Lingua inglese scienze politiche

1. Lingua inglese scienze politiche Session 2

2. Evaluation Speakers and writers employ it to convince an audience of what should be seen as right and proper and what not. It can reflect and even impose, overtly or covertly, a value system.

3. Evaluation • Evaluation is the engine of persuasion. • Persuadingwithlanguage

4. Evaluation is… “the indication that something is good or bad” (from the point of view of the speaker/writer) Hunston 2004: 157 Sometimes different terms are used e.g. Stance, attitude, opinion, appraisal

5. Text work • Wewillbeanalysingtexts in class on a regular basishereis the first example: • Working in pairs, look at the headline and the first paragraph or first groupofsentences. • Can youidentifywords or phrasesthatseemtoyoutobeevaluative • (i.ethey express a stance or a subjectiveattitude)

6. Evaluation as persuasion The persuader uses evaluative language to convince his or her audience that their own opinions are good, alternative ones are not good, that their proposals are worthy and logical (that is, good), those of their opponents illogical or dangerous (that is, bad), that they themselves are honest and trustworthy (good) and maybe that others who disagree with them are not (bad).

7. Phylogenetically • In evolutionary terms, it is of extreme importance for an organism to judge whether an incoming stimulus, a change in its environment, is likely to bode well or ill (and of course how well or ill) because such evaluations are the basis for action, for the decision whether to flee or fight.

8. First impressions • Indifference can set in at a later moment, but the initial process of evaluation is bi-dimensional: is it dangerous? (yes = bad, no = good); can I eat it? (yes = good, no = bad). • After an initial evaluation this can set in as a a set of values (like/dislike) from repeated experience

9. signalling one’s evaluations has two major functions. • First of all, it expresses group belonging by (seemingly) offering a potential service to the group by warning of bad things and advertising good ones.

10. Moreover, it can assure an audience that the speaker/writer shares its same value system. In this way it helps ‘to construct and maintain relations between the speaker or writer and hearer or reader’ (Thompson and Hunston 2000: 6

11. The goodness and the badness can, of course, come in many forms, we can use a two-term Linnaean-style binomial notation in describing prosodies, for example: • [good: pleasurable], [good: profitable], [good: being in control]; [bad: dangerous], [bad: difficult], where the colon is to be read ‘because’.

12. Functions of evaluation To express the speaker/writer’s opinion and in so doing to reflect the value system of that person and their community To construct and maintain relations between speaker/writer and hearer/reader (interpersonal) To organise the discourse (textual)

13. Overt or Covert Evaluation?

14. Covert Evaluation evaluation can be implicit or ‘conceptual’, with no obvious linguistic clues, exploiting the audience’s ability to recognize a good – or bad – thing when they see it. No linguistic clues Goal orientated Based on what we recognize to be desirable

15. Overt Evaluation • Lexical • Grammatical • Discourse /Textual

16. Evaluation • Lexical • Adjectives: splendid, terrible, surprising… • Adverbs: happily, unfortunately, plainly… • Nouns: success, failure, tragedy… • Verbs: succeed, fail, win, lose…

17. Evaluation • Grammatical e.g. • Superlatives: the best, the worst…Comparatives: better, worse … • Choice of tense: • “Skinner (1957) argued that language was learned through a process of stimulus-response, with large amounts o f controlled repetition. Chomsky (1959) argues that language could never be learned in this way, and that we are all endowed at birth with a language acquisition device” (From Batstone, 1994) • the thematised it structure (it is frightening to think that…)

18. Grammatical and textual • Transitivity, which tells us who does what to whom largely by placing participants in a particular order and thus assigning responsibility – and often blame - for an action, can generally be seen as combining grammatical and textual evaluation.

19. Evaluation Discourse / Textual John argued with Sue Sue argued with John John and Sue argued The words in red are themes

20. Evaluation • Discourse / Textual In newspaper editorials the most important evaluation is placed at the end.

21. Denotation and Connotation obstinate, stubborn, firm, decisive, resolute, pig-headed Same basic meaning – denotation – different connotations Note: Our choice of word is also an evaluation

22. Assumptions and evaluations • [1] My husband runs his own business and is a workaholic. • [2] Last year he kept putting off our plans for a break and I got so fed up I went away with four friends. • [3] We had a great time, even though I missed him. • [4] I want a holiday for just us this year but he keeps saying that I’d probably have a better time if I went with them. • [5] How can I get him to see I’d rather go with him?

23. Schemata and scripts • [1] My husband runs his own business and is a workaholic. • [2] Last year he kept putting off our plans for a break and I got so fed up I went away with four friends. • [3] We had a great time, even though I missed him. • [4] I want a holiday for just us this year but he keeps saying that I’d probably have a better time if I went with them. • [5] How can I get him to see I’d rather go with him?

24. Woman’s personal evaluation • She likes holidays. • She disapproves of her husband’s reluctance to spend them with her.

25. Ideological Assumptions • taking holidays is normal • continuous work is not • couples are expected to take their holidays together • other arrangements are acceptable only in extreme circumstances • plans of both members should be taken into consideration • NB the writer has to reassure readers she is normal. We had a great time, even though I missed him.

26. NB • We are lookingmostly at linguisticevaluation. There are manyotherwaysofevaluating or triggeringevaluationswhich are notverbal • E.g. the useofphotographs or otherimages, • juxtaposition, • takingthings out ofcontext

27. Furtherlessons • Wewillbelooking at howevaluation can beupscaled or downscaled (intensified or mitigated, toned down) • And wewill look at some textswhichusuallycontainevaluation e.g. headlines and editorials and op-eds

28. Essential reading • Hunston, S. and G. 2000 Thompson. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. OUP pp 6-20

29. Extra reading Appraisal website Appraisal and engagement. http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal/textSpecial/martin-intro.pdf