Session 3
Graduation of evaluative meanings
revision
• We are looking at evaluative language, which
gives the subjective point of view or stance of
the speakeer/writer.
• We have seen how evaluation is an important
part of communication.
• In texts it can be seen at lexical, grammatical
and discourse levels.
Graduation of evaluative
meaning
Upscaling and downscaling of the
intensity attitudinal or evaluative
meaning
gradability
• Attitudes and subjective meanings can be
expressed with more or less positivity or
negativity reflecting the degree of investment
in the utterance
• There are various ways of doing this
• You can grade by intensity or by amount
(force)
• And you can grade by preciseness of category
boundaries or prototypicality (focus)
Focus
• Prototypicality and the preciseness by which
category boundaries are drawn
• The degree to swhich some core or exemplary
instance of a semantic category are matched
• It is possible to up-scale or ‘sharpen’ the
specification
• E.g. a real father, a true friend
Focus
• Or you can down-scale or ‘soften’ the
specification characterising an instance as
having a more marginal membership of the
category
• E.g they sort of play jazz, she is kind of crazy,
Sharpening and softening
• Sharpening involves maximal investment by
the authorial voice in the value position
• Softening of positive values occurs when
positive assessement might be problematic for
the writer/reader relationship
• Softening of negative values indicates a
lessening of the speaker/writer’s value
position
Hedges and boosters
• Softening values is often called hedging
• Sharpening values is often called boosting
See Cambridge grammar of English secrtions
146,423,539 on hedges and boosters in
academic texts
Focus
• You can increase focus by using intensifiers
• True, real, genuine
• Really, very, genuinely
• You can lessen focus by hedging:
• Kind of, sort of, a bit, -ish
Force
• Force = degree of intensity which can be upscaled or down-scaled
• Slightly, somewhat, a bit, rather,
• Are all downtoners and lessen intensity
• Greatly, very, absolutely
• Are intensifiers which increase
isolating
• Some items can realise the up or downscaling
on their own to establish the intensity,
applying it either to qualities (adjectives and
adverbs) or to verbal processes e.g the items
a bit, rather, somewhat, quite
• A bit miserable, rather/very miserable
• Slightly abruptly, quite abruptly, very abruptly
• This rather annoyed me
maximisers
• These increase force to the highest possible
intensity:
• Utterly, totally, thoroughly, absolutely,
completely, perfectly
• These are considered to be grammatical
intensifiers since they belong to a closed set
and have relatively little referential meaning
Hyperbole
• Hyperbole uses maximisers
• I’m always thinking about food.
• This gate is in constant use
• I never make mistakes
lexicalisation
• Some intensification can be done by lexical
means, either figurative or with attitudinal
overtones:
• Ice cold
• Crystal clear
• Deliriously happy
• Ridiculously easy
Scales of intensity
• Sometimes the intensity is not conveyed by a
separate lexical item but is infused in the
meaning of items in a lexical set
•
•
•
•
Warm – hot- scalding
Contented – happy – joyous
Trickle – flow – flood
Glance – look - scrutinise
repetition
• You can also intensify by repeating the same
lexical item:
• It’s hot, hot, hot
• A tiny, tiny,little baby
• Or by semantic repetition via synonyms
• He’s, dumb, stupid, idiotic, cretinous and
totally brainless
metaphor
• You can also use metaphor to convey
intensified meanings:
• Prices have sky-rocketed
• Mountainous seas
Persona
• The way a person uses up and down scaling
can be part of their personality.
• It can be used by authors to construct
character
• It can be used by journalists to construct their
persona with their public
• It is an important part of the expression of
opinions and of certainty and uncertainty
Reading
•
•
•
•
•
•
For full details see
Martin and WHite
The Language of Evaluation
141-153
Cambridge Grammar of English pp223-224
Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility ch. 8
Attribution vs averral
another sort of ‘embedding’ of evaluation is
possible in texts: where the author attributes
evaluations to other voices.
It can often be important to determine who is
projected by an author as performing an
evaluation, in other words, who is projected as
the ‘principal’ (Goffman 1981) or the
‘responsible’ or ‘motivator’ (Levinson 1988) of
the evaluation, that is, the supposed evaluator.
• Evaluation is often a key element of conflict.
Often conflicts are a result of opposing value
systems, what one group thinks is good, the
other thinks is bad – the words they choose to
talk about the conflict will often signal their
investment through intensification or hedging.
• In turn the words used can intensify a conflict
remember
• the persuader uses evaluative language to
convince his or her audience that their own
opinions are good and that their proposals are
worthy and logical, those of their opponents
illogical or dangerous, that they are
trustworthy and honest and maybe that
others who disagree with them are not.
• There are many ways to do this. (lexical,
grammatical, covert, overt etc, use of
metaphor, graduation)
• Look at the text America’s dish detergent
wars. The conflict is signaled in the title. Who
are the protagonists? What are their relative
positions