Confusing The Type Of Appraised With The Type Of Appraisal

Martin and Rose (2007: 39-40):

The borderline of character and value

There are several instances of attitude in our texts that could perhaps be analysed as either judgement of character or appreciation of things. For example, closely related to the positive appreciation of Vaughan’s album and its tracks are the evaluations of his performance:

raw soul and passion, artistry, inspired six-string diction

These bring us to the border of character and value (of judgement and appreciation). Because they directly value Vaughan’s guitar playing rather than the man, we’ll take them here as concerned with value rather than character. But they can also additionally be coded as tokens of Vaughan’s enormous guitar playing abilities — as betokening one positive dimension of his character (as opposed to the negative dimension of drug addiction, also noted in the review).

Blogger Comments:

[A] There are three interwoven confusions here.

1. The distinction of 'character' vs 'value' is a false dichotomy because the two are not mutually exclusive.  Consequently, it is not a distinction that is consistent with the notion of a systemic contrast, such as between judgement and appreciation.
2. The distinction of 'character' vs 'value' confuses two distinct dimensions of appraisal.  That is to say, 'character' is what is assessed, whereas 'value' is the standard by which an assessment is made.
3. The use of 'value' to distinguish appreciation from judgement is the logical error of using a superordinate term for a hyponym, since both judgement and appreciation are types of evaluation.

Moreover, if the attitudinal distinction between judgement and appreciation is taken to turn on the axiological distinction between ethical values and æsthetic values, there is no difficulty here.  The three attitudes expressed — raw soul and passion, artistry, inspired six-string diction— are all clearly (æsthetic) appreciation, not (ethical) judgement, and this is precisely what would be expected of a music review.

[B] Here the authors make the category error of using the type of appraised — 'guitar playing' vs 'the man' — as means of determining the type of appraisal, instead of using the type of values — ethical vs æsthetic — by which the appraisal is made.  Clearly, the appraised can be assessed in terms of appreciation ('dull'), judgement ('self-indulgent') or affect ('detest'), and, as such, do not determine the type of attitude enacted.

Misunderstanding Prosodic Structure And The Notion Of Metafunction

Martin and Rose (2007: 39):

In order to illustrate a prosody of positive appreciations, we’ll switch fields for a moment and consider a review of the current CD edition of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s album Texas Flood (courtesy of Amazon.com):

This legendary 1983 debut by the fallen torchbearer of the '80s-'90s blues revival sounds even more dramatic in its remixed and expanded edition. Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar and vocals are a bit brighter and more present on this 14-track CD. And the newly included bonus numbers (an incendiary studio version of the slow blues "Tin Pan Alley" that was left off the original release, and live takes of "Testify," "Mary Had a Little Lamb," and the instrumental "Wham!" from a 1983 Hollywood concert) illuminate the raw soul and passion that propelled his artistry even when he was under the spell of drug addiction. Texas Flood captures Vaughan as rockin' blues purist, paying tribute in his inspired six-string diction to his influences Larry Davis (who wrote the title track). Buddy Guy, Albert King, and Jimi Hendrix. His own contemplative "Lenny," a tribute to his wife at the time, also suggests a jazz-fuelled complexity that would infuse his later work. (Drozdowski 2000)

This is a rave review from an in-house editor, designed to persuade Amazon’s customers to purchase Vaughan’s debut album. The album in general and certain tracks in particular are described in very positive terms:

legendary, even more dramatic, bit brighter, more present, incendiary, contemplative, jazz-fuelled complexity

To these appraisals we might add some arguably experiential meanings with a positive value in the context of this new edition of Texas Flood:

remixed, expanded, bonus

Blogger Comments:

[1]  This misunderstands the notion of prosody.  In SFL theory, prosody is a type of structure.  In order to illustrate "a prosody of positive appreciations" the structure in which these elements function would need to be identified.  Since Martin and Rose locate the appraisal system of attitude on Martin's stratum of discourse semantics, the structures would need to be discourse semantic structures of the interpersonal metafunction, namely: moves in exchanges.  Otherwise, the notion of 'prosody' can be applied to any meaning, interpersonal or otherwise.  For example, consider the "prosody" of processes in the rave review above:

sounds, are, was, illuminate, propelled, was, captures, paying, wrote, suggests, would infuse

[2] The wording 'arguably experiential meanings' betrays Martin's (1992: 390) misunderstanding of the metafunctions as 'interacting modules'; see, for example Misconstruing Strata And Metafunctions As Modules.  In this context, meanings "with a positive value" are interpersonal meanings.

Mistaking Judgement For Appreciation

Martin and Rose (2007: 38):

We can summarise the positive and negative appreciations we’ve examined so far in Table 2.4.

Table 2.4 Examples of appreciation

positive

a beautiful relationship
a very serious issue
healing of breaches
redressing of imbalances
restoration of broken relationships

negative

my unsuccessful marriage
a frivolous question
broken relationships
the community he or she has injured

Blogger Comments:

This discussion summarised here largely mistakes judgement for appreciation. According to the foundational work on the appraisal system of attitude:

APPRECIATION is concerned with the evaluation of objects and products (rather than human behaviour) by reference to aesthetic principles and other systems of social value. It encompasses values which fall under the general heading of aesthetics, as well as a non-aesthetic category of 'social valuation' which includes meanings such as significant and harmful.

whereas

JUDGEMENT is concerned with the evaluation of human behaviour with respect to social norms. Thus, under JUDGEMENT we may assess behaviour as moral or immoral, as legal or illegal, as socially acceptable or unacceptable, as laudable or deplorable, as normal or abnormal and so on…

In this context, healing, redressing and restoration are positive judgements ('laudable') of human behaviour, and as such, are not instances of appreciation.

Similarly, he or she has injured is a negative judgement ('immoral') of human behaviour, and as such, is not an instance of appreciation.

And to appraise a marriage as unsuccessful is to evaluate it as a failure of achievement, and as such, as a judgement of human behaviour, and not as an instance of appreciation.

Mistaking Appreciation For Judgement

Martin & Rose (2007: 32-3):

We’ll start with personal judgements - positive (admiring) and negative (criticising). As we showed in Chapter 1, Helena’s story is an exemplum. Exemplums relate an incident in order to comment on the behaviour of the people involved. This means that alongside telling how people feel emotionally, Helena judges them, she evaluates their character. 

Helena’s first love is at first characterised admiringly as bubbly, vivacious, energetic, intelligent, popular and later, retrospectively, as beautiful, big and strong. And he is also admired implicitly as working in a top security structure, i.e. an admirable role. Helena’s second love is not quite so special, but described initially as exceptional, special, bubbly and charming. In both cases her lovers change, as a result of their security operations. Helena doesn’t explicitly re-assess her first love, rather she implies criticism by telling us how she felt when she saw what was left of him:

I can't explain the pain and bitterness in me when I saw what was left of that beautiful, big, strong person.

But she does directly criticise her second love as having something wrong with him, as maybe having gone mad, and as wasted. Their transformations from admiring judgements to critical ones are central to the impact of the two Incident stages of the story.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is presented as a gloss of the interpersonal system of affect: appraising by reference to emotion.  However, 'telling how people feel emotionally' takes the perspective of construing experience as meaning, which is ideational in terms of metafunction.  That is, it misinterprets affect in terms of metafunction.

[2] This discussion largely mistakes appreciation for judgement. According to the foundational work on the system of attitude:

JUDGEMENT is concerned with the evaluation of human behaviour with respect to social norms. Thus, under JUDGEMENT we may assess behaviour as moral or immoral, as legal or illegal, as socially acceptable or unacceptable, as laudable or deplorable, as normal or abnormal and so on…

whereas

APPRECIATION is concerned with the evaluation of objects and products (rather than human behaviour) by reference to aesthetic principles and other systems of social value. It encompasses values which fall under the general heading of aesthetics, as well as a non-aesthetic category of 'social valuation' which includes meanings such as significant and harmful.

[3] This is misleading because it is untrue.  The criticism here is not made of Helena's first love, but of the experiences that had diminished the qualities in him that she appreciated.