Affect
TOPIC : ATTITUDE
Judgment
Appreciation
What is appraisal?
Appraisal theory is used to analyze how the speaker or the writer values the entities, such as people
and things within the text they produce. It was developed in the 1990’s by a journalist, Peter White,
and a professor of Linguistic, Jim Martin. The main components of the Appraisal theory are :
Graduation, Engagement and Attitude. What we are going to present you today is Attitude.
Attitude includes three semantic regions for expressing positive and negative evaluation. Attitude is
divided into three aspects. The first one is affect , which is the emotional evaluation of things,
processes or states of affairs , e.g. to like / to dislike.
The second one is judgment , which consists in the ethical evaluation of human behavior ( e.g.
good/bad). Finally , the last one is appreciation, which is the aesthetic or functional evaluation of
things, processes and state of affairs ( e.g beautiful/ugly, useful/useless) .
The first semantic region of Appraisal: Affect
Emotion is at the heart of the three semantic regions of Attitude (affect, judgment appreciation). We
will refer to this emotive dimension of meaning as “affect”. It is concerned with registering positive
and negative feelings:
<< do we feel happy or sad, confident or anxious, interested or bored? >>
Affect can be distinguished in:
-
Affect as quality
-
Affect as process ( behavioral or mental)
-
Affect as comment
We analyzed the 20th chapter of “ Pinocchio”, when he returns to the Fairy, finally freed from
prison. The first phrase we highlighted is:
<<Fancy the happiness of Pinocchio on finding himself free! >>
The word “happiness” here evaluates a state of being, so it is the first example of affect as process.
<<Tormented by the wish to see his father…>>
With the use of this verb, “ to torment” , the writer wants to convey the interior feelings of that
moment. It has a negative meaning, in fact in this part of the chapter Pinocchio has sunk down in
the muddy road.
Consequently, we find this statement:
<< How unhappy I have been >>
Here the words are reported in direct speech and this is an example of affect as state of being (or
process). Usually when you find in a text some words related to states of being, and reporting basic
emotions such as happiness, sadness, angriness, they are part of this semantic region.
<<It is so long, poor man, since I have seen him…>>
“Poor man” is a sort of aside referring to Pinocchio’s father. The attribute “poor” denotes
Pinocchio’s individual feelings towards his father, so we classified it as affect.
<<He stopped suddenly, frozen with terror .>>
This is a common saying, synonymous of “ to be terrified”, “to be frightened “. This kind of verbs
which express how we feel are part of affect as process. But process in the appraisal theory can be
divided into :
 Mental process
 Behavioral process .
In this context Pinocchio is terrified by the sight of “the Serpent”, so it conveys the idea of a mental
process which causes a physical reaction and makes him stop suddenly.
In the last sentences, when there is the description of the Serpent, there is instead an example of
behavioral process:
<< The Serpent laughed so heartily>>
The adverb after the verb describes perfectly the interior feelings, and it is representative to
understand the meaning of affect. The verbs to laugh, to cry, to smile, to get angry are all different
ways of expressing affect.
After, there are some attributes – full of life, quiet, still -. It is affect as quality.
To conclude, I want to go back to the expression “ to feel brave”. The attribute “brave” here is
about affect as quality, but in the same chapter there is the adverb “bravely” , which in a different
context indicates a moral judgment. Some words can be classified differently, in relation to the
background.
Now you will hear and analyze through other expressions in the text what judgment is.
Judgment
The second semantic region of attitude is judgment. Judgment deals with assessing people and their
behavior, or moreover, their character. The lexical choices of judgment can be roughly divided in:


Judgment of esteem
Judgment of sanction
Judgment of esteem involves “admiration and criticism”, including how ab/normal (normality),
in/capable (capacity), tenacious/ not tenacious (tenacity) a person is, typically without legal
implications. Judgment of sanction, on the other hand, involves “praise and condemnation”, often
codified as rules, often with legal implications, telling how people should behave, in terms of
“veracity”- un/truthful and in/appropriate actions “propriety”. Both kinds of
judgement evaluate human behaviour positively or negatively according to social norms.
Now I am going to analyze judgment in our text.
First of all we have to underline that Pinocchio himself is the impersonation of social sanction, par
excellence. Pinocchio, as we know, is a liar and disobedient marionette and this is reflected by his
nose which becomes longer when he lies. This emblematic character could be classified as the
representation of the negative sense of “veracity”.
Examples of judgment in our text:
But he kept on bravely.
The sentence is an explicitly positive social esteem judgment; it belongs to the “tenacity” and it
concerns in particular Pinocchio’s determination in front of a complicated situation.
And yet I deserve everything, for I am certainly very stubborn and stupid!
The verb ‘deserve’ denotes a positive social sanction judgment because, due to his future good
actions, Pinocchio wants to obtain ‘everything’ as a praise; it belongs to “propriety”. ‘Stubborn’ and
‘Stupid’ are explicit and negative social esteem judgments in the sense of “capacity” and these
adjectives denote Pinocchio’s bad qualities.
But from now on, I'll be different and I'll try to become a most obedient boy.
The word ‘different’ is implicitly positive social esteem judgment, Pinocchio wants to change his
behavior, and it belongs to “normality”. ‘Obedient boy’ denotes a positive way of being, it is a
positive social sanction in relation with “propriety”.
..disobedient boys are certainly far from happy..
This sentence shows the relation between judgment and affect. In this particular example, the
emotional situation of disobedient boys is the consequence of their bad actions. Furthermore the
expression ‘disobedient boys’ is a negative sanction in the sense of “propriety”, even better people
who commit inappropriate actions.
She who has been so good to me..
‘Good’ is explicitly positive social esteem judgment, "propriety". The appraised is the Fairy.
..unable to withstand them, he jumped into a field to pick a few grapes that tempted him.
‘Unable to withstand’ is a negative social esteem judgment and it belongs to “capacity”, the
evaluated is Pinocchio how is starving and he can’t resist grapes.
..Weasels which came every night to steal his chickens.
The verb ‘to steal’ is a negative action in the sense of explicit judgment of sanction, it belongs to
“propriety”. The apprised are the weasels which are seen as dishonest animals.
Appreciation
Now we are going to talk about the last semantic region, that is APPRECIATION.
Appreciation involves – as we sad – positive or negative evaluations of semiotic and natural
phenomena, according to the ways in which they are valued, from an
1) aesthetic point of view
(e.g. is this harmonious/discordant?; is this splendid/grotesque?)
2) or functional point of view
(e.g. is this clear/unclear?; is this deep/insignificant?)
So, appreciation is focused on our evaluation of things (especially things we make or performance
we give) as well as the worth of natural phenomena.
Specifically, appreciation can be divided into 3 subgroups:
 REACTION to things (as impact or quality) (catch attention or not; like/dislike)
 COMPOSITION (balance and complexity)
 VALUATION (how useful/useless, relevant/irrelevant something is for a aim or a situation)
In the same chapter of Pinocchio, the 20th, it’s possible to find several examples of appreciation.
“Lovely Fairy” – the first one is the adjective “lovely”, which is an example of appreciation as
reaction (specifically positive quality): in fact, Pinocchio loves the fairy and for this reason he
describes her as “lovely”.
“His fairy sister with azure hair” – it can’t be considered an aesthetic evaluation because it simply
refers to an aesthetic feature of the Fairy in an objective way.
«An immense Serpent lays stretched across the road» – it’s an aesthetic evaluation, specifically an
appreciation as reaction (impact), because it catches Pinocchio’s attention and the Serpent seems
immense compared to Pinocchio.
Only two lines later, a very important sentence for our analysis is:
«A serpent with a bright green skin, fiery eyes which glowed and burned, and a pointed tail»
In this case we have “bright green skin” and “fiery eyes” which can be regarded as aesthetic
evaluation in reference to a subjective point of view of Pinocchio, and these aesthetic features also
capture his attention (so it’s an impact); but what we have to underline are the verbs “glow” and
“burn”: in fact, these aesthetic features have such a strength that are capable to glow and burn
everything. So, these are examples of appreciation as reaction, since these elements have the power
to trigger such feelings.
“The flash of his red eyes” – in this example, “red eyes” can be regarded as an aesthetic evaluation
or simply as an objective description as well: in fact, the Serpent’s eyes may be really “red”, or
maybe it’s only a suggestion of Pinocchio, who in that frightening moment, thinks those eyes are
red. In this case it could be considered appreciation as impact.
Another important sentence is:
«Pinocchio said in a sweet, soothing voice…»
This cannot be considered as affect, but as appreciation: in fact, while affect construes the emotions
someone feels, appreciation ascribes entities the power to trigger such feelings.
In this case, “sweet” and “soothing” can be regarded as appreciation as valuation: in fact, with his
voice, Pinocchio wants to instil a sense of kindness in the serpent.
Here we can see it:
«Would you be so kind to step aside…?»
«…he jumped into a field to pick a few grapes that tempted him»
The last example is quite complicated and ambiguous. It could be an appreciation because the
grapes capture his attention, but actually it isn’t. This because the statement is concrete and
objective, and there is no evaluation or something subjective. However it’s not simple to recognize
an appreciation, as we can also see in a lot of controversial academic debates about this topic
nowadays.