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1

Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution for Higher Education

«National Research University

«Higher School of Economics»

School of Foreign Languages

Graduate qualification work - Bachelor's thesis

Field of study: Linguistics

Evaluative lexical units' realization in the English political discourse as a means of worldview formation for the target audience

Sedelnikov Aleksandr Sergeevich

Research Advisor

Doctor of Letters, prof.

Vyishnakova Elena Dmitrievna

Moscow 2020



Contents

Introduction

Theoretical part

Critical Discourse, Power and Political Discourse

Appraisal Theory

Attitude

Engagement and graduation

Script Theory

Axiological systems

Evaluative lexis

Practical part

Bloomberg - 01.04.2020 - China Concealed Extent of Virus Outbreak, U.S. Intelligence Says

The Guardian - 11.04.2020 - China clamping down on coronavirus research, deleted pages suggest

Independent - 11.04.2020 - The myth of the Great Britain must finally end when our government has failed us so badly with the coronavirus

President Donald Trump addresses coronavirus response in a news conference - 4/27/2020

Boris Johnson gives coronavirus update for first time since return to work - 01.05.2020

China Daily - 24.04.2020 - White House must concentrate on fighting outbreak, not China-bashing

Global Times - 03.05.2020 - US practice to claim compensation for COVID-19 outbreak a shame for human civilization

Global Times - April the 25th - WHO should probe US's virus misconduct: Global Times Editorial

Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping - 26.03.2020 - Working Together to Defeat the COVID-19 Outbreak

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying's Remarks - Various Topics & Dates

Conclusions

Bibliography



Introduction

The present study attempts to capture and interrogate the manifold linguistic devices which we, for the purposes of our investigation, have designated as evaluative lexical units (or evaluative language/vocabulary taken as a whole) employed in service of creating and conveying appraisals in political discourse. We will attempt to create a descriptive framework for these devices with respect to their linguistic profile and ubiquity in political discourse of English-speaking countries and carry out a subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis. To that effect, we will have recourse to definitions coined by a number of both Russian- and English-speaking scholars from a variety of academic disciplines and employ them to examine target sources proliferating politically charged information. Furthermore, I will hazard conjecture as to the causes of perceived preference in reliance on certain linguistic persuasion devices in dissimilar to others. On top of that, we will purport to identify the most salient strategies which political agents resort to with allowance for their ubiquity. Finally, I will attempt to discern country-specific regularities in the use of the aforementioned persuasion devices and offer an account of how these idiosyncrasies synergize to achieve high degree of persuasive ability and contribute to the establishment of various worldview systems. Such analysis is, to our mind, necessitated by the undeniably significant role that politics play in lives of people, even those who are not actively involved in it, which translates into an imperative for a body of knowledge to approach and gauge politically-charged information with.

The imperative for a better understanding of the political language's capacity to influence public opinion is twofold. On one hand, politicians and their affiliates require a reliable and flexible apparatus with which to sustain and augment their capacity to set and advance their agenda. On the other hand, it is essential that the general public be cognizant of any such strategies employed, lest it allow itself to be misled and executive power be misused for ulterior goals. As such, the political language has been suffered a substantial amount of scholarly and public scrutiny with an explicit purpose of identifying any potentially exploitable rhetoric devices to furnish those governed with an instrument with which to keep former's proliferation in check. The urgency of this necessity has been articulated by some researchers (Pavlova, 2017) as stemming from the increasing apathy toward politics and civic engagement as a whole on part of the general public, which creates a perception vacuum then occupied by the political agents and the information they disseminate. It is generally assumed that one of the primary aspirations of any politician is to retain and expand one's power, which makes encroaching on this vacuum but a logical recourse. political discourse linguistic appraisal

To that effect, the study will make an effort to achieve the following goals:

1. Establish a theoretical meta-framework for the analysis of political discourse embodied in the sources we will draw on and the conversation that they engender.

2. Establish an appraisal matrix that will incorporate a diverse set of evaluation strategies.

3. Create a taxonomy of specific linguistic devices employed in such appraisals.

4. Analyze agents disseminating politically-charged information, identify culturally- and nationally- defined peculiarities of appraisal strategies and offer an account explaining the rationale behind peculiarities we will have discovered with respect to the power dynamics enacted in such parlance as per political and critical discourse theories.

5. Suggest further avenues of investigation.

As for the novelty of this study, we believe that it will derive its' significance from attempting to unify and interrogate the relationship between overarching discourse analysis frameworks and a taxonomy of specific linguistic devices which will clarify and explicate the disparity-defined power dynamics which are the subject of the former, which, to our knowledge, has not been attempted before to a sufficient degree of rigor and thoroughness.

The outcomes of this study may be of practical significance to people immediately affiliated with political discourse and its disseminators. It may enable one to hone one's language more precisely and tailor it to the target audience should more persuasive effect be required, which is of particular importance to grassroot politicians and activists who seek to expand their cause and import their convictions onto others. Conversely, this study may prove useful to those purposed with giving meaning to and discerning true agendas of the political information they may be a recipient of. In other words, it may improve one's understanding of the language of politicians and the media and help one make better-informed, reasonable decisions, enhancing the quality of and magnifying the impact of one's civic participation.

This study may also serve to bridge the disconnect between findings of Russian and foreign scholars and mutually enrich them by supplying information formerly outside of their investigations' scope, as well suggest venues for further investigation of the topic.

The subject matter of this study revolves around strategies of explicating one's attitude and appraisal of political events with reliance on various evaluation frameworks that draw on notions of affective states, social conventions, credibility and so forth.

The object of this investigation is presented by 4 statements made by primary political agents (politicians and their affiliates giving a speech) and 6 statements forwarded by secondary actors (media venues processing statements made by primary sources, an opinion piece in a newspaper regarding the said politician's statement).

By way of processing this data, we will take advantage of several research methodologies, including description and classification, quantification, axiological evaluation and comparative cross-reference analysis. Taken as a whole, these means will enable us to measure a device's cultural and linguistic impact, measure its' salience and prominence in politicians' rhetoric repertoire and determine its' role in advancing their agenda.

The study will not, however, include variables that do not appertain to linguistic devices, which must be taken into account when ascertaining the validity of relationship under investigation. The scope of the study will likewise be restricted to political vocabulary of English-speaking sources and a select few materials appertaining to a very specific topic, which, we anticipate, may impose constraints on extrapolation of the data thus acquired onto different topics and domains of political discourse.

Upon conducting our investigation, we expect that we will have identified devices which carry the most potency as regards their ability to serve as vessels for appraisal-driven discourse navigation. The findings of this study may subsequently be applied to further academic analysis of political discourse, as well as be used in a more practical fashion to enhance one's ability to navigate the political terrain at large and safeguard oneself against linguistically-driven misuse of political power.

The study will first assemble the theoretical framework with reliance on several large scale theories such as Critical Discourse Analysis and Appraisal theory to name a few, and then apply these findings to the data supplied in its' practical part.



Theoretical part

Before we set out to formulate a more specific and comprehensive account of the particulars which constitute the core body of evaluative lexis, we deem it necessary to delineate a more general and overarching framework which will serve as scaffolding of our understanding of political discourse and define the scope and depth with which subsequent references and elucidations will be undertaken. To that end, we intend to make use of several large-scale concepts, namely Discourse Analysis, the Critical Discourse Theory and the Appraisal Theory, as well as other axiological framework.

It bears reiterating that the present paper concerns itself with how specialized linguistic means exert influence over the public opinion and sway it in order to make it conducive to one's agenda. As such, we could surmise that, by extension, this study also touches upon how these linguistic means signify power dynamics at play. With allowance for that, we will have recourse to the Critical Discourse Theory, namely as delineated by Teun. A. van Dijk and, to a lesser degree, Norman Fairclough as well as Ruth Wodak, to supply the framework upon which we will rely.

Critical Discourse, Power and Political Discourse

Van Dijk (2008) defines Critical Discourse Analysis studies as a “discourse studies with an attitude”, implying that far from pursuing purely descriptive and scholarly purposes, it actively seeks to identify means and channels through which one may use it to promote and sustain, sometimes forcefully enforce, inequality of power. Fairclough (1995) ventures so far as to proclaim critical discourse a tool of liberation for people facing linguistic imposition and depravity in that it may help them alleviate asymmetry in terms of who has the power to shape discourse and its' agenda. One could therefore summarize that the objective of critical theories in general and CDA is particular is to equip people with knowledge necessary to free themselves from language-mediated social subjugation through critical evaluation of practices they are subjected to, as well as raise awareness and help them to formulate their own convictions. Wodak and Meyer (2008) posited that in doing so, the Critical Discourse Analysis (which shall henceforth be denoted as CDA) attempt to deconstruct ideologies and their claims to power through methodical scrutiny of semiotic data, namely written and spoken accounts of discourse across mediums. The sought-for “de-mystification” concomitantly betrays influence of critical linguistics which likewise attempted to unearth hidden social agendas of the language. As such CDA also strives to reveal the complementary nature of language and social events. It bears mentioning that one engaged in such an investigation is by no means separated from, but rather interwoven with the very structures under scrutiny (Bourdieu, 1984). By virtue of belonging to a particular social group and thus engaging in practices and rituals commonplace in that group, one necessarily adopts (at least partially) its' foundational assumptions which in turn color one's perception of his work, which also necessitates awareness of own's own partiality and bias, lest one falls prey to the same phenomenon he wishes to study. Van Leeuwen (2006) posited that such an ambitious endeavor imparts corresponding requirements in terms of impartiality and preserving work ethics. Since one invariably operates within a social context of his group, one has to do his utmost to make his initial stance unambiguous and his objective transparent to preserve the validity of one's research.

Van Dijk (2004) also makes special mention of the fact that such approach does not presupposes any special analysis methodologies, but rather draws on academic assets from other disciplines and marshals them to a particular end. Likewise, Wodak and Meyer (2008) point out the inherently interdisciplinary and eclectic nature of this branch while also accentuating its' necessarily problem-oriented properties. Indeed, the imperative for a change has been one of the core tenets of the critical theory (the forebearer of CDA) since its' very conception, with the goal being the scrutiny and enactment of meaningful changes in the society (Horkheimer, 1937). Such a view of the critical theory was premised o several assumptions, many of which have retained their relevance to date:

· It concerns itself with the sum total of societal practices corrected for the historical context.

· It should aim at augmenting our grasp on the inner working of the society by recruiting knowledge of other social sciences.

CDA has also been noted to possess the capacity for assertion and explication of one's own stance on the matters of power. Van Dijk (2004) described CDA as a “social movement of politically committed discourse analysts”, while Wodak observed that scholars of this domain tend to be rather unambiguous insofar as their attitudes on the subject matter are concerned. There also seems to exist a consensus on the socially oriented nature of CDA, with Fairclough and Wodak defining is as a “language as a social practice”. In the same vein with its' critical theory foregoers, CDA aims to recruit other branches of science to gain a come comprehensive understanding of how language is involved in maintaining power dynamics and constructing social institutions and their practices (Lemke, 2002; Martin and Wodak, 2006). Researchers suggest an ambilateral dependence between social institutions and language practices at their employ, whereby both aim to reinforce and sustain one another whilst also seeking to change each other as per demands of the context. Van Dijk (2004) denotes the following properties of CDA:

· Generally speaking, it concerns itself with issues of social and political order as opposed to the examination of discourse in a sterilized environment divorced from its' real-world applications. That being said, Ruth and Meyer (2009) also suggest that the discursive units under scrutiny do not necessarily imply an issue in a conventionally negative way (that is, referring to an overt conflict or hostility), but rather encompass any social dimension one wishes to dissect.

· It implies reference to a multitude of disciplines and studies to encompass as many aspects of an issue and achieve the highest fidelity of investigation.

· In distinction from regular discourse studies pursuing descriptive ends, CDA purports to identify the dynamics of causality and dependence between the discourse and social relations which give rise to it, deferring to specific social structures born out the perceived state of power inequality.

· In particular, CDA investigates how “discursive structures enact, confirm, legitimate, reproduce or challenge relations of dominance in society”.

In a similar fashion, Fairclough and Wodak (1997) identified the following properties of CDA:

· It revolves around a broad array of social issues.

· It postulates power dynamics as discourse based.

· Discourse in general is tantamount to culture and society at large.

· Discourse is employed in the genesis, promulgation and sustenance of ideologies.

· Discourse is determined in part by the historical dimension of society.

· It intercedes between texts and culture.

· It attempts to interpret and provide and explication account of phenomena under investigation.

It should be emphasized that ideologies in question here are different from those which are premised on economics and distribution of material goods. At the same time, one may find it problematic to divorce this term from its' negative connotations which inevitably arise by the virtue of the objective being to “unravel, deconstruct and supply the means to resist” power-driven ideologies (Knight, 2006). By their nature, they tend to gravitate toward ideologies of a political spectrum, betraying the following characteristics (Mullins, 1972):

· Power takes precedence over disembodied beliefs.

· They guide one's appraisal.

· They contain blueprints for actions in specific scenarios.

· They require logical integrity and do not tolerate logical incongruity.

One will also infer from the goal to “demystify” ideologies their subliminal nature in that the ones which enjoy the highest degree of prominence and acceptance may in time grow to be regarded as neutral. Such ideologies become “naturalized” and fade from awareness to the point one does not question its' tenets and begins to view them as a benchmark from subsequent evaluations. Interestingly enough, such degree of acceptance does not signify conscious commitment, in that one may harbor these beliefs whilst engaging in activities of incompatible ideological affiliations. Such intimately held convictions may occasionally resurface in the form of certain lexical units which we shall examine further in subsequent chapters of this paper.

On the other hand, CDA is yet to establish boundaries and common denominator for what would authorize its' practitioners to separate in their eyes legitimate exercises of power from those of abusive nature (Billig, 2008).

As far as the definition of power is concerned, a concept so extensively studied has seen itself defines in a myriad of ways, most of which, however, revolve around the inflexible core of set assumptions. The power in this vein is defined as both a goal and a means one may achieve in a social context on his own volition and with the assistance or despite the resistance of others. One may identify three main variations on this account:

· Power is an outcome of one's efforts multiplied by his resources (French and Raven, 1959).

· Power is an attendant feature of social exchanges (Blau, 1964; Emerson, 1962)

· Power is a defining characteristic of a society as a whole (Foucault, 1975 and Giddens, 1984).

It is worth noting that since the definition of power is so evidently socially-determined, it is not single-agent social scenarios that are of utmost interest to CDA, but rather events of dialectical nature where multiple participants of juxtaposing affiliation collide, which have thus far received substantially less scholarly attention. Such are, among other things, textual sources, which, despite their less than suggestive appearance, represent a veritable battlefield of ideas and power-play, with multiple agendas of editors, authors, reviewers and other contributors colliding within a single textual amalgamation.

On a structural level, CDA identifies two constituent domains that differ from one another along the axis of scope and specificity: macro and micro level analysis. The former addresses the underlying dynamics of power and the inequality of access to it as the core premise of discourse, whereas the latter deals predominantly with specific manifestations of the previously mentioned power relations, namely any acts of communication or language use as a whole. One should note that the two grow to become indivisibly and intimately interlinked to produce a coherent communicative event.

There exist numerous ways to unify these units into a single entity according to the particular nature of its' constituents.

· Member groups - institutions or other forms of social coalescence execute their agenda (macro-level structures) through their constituent members that relay the agenda through the means of specific language units (microstructure).

· Action / process - this axis sees individual actions (micro-structures) representing larger group actions that supply the blueprint and legitimacy to the former.

· Social context / structure - any interaction employing discourse becomes a part of a larger social context. Both small and large scale varieties of context impose limitations on the permissible forms of conversation.

Power, access to it and the ability to retain and execute it at one's own discretion is a centerpiece notion of any critical discourse analysis. Borrowing from van Dijk (2008) and drawing on the beforementioned micro-macro axis, one may describe power as the capacity of macro-level entities to exert control over the implicitly harboured beliefs and explicitly professed convictions of micro-level constituents. Naturally, attaining and maintaining is premised on the possession of limited resources used to enact various types of control, among which are elevated or otherwise distinguished social status, material wealth, means of production and proliferation of information and the like. The last one of these will be at the forefront of our investigation, though we anticipate that some point of overlap are to be expected since no single resource is typically a sole possession of a macro-level structure. Information assumes such potency by virtue of its' ability to infiltrate other types of discourse: no domain is outside its' reach, for unlike institutionalized macro-structures like law enforcement and legal system which have no agency unless a law is in breach, information may affect structures inaccessible to other types of power. Innermost held beliefs and convictions of a person of virtually any social standing, be it a president or a perfectly ordinary citizen, are liable to this type of influence. Our predispositions in turn guide our action, ergo information may translate into deeds on any scale.

Controlling the information implies by extension controlling its' parameters like time, place and participants (where and when which topics ought to be discussed by whom), but most importantly - the topic. Macro-structure agents with the wherewithal to dictate the topic content and topic turnover have a disproportionate amount of power over the discourse (Gans 2004; Lindegren-Lerman 1983; van Dijk 1988). Specifically, major media outlets and certain persons of public renown may show preferential treatment to select topics which coincide with their own convictions, thus availing the latter the means to expand their reach, magnifying the topics' ability to entrench itself into the public's opinion. Conversely, certain topics may be excluded from the public's limelight through deliberate omission, certain actors may be denied the platform to promote themselves. Such a strategy may at times be even more effective than forceful eradication of information which invariably stirs controversy and attracts unwanted attention, as the unwanted discourse variety simply fades from perception, unable to gain a foothold in the public domain (Downing, 1984).

The aggregate of our beliefs, opinions and experiences is referred to by some as “mental models” (Johnson-Laird 1983), a term we shall adopt as well. When injected into a discourse space, these models adopt a new purpose of identifying the context of a given discourse: who is talking about what from what standpoint and on what grounds, etc. In becoming situation-centered, they were redesignated as “situational models” (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983) that feature the event's descriptive part multiplied by the convictions people bring into discourse while becoming its' participants. Once a part of a discursive space, these situational models are liable to be influenced through a plethora of speaker-determined means which mainly involve micro-structure entities: the choice of vocabulary, the contextual placement (addressing the opponent during a debate having mentioned a typically condemnable person before or an act), metaphors and other referential devices (overtly or implicitly comparing one to a person reproached or reviled), all of which introduces an element of persuasiveness into the discourse (Dillard and Pfau 2002; O'Keefe 2002). In the event such devices are used to the express benefit of their creators and to the detriment of those on the receiving end, one may conclude that a particular type of discursive power misuse called “manipulation” is at play here (van Dijk 2006), which, if sustain in a systematic and deliberate manner, may constitute another variety of power misuse commonly defined as “indoctrination” (Winn, 1983).

The true extent of information's feature to carry conviction is revealed when one considers that not only does it alter the perception of a specific mental models relevant to the current discourse when disseminated by an allegedly credible and authoritative source, but also may change one's views one matters mundane and regular. Recipients of this information may see their beliefs, attitudes and knowledge undergo gradual transformation that bring them in concert with the agenda being brought to the fore (e.g. Forest, 2009). This effect is further magnified by the contextual means, which sees information originating from assertedly reputable sources (e.g. established institutions like government or educational system) being regarded as more trustworthy (Nesler et al., 1993). At times, the subject of such exposure may lack the sagacity or conviction to set the status quo at defiance (Wodak, 1987). Further compounding this effect is the fact that some of these domains presuppose inherently uneven debate space, where the macro-level entities receive precedence when it comes to participation. They may, at their sole discretion, dictate terms of involvement for participants and determine the distribution of power within that context, reducing some to taciturn recipients with no real agency to challenge the status quo.

Perhaps there is no domain which is more suited for considerations that CDA operates with than the realm of politics and political discourse. Politics is where handling of power is at its' most varied, with all forms of legitimate and wrongful use of it being on display. It is then of little surprise that political discourse has been at the forefront of CDA -inspired inquiries into the language for practically as long as there has been critical theory as such. In particular, scholars have paid special attention to sub-domains of politics which where power inequality and power struggles were at their most prominent: racism, nationalism, militarism and forms of institutionalized aggression. As a rule, debates centered around such topics frequently lean toward what has been termed “populist rhetoric”. Such peculiar mode of parlance represents particularly tempting material for scholars of CDA as it is deliberately engineered to carry persuasive potency and thus lays bare cultural and discursive topics which one usually has to unearth manually. More often than not, this mode of discourse implies axiological and attributional approaches which are most apparent in debates around the issues of national identity (but which are, we find, are amply suited for other topics) and manifest themselves in following ways:

· constructive strategies (formation of national individuality)

· retention strategies (ensure the longevity of established identities)

· transformative strategies (introduce changes into the national individuality)destructive strategies (dismantle and undermine hostile ideologies)

Appraisal Theory

Apart from science literature and other utility texts like instruction manuals, one would be hard pressed to find a text completely sanitized from all emotional involvement and attitudinal explication. Whether intentionally or accidentally by the virtue of one's allegiance-induced bias, most of the written verbal accounts are replete with expressly stated and concealed valuations which betray one's evaluational, rational and emotional attitude toward the subject matter indicative of their standpoint about either it or the meta-subject (how these entities are processed and judged by other participants). As Stubbs (1996) put it, anything one says about anything comes with a concomitant expression of opinion. With regards to the understanding of language as a whole against the backdrop of the appraisal approaches, it is typically defined as a “signaling system embedded within an encompassing social matrix” which corresponds to Halliday's (1994) conception of it. Halliday (1994) also identified three chief procedures (which he designated “metafunctions”) by which such a system produces meaning:

· Ideational which conveys the embodied experience of a person.

· Interpersonal which observes the way people adopt personalities and modes of parlance most appropriate for a given social situation.

· Textual which arranges the above-mentioned strategies into a complete textual entity.

Seen as the most pertinent of the bunch, interpersonal function received additional elucidation by Martin & White (2005) who supplemented its' definition to include:

· Various communicative strategies that diversify one's selection of dialogic options and enable one to assert, comply, question, endorse, suggest, refuse.

· Means to affirm and adjust one's degree of engagement with the interlocutor. In other words, it serves either to exacerbate or bridge the social distance between them through use of select vocabulary like formalized language or in-group jargon.

By and large, the valuation strategies and devices mentioned in the beginning are employed in service to the interpersonal dimension of language and invoke several basic attitudinal categories, all of which are made of a number of more specific subcategories which we will delineate as follows:1) attitude, 2) graduation, 3) engagement. As the notion of evaluation is central to the purpose of our study, we shall undertake a more thorough examination of these categories. The majority of the terms and definitions to be presented below shall draw on the body of print produced by Martin and White (2005).

Attitude

Attitude represents an array of strategies one relies on to convey his viewpoint with regards to its' negativity or positivity, generally speaking. Such notions may refer to the subject-matter itself or to the meta-conversation about it which typically consists of participants' explicated opinions. The attribution of an attitudinal marker is governed by several considerations including the issue at hand (what is being assessed), the conspicuousness of the attitude at hand (over or implicit) and the potential social repercussions of such an act. Of note is also the gradable nature of attitudes conveyed, which is designated as “gradation”, as human feelings tend to oscillate in intensity. Generally speaking, three main subcategories of this domain are identified: affect, judgement and appreciation, with each of them referring to a certain established body of notions.

Affect covers the emotional component of evaluation that roughly coincides with the “positive-negative” semantic axis, though the fully realized taxonomy is more thorough as we shall demonstrate below. It is the difference between happiness and misery, gleeful anticipation and dreadful apprehension, fear and joy.

One may observe several commonalities that unify most emotionally expressive vocabulary and that will serve as a basis of our descriptive analysis of the phenomenon:

· On a basic semantically referential level, evaluative vocabulary bifurcates into negatively and positively expressive one. Attribution of modality is usually culturally defined. The body is despondent; the boy is elated.

· Evaluative vocabulary may encapsulate emotions expressed through nonverbal behavior or transpiring in the form of mental or otherwise internalized activity. She wringed and writhed like a trapped serpent; he resigned to his fate a long time ago.

· In terms of grammar, emotional expression may be diffuse, non-directed affective states that are self-contained within the one experiencing them, or they may be directed at third-party encounter. She felt anxious, though she couldn't for the love of her figure out why; our superiors are displeased with our performance as of late.

· Emotional expressions may occupy various positions on the scale of intensity. Although no uniform grading is universally accepted, one may confer various degrees of intensity depending on the frequency and the context of usage: I don't like him; I can't stand him; I loathe him; I despise him; I hate him

· Emotions may arise either in anticipation of an event yet to come to fruition or in response to an extraneous event in progress or already concluded: He dreaded the upcoming exam; he regretted lashing out in anger.

· Emotions described up to this point may also be further divided into three general subcategories of (un)happiness, (in)security and (dis)satisfaction. The first of these deals with affective states most representative, in our collective conception, of pure emotions like love or hatred. The next is concerned with environmentally determined variables which may bear influence on one's social or economic well-being. The latter covers attitudes toward intention-driven activities such as frustration, inspiration, liveliness, joint sympathy.

Assignment of emotional valuation enjoys a particularly extensive host of means owing to the sheer volume of emotionally suggestive vocabulary, to which one may ascribe the following categories:

· Emotional state conveyed through description of quality and the use of adjectival or adverbial modifiers: a courageous defense (epithet); the defense mounted was courageous (attribute); the defenders fought courageously (property or quality)

· Emotional state conveyed through a process and expressed via a verb: his defiance enraged them (affective mental); he thrashed and flailed violently (affective behavioral)

· Emotional state conveyed through a side remark and typically expressed through adverbial modifiers: thankfully, everyone emerged unharmed (modal)

Judgement appeals to belief systems that enjoy a higher degree of societal recognition to the point of being formally legitimized or putatively appreciated such as laws, morality systems of ethic codes. These systems are most employed in appraising other people's actions by measuring them against an established benchmark. Similar to affect, judgement branches out into several subcategories, each of which reflects a particular facet of appraisal: esteem and sanction.

· Judgments of esteem are concerned with normalcy (the degree to which one corresponds to social convention), ability (how skillful one is) and perseverance (the strength of one's resolve). Such accounts are proliferated mostly through oral communications and play an essential role in the formation of social bonds, with humor having a particularly notable role (Eggins & Slade, 1997).

· Judgements of sanction gauge one's credibility (how truthful one is) and appropriateness (whether one's behavior coincides with ethic codes). These appraisals tend to be more formalized by official institutions and oftentimes presuppose adverse ramifications for those who would violate them. Observing these guidelines is a mainstay of religious compliance and the notion of civic duty.

Appreciation involves appraisal of an entity with respect to its' perceived societal value which may be embodied in its' aesthetic beauty, its' social significance or its' capacity to bring about harmful of benign repercussions, as well as its' intrinsic value by itself. More specifically, these judgements denote the following properties of an entity: reaction, composition and valuation.

· Reactions captures the nature of one's initial impressions of an entity and whether one finds it pleasing: the new flick proved to be an exciting and riveting movie-going experience; our classes were a poster child for tedium incarnate, I could barely force myself to stake awake and preset through this abhorrent performance.

· Compositions refers to the structural complexity and evenness of an entity: His instructions were precise and consistent throughout, making the material easy to absorb; the incohesion and discord within the ranks are a direct result of the same-spirited irregularities within a chain of command.

· Valuation identifies whether an endeavor or an entity are worthwhile in any fashion: though profound in its' impact, the program was nothing more than a derivative of the former presidents' policies. This category is especially liable to context-determined variability as different domains of human life put premium on different qualities. Thuswise, an art-work may be judged by its' novelty and orthodoxy, while an academic study may be gauged on the basis of its' precision, validity and the profoundness of a discovery, in the same way a speech may be appraised with regards to its' persuasive capacity.

For the most part, these devices have a corresponding spot on at least a vaguely defined intensity scale, yet there also exist units which do not lend themselves as readily to such gradation: swear words and curses. Though they they are typically employed to convey strong emotions, one would find it troublesome to subsume them with any degree of certainty.

Engagement and graduation

Communication is nigh always a two-way street. Even if one converses with himself, he enters a dialogic domain that contains utterances, opinions and stances on the subject matter expressed beforehand and conceived by other persons, with ad-hoc benchmarks for normalcy, appropriateness and other categories discussed above established by these remarks fielded prior to one's engagement. As such, any person entering this space is compelled to somehow acknowledge or otherwise respond to these utterances. In doing so, one may adopt a variety of stances by espousing, objecting or ignoring what was said before. Conversely, the original creators of the utterances may construct them in such a fashion so as to elicit a particular reaction from their interlocutors. They may anticipate that prospective recipients will concur to the viewpoint forwarded, challenge it or need to be convinced. The interplay between inference and implication creates the dialogue flow which few of us consciously pay attention to, but which is nonetheless rife with implications for all parties involved, with each of them being thus empowered to make a stance and challenge others, hence the term “engagement”. Graduation on the other hand refers to the extent of commitment one indicates through his using a particularly charged vocabulary that reflects various degrees of intensity, an example of which would be the so-called hedging which downplays one's certainty to preserve the air of courtesy in an exchange.

As noted before, engagement implies a circumstance of diverging opinions that supply their own congregations of assumptions about the subsequent flow of a conversation on any given subject matter. As with attitude, engagement presents itself in various form which shall delineate below:

· “Disclaim” signifies nonconcurrence with a viewpoint presented, whereby an interlocutor may either outright deny legitimacy to a claim or the right to voice a concession/counter-argument: He doesn't look like the type to commit murder; Although he looked as innocent as a lamb, beneath the innocuous facade lied a veritable monster.

· “Proclaim” asserts one viewpoint as highly compelling, thereby precluding others from voicing contending opinions. In doing so, one may concur to, pronounce or endorse a viewpoint: Admittedly, I was happy to see him gone; I hold to a view that gun culture is deeply flawed; As indicated by these findings, the new cure could hold some promise in treating aggressive types of cancer.

· “Entertain” permits difference of opinion by affirming one's own position as subjective and as such open to alteration through extraneous suggestions: It could be the case / It appears plausible / apparently (that) he could've been oblivious to her escapades.

· “Attribute” accentuates the subjectivity of one's proposition, inviting alternative accounts to consideration: He claims / states / declares / rumor has it that he is innocent of any wrongdoing.

In contrast to the aforementioned, one may refrain from acknowledging the heteroglossic framework that construes any conversational space and omit any and all references to alternative viewpoints, bestowing upon his utterance a factual, matter-of-factly nature that brooks no contradiction: The way it looks to me, you may just be letting your imagination run away with you; You're wrong.
As such we have at our disposal two distinct strategies when it comes to navigating the conversational space with regards to diversity of opinions: contraction and expansion that invoke or, conversely, tolerate no dissent.

Graduation is a property inherent in nearly all valuation utterances. When making a judgement call, one may choose to adjust the semantic core of an utterance to express one's attitude in more nuanced details. This feature applies equally to categories of attitude and engagement and represents the wealth of expressive means at the disposal of both. One may even venture to surmise that these two constitute extensions of graduation scale.

On a basic level, graduation functions along two axes, those of force and of “prototypicality”.

Force pertains to the perceived intensity, volume or other scalable qualitative characteristic. It may apply to qualities, processes and verbs through special modifiers. Such modifiers may stand as separate entities (in which case they are termed “isolation” units: very important) or merge with the host word to produce a modified utterance (in which case they are termed “infusion” units: ultraviolence; happy, gleeful, elated). In either case, when taken to either of the extreme values, a force modifier attains the label of a “maximiser” as coined by Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech & Svartivik (1985): thoroughly pointless, absolutely futile, superhot. It is worthwhile noting that while the units described thus far have been semantically dependent, modifiers of force may also assume the form of fully-fledged, autonomous units, becoming what has been dubbed “lexicalization” units: dirt cheap, ice cold. In some cases, the magnification may occur through repetition of the same unit: I dare you, I double-dare you! Should one wish to impart additional literary layer into his utterance, he may resort to the use of metaphors or similes to signify gradation: his heart was a shattered vase; he was as strong as an ox.

It bears mentioning that the units described above normally deal with qualitative properties of an utterance which by no means cover the whole extent of force graduation. Graduation applies to quantifiable characteristics as well, denoting fluctuations in amount, temporal and spatial extent as well as extent referring to chronological proximity: a horde of monsters, long-lasting repercussions / a blanket legislation, recent developments on the case.

Prototypicality, on the other hand, distributes units according to their semantic proximity to a benchmark unit which represents the core of that semantic family: a genuine praise, a real deal -> somewhat confidently, sort of true, angrily-ish.

When used to their intended effect, these devices enable one to produce complex and nuanced messages capable of catering to the multi-layered nature of human interaction. They confer the possibility to express one's opinion with various degrees of assertiveness, amenability and compliance with the agenda in question, as well as fulfill specific social roles mandated by the relative power dynamic in the text.

Script Theory

Although the Appraisal Theory delineated above offers a thorough account of how evaluation is set in motion, it makes no mention of why such estimations are triggered in the first place and offers no interpretation of mechanisms which underpin subjective rating. To make amends for this omission, we will turn to Silvan Tomkin's Script (Tomkins, 1978, 1987) theory which purports to explain the origin of emotional responses which we believe to be the primary driving force behind any appraisal. Indeed, testifying to the instrumental role of emotions in enabling such judgements are numerous anecdotal and study-empowered accounts of people who, having lost the ability to apply emotional analysis following a traumatic brain injury, were unable arrive at any decision on even the most mundane matters, even if presented with perfectly equal opportunities in terms of gains and losses (Goleman 1995). As such, we postulate that understanding the process of emotional genesis will afford us a more precise insight into the interplay of power and personalities that underpins appraisals in political discourse and beyond.

Tomkin's identifies two entities as foundational to his theory, a scene and a script. A scene represents a time-bound, finite occurrence with a fixed onset and offset. Scenes make use of variables such as place, participants and time to create a perceived unique experience. A script, one the other hand, encompasses one's strategies for processing and responding to scenes transpiring before him.

Scripts display several noteworthy characteristics:

· Scripts represent an amalgamation of strategies one draws on to interpret, anticipate and reproduce specific scenes.

· Scripts have fixed correspondence to scenes they govern.

· Scripts, while thorough, may contain gaps in their accounts of scenes in terms of scene composition and appropriate responses.

· Scripts vary in terms of prescriptive accuracy.

· Scripts are malleable and subjects to continuous adjustment based on the outcomes of one's applying these schemas to real-life scenarios.

· Scripts tend to transcend situational borders in that a scenario may require enactment of multiple scripts (which merge into a “super-script”) or a single script may be applied to multiple scenarios in equal measure.

· Scripts are positive feedback loops in that their enactment reinforces associated events as requiring the said scripts and vice-versa. Similarly, scripts may accelerate the advent of the event which triggered them by initiating certain reaction patterns.

As for what triggers scripts, their enactment occurs when an appraisal of a scene discerns a pattern consistent with a person's conditioned perception of events. According to Tomkin's Affect Theory (which was later evolved into the Script Theory), there are nine primary affective states corresponding with nine basic states of affairs (Nathanson 1997). It is important to note that the following taxonomy was initially devised with allowance for physiological processes as markers of these states, which we shall, for the purposes of our study, substitute with verbalized responses, which will result in omission of some of the reactions:

· Enjoyment - occurs as a reaction to a successfully undertaken endeavor.

· Interest - is elicited in response to a novel scenario.

· Surprise - arises as a consequence of a sudden change in the environment whose properties are not yet fully determined.

· Anger - a basic response to a threat of any kind

· Distress - is invoked in response to a loss.

· Fear - stems from perceived danger.

· Shame - is brought about by socially-determined failure.

Axiological systems

One will observe in our account of the Affect and Script theories that one's appraisal of a stimulus and the ensuing reaction is premised on whether the scenario at hand presents itself in a positive or a negative fashion. The distinction is based on the totality of beneficial or adverse consequence an event entails, as well as its' capacity to satisfy our demands, and is represented in virtually every facet of human interaction, being a core constituent of what Wierzbicka (1972) termed “the universal alphabet of human thoughts” which encompasses the most fundamental categories of cognition common to most languages called “semantic primes”. Though these conceptual universals are manifest in a lot of forms, they most frequently make their mark in the lexical-semantical domain, with negative assessments having greater prominence compared to positive ones (Syomina, 2017; Helander 2014). Elaborating on the oppositional dichotomy of “good versus bad”, a similarly functioning axis of comparison between “us versus them” was introduced as a supplement to the latter (Alieva, 2012), which is of particular interest to us considering the prevalence of such categorical judgements in political discourse. Such axis operates along the scale not unlike that proposed by Wierzbicka and further specifies it by incarnating it in identifiable personalities and concepts which are then inserted into the dominant ideological framework which determines their alignment.

Evaluative lexis

Having established an overarching framework through which we will filter evaluative vocabulary, we will now endeavor to devise a taxonomy of specific linguistic means which constitute the phenomenon. It stands to mention that we shall concern ourselves only with vocabulary which has been identified by researchers to enjoy the greatest prominence within political discourse. As such, some devices may be omitted to keep our account sufficiently succinct and relevant when applied to contemporary political events. In the aggregate, they appear to possess a common feature of summoning emotion-driven appraisals which seek to supplement the factual payload of an expression, which some have termed “loaded language” (Weston 2002; Murray & Kujundzic 2005). That is to say that such words go beyond describing the state of affairs (Stevenson, 1994), possessing a pronounced emotion imprint (Frijda & Mesquita, 2000) which forces a match with notions belonging to the same emotional dimension. The body of research on the topic identifies several categories of evaluative lexis which appear to be employed on a frequent basis: euphemisms, dysphemisms, similes, metaphors, nicknames and epithets.

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