EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE AND APPRAISAL RESOURCES IN ACADEMIC BOOK REVIEWS: AN SFL GENRE-BASED STUDY

Abstract

This study examines the evaluative language and appraisal resources used in book reviews in applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Based on the Appraisal Theory of Martin and White (2005) in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), ten (full-text) academic book reviews published in the last ten years and retrieved from Linguist List and Humanities and Social Sciences Communications are analyzed. To explore how reviewers build evaluative stances, interpersonally negotiate meaning, and situate themselves in the scholarly communities, the analysis concentrates on three key appraisal systems: Attitude (Affect, Judgment, Appreciation); Engagement; and Graduation. There was a total of 387 appraisal instances coded in the corpus. Results show that Attitude resources make up 50.9% of the total, and Judgment is the predominant subcategory (33.3%), followed by Appreciation (10.1%) and Affect (7.5%). Graduation Resources make up 31.8% of the cases, with Force amplification being most common at 17.8%. The resources of engagement account for 17.3%, with the heteroglossic moves being overwhelmingly dominant over the monoglossic assertions. There is also an observation and discussion of disciplinary tendencies between the reviews of applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. The research helps to develop an SFL-based genre analysis of academic book reviews and gives implications for teaching academic writing and training translators. This article centers on the concept of Appraisal Theory and explores the use of evaluative language in academic book reviews, as revealed through genre analysis. The concept of Appraisal Theory is the center of this article, which examines the use of evaluative language in academic book reviews through genre analysis.