On The Three Main Appraisal Systems

Martin & Rose (2007: 59):

Summing up, then, what we have are three main appraisal systems: attitude, amplification and source. Attitude comprises affect, judgement and appreciation: our three major regions of feeling. Amplification covers grading, including force and focus; force involves the choice to raise or lower the intensity of gradable items, focus the option of sharpening or softening an experiential boundary.  Engagement covers resources that introduce additional voices into a discourse, via projection, modalisation or concession; the key choice here is one voice (monogloss) or more than one voice (heterogloss). …

Blogger Comments:

[1] Trivially, the three most general appraisal systems are ATTITUDE, GRADUATION and ENGAGEMENT, as acknowledged elsewhere in this second edition.

[2] The characterisation of attitude as 'feeling' has led to the confusions identified in earlier posts, such as the metafuctional confusion of construing emotion (experiential metafunction) with appraising through emotion (interpersonal metafunction).

[3] This confuses the appraisal with the appraised.  FORCE is concerned with the intensity of the appraisal being enacted.

[4] This confuses the appraisal with the appraised.  FOCUS is concerned with the sharpening or softening of the appraisal being enacted.

[5] To be clear, the exposition of ENGAGEMENT is concerned only with instances of heteroglossia, and misrepresents its grammatical resources (projection, modalisation, concession) as its subsystems. For genuine examples of ENGAGEMENT subsystems, see White's Appraisal website.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Continuatives"

Martin & Rose (2007: 58):

Alongside conjunctions another important set of resources for adjusting expectations are continuatives. These are like conjunctions but they occur inside the clause, rather than at the beginning. They include words like already, finally, still and only, just, even. Continuatives that express time indicate that something happens sooner or later, or persists longer than one might expect. In the following example Helena comments on white peoples’ greed as persisting longer than one might reasonably expect:

If I had to watch how white people became dissatisfied with the best and still wanted better and got it.

Other continuatives indicate that there is more or less to a situation than has been implied:

It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. We even spoke about marriage. 

Amnesty didn't matter, It was only a means to the truth.

Tutu uses much less of this resource to adjust expectancy:

They denied that they had committed a crime, claiming that they had assaulted him only in retaliation for his inexplicable conduct in attacking them.

Now that we have brought modality and concession into the picture, alongside projection, it is timely to introduce the technical term used to name this region of meaning, namely engagement.

Blogger Comments:

[1] In SFL theory, continuatives are not a "set of resources for adjusting expectations".  Instead, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 107) explain:

A continuative is one of a small set of words that signal a move in the discourse: a response, in dialogue, or a new move to the next point if the same speaker is continuing. The usual continuatives are yes no well oh now.

[2] This is untrue of continuatives.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 109):

continuatives and conjunctions, are inherently thematic: if they are present in the clause at all, they come at the beginning.

[3] This continues the confusion of Martin (1992: 230-4) in which mood Adjuncts are misconstrued as continuatives, as documented in the relevant critiques here.  The adverbs only, just and even serve as mood Adjuncts of intensity (counterexpectancy), whereas the adverbs already and still serve as mood Adjuncts of temporality.  The odd one out here is finally, which serves as a conjunctive Adjunct (temporal: conclusive); Martin & Rose may have been aiming for eventually, which serves as a mood Adjunct of temporality.

[4] To be clear, this is a characterisation mood Adjuncts of temporality, not continuatives.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 187):

Adjuncts of temporality relate to interpersonal (deictic) time. They relate either (i) to the time itself, which may be near or remote, past or future, relative to the speaker-now; or (ii) to an expectation, positive or negative, with regard to the time at issue (sooner or later than expected …

[5] This vague characterisation falls short of identifying the function of the mood Adjuncts of intensity that Martin & Rose misconstrue as continuatives.  In the cited texts, the adverb even signals 'exceeding what is to be expected', whereas the adverb only signals 'limiting what is to be expected'.  Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 187):

Those of counterexpectancy are either ‘limiting’ or ‘exceeding’ what is to be expected: the meaning is either ‘nothing else than, went no further than’ or ‘including also, went as far as’.

[6] As this and previous posts have demonstrated, Martin & Rose's exposition of the system of ENGAGEMENT has been limited to misunderstandings of only one of its two most general features 'heterogloss'.  There has been no discussion of the other most general feature 'monogloss', nor of the proposed systems of features more delicate than 'heterogloss', such as the distinction between 'intravocalise' and 'extravocalise', and the more delicate distinctions within each; see, for example, the systems on White's Appraisal website here.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of "Concession"

Martin & Rose (2007: 57-8):

Tutu also makes some use of concession in his exposition …

Here the central concern is not retribution or punishment but, in the spirit of ubuntu, the healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the restoration of broken relationships.

... including the ‘internal’ rhetorical sense of ‘in spite of what I’ve led you to expect me to say’ (as opposed to the ‘external’ meaning ‘in spite of what you expect to happen’). Here Tutu means that although he’s granted that public hearings weren’t an absolute requirement, in fact virtually all important cases were heard that way:

The Act required that where the offence is a gross violation of human rights — defined as an abduction, killing, torture or severe ill-treatment — the application should be dealt with in a public hearing unless such a hearing was likely to lead to a miscarriage of justice (for instance, where witnesses were too intimidated to testify in open session). In fact, virtually all the important applications to the Commission have been considered in public in the full glare of television lights.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is misleading.  The structural (logical) expansion relation expressed by but is here replacive variation ('instead': not X but Y), not concessive condition ('yet': if P then contrary to expectation Q).  The misunderstanding of concessive expansion relations is widespread throughout the informing text, Martin (1992), as demonstrated, for example, here, here, here, here, here and here.

[2] This is misleading.  The structural expansion relation here is not internal to the speech event (between propositions), but external (between the two identifying figures).  The misunderstanding of the distinction between internal and external expansion relations is widespread throughout the informing text, Martin (1992), as demonstrated here.

[3] This is misleading.  If in fact is interpreted as a conjunctive Adjunct, the cohesive (textual) expansion relation it expresses here is verifactive clarification, not concessive condition.  If in fact is interpreted as a modal Adjunct, it serves as an unqualified speech-functional comment Adjunct of the type 'factual'.

[4] This misunderstands the text in order to misrepresent the expansion relation as concessive.  Tutu "grants" (concedes) nothing.  He identifies a requirement set out by the Act, including where such requirements may be waived, and verifies that the waiving of the requirement has, for the most part, not been necessary in important cases.

On The Heteroglossic Function Of Monitoring Expectancy

Martin & Rose (2007: 57):

Monitoring expectancy is in fact a pervasive feature of conjunctions, realised as time, contrast and causes. In the next examples suddenly means ‘sooner than expected’ and instead of resting at night implies that ‘resting at night’ is what we’d normally expect:

They even stayed over for long periods. Suddenly, at strange times, they would become restless. 

Instead of resting at night, he would wander from window to window.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the function of conjunctions and conjunctive Adjuncts is to conjoin units and relate them in terms of expansion features, either structurally through logical relations in complexes, or non-structurally through textual cohesion.

[2] In this way of thinking, 'blue' means 'less red than expected'.  To be clear, the adverb suddenly can function as a conjunctive Adjunct marking an immediate temporal enhancing cohesive relation between messages, as it does in the cited instance, or as a circumstance of Manner: quality.

[3] To be clear, the conjunctive Adjunct instead of marks an extending relation of replacive variation between a primary clause and a dependent non-finite secondary clause in a hypotactic clause nexus.

[4] Most importantly, neither of the cited examples includes an instance of heteroglossic engagement — the subject under discussion — since neither involves an acknowledgement of other voices with regard to the propositions involved.

[5] To be clear, the modal Adjunct even enacts interpersonal counterexpectancy (exceeding).