Cover not available

Article published In: Functions of Language
Vol. 32:2 (2025) ► pp.200–223

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

A critical redesign of the attitude spectrum

Analyzing evaluative explicitness in institutional discourse

ORCiD logo with link | Huizhou University
Published online: 3 October 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24074.wan
Abstract
This article explores the possibility of developing the attitude spectrum (Martin, J. R. & P. R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation: appraisal in English. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) into a comprehensive one for analyzing the evaluation of institutions in institutional discourse. Specifically, it considers explicit evaluation (via inscribed lexis) and implicit evaluation (via lexical metaphor, nested inscribed lexis, flagging cues, attribution resources and factual account) as contributing to the construction of institutional identity and grades these on a scalar cline. The identification and grading of evaluative strategies is concretized by comparing the clarity of attitudinal stance, the distance the reader needs to range across the text for evaluative interpretation and the amount of co-textual/extra-textual information required for evaluative inference. To make possible the unitization and quantification of implicit evaluation, this article further explores variations of lexical metaphor, flagging cues and attribution resources in invoking positive/negative assessments of institutions, and proposes a focus on material processes in analyzing the evaluativeness of ‘factual accounts’. From a theoretical perspective, this article suggests the possibility of positioning evaluative strategies on a scalar cline by following specific principles. It also offers methodological contributions by specifying how to approach implicit evaluation in empirical studies of institutional identity.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Evaluation in institutional discourse
  • 3.The degree of evaluative explicitness
  • 4.Grading of evaluative resources
    • 4.1Inscribed lexis
    • 4.2Lexical metaphor
    • 4.3Nested inscribed lexis
    • 4.4Flagging cues
    • 4.5attribution resources
    • 4.6Factual account
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (59)
References
Ainsworth, Susan & Cynthia Hardy. 2004. Discourse and identities. In David Grant, Cynthia Hardy, Cliff Oswick & Linda Putnam (eds.), 153–173. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alba-Juez, Laura & Geoff Thompson. 2014. The many faces and phases of evaluation. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), 3–23. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beattie, Vivien, Alpha Dhanani & Michael John Jones. 2008. Investigating presentational change in U.K. annual reports: A longitudinal perspective. Journal of Business Communication 42(2). 181–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika. 2006. Evaluation in media discourse: Analysis of a newspaper corpus. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breeze, Ruth. 2012. Legitimation in corporate discourse: Oil corporations after Deepwater Horizon. Discourse and Society 23(1). 3–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ditlevsen, Marianne Grove. 2012. Revealing corporate identities in annual reports. Corporate Communications: An International Journal 171. 379–403. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Don, Alexanne. 2016. “It is hard to mesh all this”: Invoking attitude, persona and argument organisation. Functional Linguistics 3(9). 1–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dueñas, Pilar Mur. 2010. Attitude markers in business management research articles: A cross-cultural corpus-driven approach. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 20(1). 50–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing discourse: Textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuoli, Matteo. 2012. Assessing social responsibility: A quantitative analysis of appraisal in BP’s and IKEA’s social reports. Discourse & Communication 6(1). 55–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuoli, Matteo & Christopher Hart. 2018. Trust-building strategies in corporate discourse: An experimental study. Discourse & Society 29(5). 1–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuoli, Matteo & Charlotte Hommerberg. 2015. Optimising transparency, reliability and replicability: Annotation principles and inter-coder agreement in the quantification of evaluative expressions. Corpus 10(3). 315–349.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuoli, Matteo, Jeannette Littlemore & Sarah Turner. 2022. Sunken ships and screaming banshees: Metaphor and evaluation in film reviews. English Language & Linguistics 26(1). 75–103. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuoli, Matteo & Carita Paradis. 2014. A model of trust-repair discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 741. 52–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gergen, Kenneth J., Mary M. Gergen & Frank J. Barrett. 2004. Dialogue: Life and death of the organization. In David Grant, Cynthia Hardy, Cliff Oswick & Linda Putnam (eds.), 39–59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grant, David, Cynthia Hardy, Cliff Oswick & Linda Putnam (eds.). 2004. The Sage handbook of organizational discourse. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. Theory of communicative action, Vol. 1: Reason and the rationalization of society. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar, 3rd edn. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar, 4th edn. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hoey, Michael. 2000. Persuasive rhetoric in linguistics: a stylistic study of some features of the language of Noam Chomsky. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 28–37.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hood, Susan. 2010. Appraising research: Evaluation in academic writing. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hood, Susan & J. R. Martin. 2007. Invoking attitude: The play of graduation in appraising discourse. In Ruqaiya Hasan, Christian Matthiessen & Jonathan J. Webster (eds.), Continuing discourse on language, 739–764. London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan. 2011. Corpus approaches to evaluation: Phraseology and evaluative language. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan & Geoff Thompson (eds.). 2000. Evaluation in text: Authorial stance and the construction of discourse. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken. 2005. Metadiscourse: exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Academic discourse: English in a global context. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenbacher, Martin. 2006. Culture related linguistic differences in tourist websites: The emotive and the factual — A corpus analysis within the framework of appraisal. In Geoff Thompson & Susan Hunston (eds.), System and corpus: Exploring connections, 269–292. London: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltan. 2002. Metaphor: A practical introduction, 1st edn. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Feifei. 2018. Lexical metaphor as affiliative bond in newspaper editorials: A systemic functional linguistics perspective. Functional Linguistics 5(2). 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Macken-Horarik, Mary & Anne Isaac. 2014. Appraising appraisal. In Geoff Thompson & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.), 67–92. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. 2000. Beyond exchange: appraisal systems in English. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 142–175.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020. Metaphors we feel by: Stratal tension. Journal of World Languages 6(1–2). 8–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & David Rose. 2007. Working with discourse: Meaning beyond the clause, 2nd edn. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martin, J. R. & P. R. R. White. 2005. The language of evaluation: appraisal in English. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mauranen, Anna & Marina Bondi. 2003. Editorial: Evaluative language use in academic discourse. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 2(4). 269–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moreno, I. Ana & Lorena Suárez. 2008. A study of critical attitude across English and Spanish academic book reviews. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 71. 15–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nørgaard, Nina, Rocío Montoro & Beatrix Busse. 2010. Key terms in stylistics. London: Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor. 1993. Constructing social identity: A language socialization perspective. Research on Language and Social Interaction 26(3). 287–306. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polanyi, Livia. 1989. Telling the American story: A structural and cultural analysis of conventional storytelling. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schön, Donald A. 1993. Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy. In Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought, 137–163. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swales, John M. & Amy Burke. 2003. It’s really fascinating work: differences in evaluative adjectives across academic registers. In Pepi Leistyna & Charles F. Meyer (eds.), Corpus analysis, language structure and language use, 1–18. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Geoff & Laura Alba-Juez (eds.). 2014. Evaluation in context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Geoff & Susan Hunston. 2000. Evaluation: an introduction. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 1–27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Geoff & Jianglin Zhou. 2000. Evaluative and organization in text: the structuring role of evaluative disjuncts. In Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson (eds.), 121–141. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tupala, Mira. 2019. Applying quantitative appraisal analysis to the study of institutional discourse: The case of EU migration documents. Functional Linguistics 6(2). 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Congcong. 2021. A study of evaluative explicitness in institutional identity construction: A comparative analysis of annual reports of Chinese and British cultural institutions. Guangzhou: Guangdong University of Foreign Studies PhD dissertation.
. 2022. Attitudinal value of the ideational in institutional discourse: Evidence from annual reports of Hanban and British Council. Corpus Pragmatics 6(1). 1–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wernick, Andrew. 1991. Promotional culture. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, P. R. R. 2001. appraisal outline. Manuscript, available online at [URL]
2004. Subjectivity, evaluation and point of view in media discourse. In Caroline Coffin, Ann Hewings & Kieran O’Halloran (eds.), Applying English grammar, 229–246. London: Hodder Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. Evaluative semantics and ideological positioning in journalistic discourse — A new framework for analysis. In Inger Lassen, Jeanne Strunck & Torben Vestergaard (eds.), Mediating ideology in text and image: Ten critical studies, 37–67. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008. Praising and blaming, applauding and disparaging — Solidarity, audience positioning, and the linguistics of evaluative disposition. In Gerd Antos & Eija Ventola (eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication, 542–567. Berlin: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011. Appraisal. In Jan Zienkowski, Jan-Ola Östman & Jef Verschueren (eds.), Discursive pragmatics, 15–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. Appraisal theory. In Karen Tracy, Cornelia Ilie & Todd Sandel (eds.), The international encyclopedia of language and social interaction, 1–8. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
White, P. R. R. & Mohammad Makki. 2016. Crime reporting as storytelling in Persian/Farsi news journalism — Perspectives on the narrative function. Journal of World Languages 3(2). 117–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue