology, people nowadays can express their opinions
on various things on the internet. They tend to use internet as the media because their opinion
can be read by people around the world and may be useful for certain purposes. One form of
evaluation made by people that can be found on the internet is a review. There are, for instance,
review of book, movie, music, etc.
 What is being discussed in this research is a review of a movie. Movie review is
someones opinion or judgment towards a particular movie they have seen without spoiling the
end part of it. Movie review is usually done by movie reviewers in written form. The review
given is about quality, story line, or anything related to the movie.

Presently, movie review can be easily found on the internet. There are many websites
providing movie reviews. One of them is rogerebert.com. This website is owned by a famous
movie reviewer Roger Ebert. He writes movie reviews and posts it on his website. One of the
movies he reviewed is Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) is a remake version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre

(1974). Ebert made the review of Texas Chainsaw Massacre in October 2003. In presenting the
movie review, Roger uses appraising items to show his attitude towards the movie. The
following examples are taken from his Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) review :

1. I like good horror movies.

The example above can be analyzed as follows :

Like = Attitude : Affect (positive, affection)

Engagement : Monogloss,
Graduation : Force (attitudinal lexis, up-scaled)

Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that the reviewers attitude towards the news is
monogloss which means it comes from the reviewer alone, the evaluation is positive and up-
scaled realized by the word choice.

2. The new version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" is a contemptible film.

The example above can be analyzed as follows :
 Contemptible = Attitude : Appreciation (positive, attitudinal lexis)
Engagement : Monogloss
Graduation : Force (attitudinal lexis, down-scaled)

Based on the analysis of the second example, it can be concluded that the reviewers
attitude towards the news is monogloss which means it comes from the reviewer alone, the
evaluation is negative and down scaled realized by the word choice.

The researcher is interested in analyzing movie review through appraisal theory because
it can be used to analyze how the reviewer expresses his attitude towards a certain movie through
an article text. The attitude of the reviewer may help the reader to get some information about the
movie. Attitude shown in his opinion can be either positive or negative. Moreover, the researcher
chooses rogerebert.com as the source of data because this website is owned by Roger Ebert
himself, who is a well-known and professional movie reviewer.

1.2 Statement of Problem

The questions of this research are stated as follows :
1. What appraising items are used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2013 movie review by
Roger Ebert?
2. How are the appraising items used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2013 movie review by
Roger Ebert?
3. How is the attitude of Roger Ebert towards The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2013 shown in
his review?

1.3 Scope of the Study

Appraisal theory is used to show ones attitude towards some issue. The matter in this
research is a review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) movie by Roger Ebert. The review
text for this research is taken from Roger Eberts website at www.rogerebert.com. This research
is aimed at analyzing the appraising items used by Roger Ebert towards The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre (2003) movie.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
The objectives of the research are stated as follows:
1. To find out what appraising items are used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
movie review by Roger Ebert.
2. To describe how the appraising are used in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
movie review by Roger Ebert.
3. To figure out Roger Eberts attitude towards The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)
movie in his review.

1.5 Significance of the Study

The significances of this research are stated below:
1. For the writer, to enrich the writers knowledge about appraisal theory and its realization.
2. For the readers, to provide more understanding of appraisal theory and provide future
reference.
3. For the faculty of humanities of English Department, to provide a reading material and
reference.

CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

2.1 Systemic Functional Linguistics

Systemic functional linguistics is a grammar model developed by Michael Halliday (1985)
with his Introduction to Functional Grammar based on the model of language as social
semiotics. According to Eggins (1994: 2) systemic functional linguistics is an approach to
language which is centered on how people use language with each other in accomplishing
everyday social life. According to Halliday (1970) language is analyzed into certain basic
functions called metafunctions.

There are three metafunctions :

a. Ideational
The ideational metafunction is concerned with the speakers experience of the real
world (Halliday, 1970: 143).
b. Interpersonal
The interpersonal metafuntion serves to establish and maintain social relations including
the speakers assessment of the probability and relevance of a message (Halliday, 1970:
143).
c. Textual
The textual metafunction enables the speaker or writer to construct texts (Halliday, 1970:
143).

He also states that all languages are organized around two main kinds of meaning, the
ideational or reflective, and the interpersonal or active and combined with these is third
metafunctional component, the textual, which breathes relevance into the other two. (Halliday,
1994:39). The component which will be used in this research is interpersonal. Interpersonal
meaning is about the social relation between the participants and social interaction.

2.2 Appraisal Theory

Appraisal is a system of interpersonal meanings. The resources of appraisal are used for
negotiating social relationship, by telling the listeners or readers the feelings about things
and people. Attitude has to do with evaluating things (appreciation), peoples character
(judgment), and feelings (affect). Those attitudes may be more or less amplified. In addition, the
Attitude may come from the writer or from other sources. (Martin &Rose 2003:22). Attitude
coming from the writer is called monogloss, and attitude sourced from other is called as
heterogloss
 Martin &White (2005: 35) affirm that appraisal is one of three major discourse semantics
expressing interpersonal meaning. Appraisal is classified into 3 interacting domains; attitude,
engagement, and graduation. Engagement deals with sourcing attitudes and the play of voices
around opinions in discourse. Graduation attends to grading phenomena whereby feelings are
amplified and categories blurred. Attitude is itself into three region of feeling; affect, judgment,
appreciation.

2.2.1 Attitude

Attitude is a framework for mapping feelings as they are construed in English texts (Martin &
White, 2005: 42).
Affect
According to White (2001), affect is concerned with emotional response and commit to user
disposition. Affect (emotion) includes the resources by which a writer encodes their emotional
disposition with regard to people, things, processes, or states of affair. (White, 2005:42)
Affect occurs through mental processes of reaction, through attributive relationals of affect, and
through nominalization. For examples:
This pleases me; I hate chocolate (mental processes of reaction.)
I'm sad; I'm happy; She's proud of her achievements. (attributive relationals of affect.)
His fear was obvious to all (nominalization.)

Judgement

Judgment includes meanings which serve to evaluate human behaviour positively and
negatively by reference to a set of institutionalised norms (Martin & White, 2005).The system of
judgment is divided into two major groups; social esteem and social sanction. Social esteem
concerns itself with how unusual, special an individual is (normality), how capable or
competent an individual is (capacity) or how resolute an individual is (tenacity). Meanwhile,
social sanction has to do with how truthful someone is (veracity) and how ethical someone is
(propriety) (Martin & White, 2005:52)

Appreciation
 Appreciation examines the resources that have the potentiality to construct and evaluate an
object (Martin & White, 2005:36). Rothery and Stenglin in White (1998:36) divides appreciation
into three categories; reaction, composition and valuation. However Martin & Rose (2003:63)
name them as variable. The three variables are reaction (impact and quality), Composition
(balance and complexity), and valuation.

2.2.2 Source / Engagement

Source or engagement is from whom the evaluations come from. There are two kinds of
attitudes sources. They are heterogloss (the source of an attitude is other that the writer) and
monogloss (the source is simply the author). (Martin & Rose, 2003: 44)

2.2.3 Graduation
Graduation is concerned with providing grade or scale, up-scaling and down-scaling. Based
on Peter White (2001) graduation are concerned with values which act to provide grading or
scaling, either in terms of the interpersonal force which the speaker attaches to an utterance or in
terms of the preciseness or sharpness of focus with which an item exemplifies a valued
relationship. These two dimensions are variously labeled Force (variable scaling of intensity)
and Focus(sharpening or blurring of category boundaries).

Force
Force deals with the intensity of feelings towards someone or some issue. Force includes
values which have been called, intensifiers, down-tones, boosters, emphasizers, emphatics etc.
(White, 2001). Types of force according to Martin and Rose (2003) are intensifier, attitudinal
lexis, metaphor and swearing.

Types of force (Martin & Rose: 2003) are :

Intensifier: the words that amplify the attitude including quantity, manner degree and
modality.
 E.g. Quantity: all/several/some question, Manner degree: uncontrollably, Modality: there
must/would/ might have been ...

Attitudinal lexis : a lexis which contains attitude

E.g. Beautiful lady

Metaphor: a word or group of words that have connotation meaning.

E.g. dull like the dead

Swearing : a profanity words or cursing.

E.g. WTF!, Bullshit!

Focus

Focus deals with those which are considered as hedges or vague language. The form of
Focus can be up-scaling or sharpen, and down-scaling or soften (Martin & White, 2005: 138).
Under appraisal theory, values which sharpen rather than blur the focus are also included - for
example a true friend, pure folly, he drank his friend under the table, literally. (White; 2001).
Prototypicality (focus) manages scaling phenomena according to the degree to which they
match some supposed core or ideal case of a semantic category, for examples; true, real, genuine.
(Martin & White, 2005: 137)

2.3 Genre

Every text, whether spoken or written, has genre. Genre differentiates one text to another
based on its social function, generic structure, even language feature. Martin in Eggins offers two
definitions of genre as follows: A genre is a staged, goal oriented, purposeful activity in which
speakers engage as- members of our culture (Martin, 1984: 25). Other definitions come from
Gerrot and Wignell (1995: 192) they state that genres are staged, goal-directed and purposeful.
Besides that, Swales (1990: 58) defines genre as a class of communicative events, the members
of which share some set of communicative purposes.
 The text a movie review text. Movie review is someones opinion or judgment towards a
particular movie they have seen without spoiling the end part of it. Movie review is usually done
by movie reviewers in written form. The review given is about quality, story line, or anything
related to the movie. Movie review text belongs to review genre.
Linda Gerot and Peter Wignell (1994) express the classification of review genre :

a. Social function of review : To criticize an artwork, event for a public audience.

b. Generic Structure of review : - Orientation
Places the work in its general and particular context,
often by comparing it with others of its kind or through
analogue with a non-art object or event.
- Interpretive Recount
Summaries the plot and/or provides an account of how
the reviewed rendition of the work came into being; is
optional, but if present, often recursive.
- Evaluation
Provides an evaluation of the work and/or its
performance or production; is usually recursive.
- Evaluative Summation:
Provides a kind of punch line which sums up the
reviewers opinion of the art event as a whole; is
optional.

c. Lexicogrammatical Features : - Focus on particular participants.

- Direct expression of options through use of-
Attitudinal Ephitets in nominal groups; qualitative
Attributes and Affective Mental Processes.
- Use of elaborating and extending clause
and group complexes to package the information.
- Use of metaphorical language

When compared to review text in general, movie review has the same characteristics.
The social function of movie review is to criticize a movie for a public audience. The generic
structure of movie review is orientation, interpretive recount, evaluation, and evaluative
summation. The language features of movie review are also the same as the ones found in review
text in general.

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Research Design

This research is descriptive qualitative which is intended to describe appraising items in
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) movie review made by Roger Ebert. As stated by Alreck
& Settle (1995: 408) descriptive research is designed to describe, rather than explain a set of
conditions, characteristics, or attributes of people in a population based on measurement of a
 sample. Moreover, this research is qualitative, which the collected data are not shown in
statistic procedure.

3.2 Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis in this research is every clause which contains appraising item
in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) movie review by Roger Ebert.

3.3 Source of the Data

The data of this research are taken from rogerebert.com under category of Reviews.
This website is the official website of an American film critic, Roger Ebert.

3.4 Method of Data Collection

The method of collecting the data are as follows :
1. Visiting rogerebert.com
This is the first step in collecting the data. To get the data, the researcher visits
rogerebert.com and go to reviews category.
2. Searching the Movie Review
The next step is searching the movie review by typing in the movie title in the
search bar.

3. Choosing the Movie Review

The second step is choosing the movie review. When the review came up in the
result, the researcher chooses review of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).
4. Printing the Movie Review Text
The last step is to print out the movie review text.

3.5 Method of Data Analysis

The researcher uses the qualitative method to analyze the data. The
steps are as follows :
1. Reading the movie review
Reading the article gives the researcher the understanding about the reviewers
idea and opinion towards the movie.
2. Underlining appraising items found in the text.
Underlining the appraising items makes the analysis process easier
3. Dividing the text into clauses.
The purpose of this step is to know how many clauses that contain appraising
items and separate them from the ones that dont have appraising items.
4. Analyzing the appraising items.
 In this step, the appraising items are analyzed by attitude, engagement, and
graduation. The result of this step may show the reviewers attitude towards the
movie.
5. Drawing a conclusion
After analyzing the data, conclusion can be drawn from the result of the analysis.

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
1 The new version of "The
Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" is a
contemptible, vile, ugly
and brutal.
vile
ugly
brutal
2 There is not a shred of a
reason to see it.
3 Those who defend it will
have to dance through
mental hoops of their
own devising, defining
its meanness and
despair as "style" or
"vision" or "a
commentary on our
 world
despair
4 It is not a commentary
on anything, except
the marriage of slick
technology with the
materials of a geek
show.

No Attitude Engagement Graduation

Clause Affect Judgemen Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
t
5
That film at least had
the raw power of its
originality.
6
It proceeded from
Hooper's fascination
with the story
7
and his need to tell it.
8
This new version,
made by a man who
has previously
directed music videos
9
proceeds from
nothing more than a
desire to feed on the
corpse of a once-living
film.
10

11
There is no worthy
12
Or defensible purpose
in sight here
13
The filmmakers want
to cause disgust
14
and hopelessness in
the audience.
15
Ugly emotions are
easier to evoke

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
16
and often more
commercial than
those that contribute
to the ongoing lives of
the beholders.
17
The movie begins with
grainy "newsreel"
footage of a 1974
massacre (the same
one as in the original
film; there are some
changes but this is not
a sequel).
18
Then we plunge
directly into the
formula of a Dead
Teenager Movie
 Then we plunge
directly into the
formula of a Dead
Teenager Movie

Then we plunge
directly into the
formula of a Dead
Teenager Movie
19
Which begins with
living teenagers and
kills them one by one.
20
The formula can
produce movies that
are good, bad, funny,
depressing, whatever.

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
bad
funny
depressing
21 This movie, strewn with
blood, bones, rats,
fetishes and severed
limbs,
22 photographed in murky
darkness
23 scored with screams
24 There were times when
I intensely wanted to
walk out of the theater
There were times when
I intensely wanted to
walk out of the theater
 There were times when
I intensely wanted to
walk out of the theater
25 and into the fresh air,
26 and look at the sky
27 and buy an apple
28 and sigh for our
civilization
29 but I stuck it out

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
30 The ending, which is
cynical and truncated,
confirmed my suspicion
The ending, which is
cynical and truncated,
confirmed my suspicion
31 that the movie was
made by and for those
with no attention
span
32 The movie doesn't tell a
story in any useful
sense
33 but is simply a series of
gruesome events which
finally are over.
34 It probably helps to
have seen the original
film in order to
understand what's going
 on
35 Since theres so little
exposition
36 Only from the earlier
film do we have a vague
idea of who the people
are in this godforsaken
house
Attitude Engagement Graduation
No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
37 Only from the earlier
film do we have a vague
idea of who the people
are in this godforsaken
house
38 The movie is eager to
start the gore
39 and unwilling to pause
for exposition
40 I like good horror
movies
41 "The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" doesn't want
to exorcise anything
42 It wants to tramp crap
through our
imaginations
43 and wipe its feet on our
dreams.
44 I think of filmgoers on a
date,
45 seeing this movie and
then -- what?
46 I guess
they'll have to laugh at
 it

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
47
irony being a
fashionable response
to the experience of
being had.

irony being a
fashionable response
to the experience of
being had.
48
Certainly they will not
be frightened by it

Certainly they will not

be frightened by it
49
It recycles the same
old tired thriller tools

It recycles the same

old tired thriller tools
50
that have been worn
out in countless better
movies.

that have been worn

out in countless better
movies
51
There is the scary
noise
52
that is only a cat
53
The device of loud
sudden noises
54
The device of loud
sudden noises
55 to underline the
movements of half-seen
shadows
56 The van that won't start.

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
57 The car that won't start
58 The character who turns
around
59 and sees the slasher
60 (the slasher) standing
right behind her
61 One critic writes Best
of all there was not a
single case of 'She's only
doing that (falling, going
into a scary space, not
picking up the gun)
because she's in a
thriller.' "
62 Huh? Nobody does
anything in this movie
for any other reason.
63 There is a controversy
involving Quentin
Tarantino's "Kill Bill:
Volume 1,"
64 "The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" is a
 meditation on the geek-
show movie.

Attitude Engagement Graduation

No Clause Affect Judge- Apprec. Mono Hetero Force Focus
ment
65 "The Texas Chainsaw
Massacre" is a
meditation on the geek-
show movie.
66 This movie is made with
venom and cynicism.
This movie is made with
venom and cynicism
67 I doubt
68 that anybody involved in
it will be surprised or
disappointed
that anybody involved in
it will be surprised or
disappointed
69
if audience members
vomit or flee.

if audience members
vomit or flee.
70
Do yourself a favor
71
(There are a lot of
good movies playing
right now that can
make you feel a little
 happier, smarter,
sexier, funnier, more
excited-- or more
scared, if that's what
you want.) This is not
one of them.
72 Don't let it kill 98
minutes of your life.

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