A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE ATTITUDINAL RESOURCES IN ENGLISH ANDVIETNAMESE ARTICLES ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY

Aims of the study The study aims to investigate the attitudinal resources used in Englishand Vietnamese articles about homosexuality in the light of appraisal theory.. Objectives of the

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that the thesis “A Comparative Analysis of the Attitudinal Resources in English and Vietnamese Articles about Homosexuality” is my

own work This thesis contains no material published elsewhere or extracted

in whole, or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or beenawarded another degree or diploma except where reference is made in the text

I would like to express my deep indebtedness to all of my teachers,friends and family who have helped me throughout the time I conducted thisthesis

I gratefully acknowledge my greatest thanks to my supervisor, Dr.Truong Van Dinh, who has given me helpful advice, invaluable guidance, andvital encouragement Without his enthusiastic support, this thesis would nothave been completed

I am also grateful to Dr Vo Duy Duc for his deep and interestinglectures and useful advice as well as all of the lecturers of this course for theirvaluable knowledge and foundation for this thesis

I would also like to express my special thanks to Quy Nhon University,Post-graduate Department, and Foreign Languages Department

Finally, I am particularly grateful to my mother, elder brother andsister, and friends, who have given me spiritual encouragement and helped meovercome a lot of difficulties during my study

This thesis aims at conducting a comparative study on Attitudinalresources in English and Vietnamese articles about Homosexuality The studywas carried out based on the Appraisal Theory developed by Martin andWhite (2005) The main purpose of this study was to point out the similaritiesand differences in terms of Attitudinal resources in both languages The datafor this paper consists of 20 articles (10 English articles and 10 Vietnameseones) with the lengths varying from 800 to 2000 words The study isconducted through the use of quantitative, qualitative, analytic, synthetic, anddescriptive methods The analysis indicates that all of three categories ofAttitudinal resources appear in both English and Vietnamese data, but withdifferent proportions In details, both English and Vietnamese writers have atendency to employ more Judgement than the other two Attitudinal resources,which expresses that the writers often focus on evaluation of human behavior.Apart from similarities, the findings of this study also draw out somedifferences First, the frequency of occurrence of four subtypes of Affectbetween the two languages is not the same Another difference is that theVietnamese authors tend to use more negative and implicit resources ofJudgement than the English native authors In addition, the proportion ofReaction and Composition values in Vietnamese data is larger than that inEnglish ones From the results, it is hoped that the study will provide usefulknowledge of evaluative language as well as some valuable contributions tolinguistic theory

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents all the preliminaries of the thesis It starts withthe rationale, followed by the aims and objectives of the study, researchquestions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study Theorganization of the research papers is presented as the last part of the study

1.1 Rationale

During the past few years, “homosexuality” has become the topic of aninterdisciplinary specialization variously called gay and lesbian, LGBT(Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) studies Homosexuality isbecoming more and more accepted, especially in some countries such asCanada, the USA, Spain, Belgium, Thailand According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, homosexuality is defined as sexual attraction or thetendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex In otherwords, it is sexual contact between two persons of the same sex Nowadays, ifsomeone works in entertainment, media, advertising, fashion, beauty, perhaps

it is not too surprising to encounter perfect men or women who choose to loveeach other However, for most people, LGBT or homosexuality is still astrange story Homosexuality still remains to be one of the most controversialissues in the world today, especially in Vietnam Therefore, the newspaper isone of the mass media to provide the most useful and incisive information toreaders The articles play an important and pioneering role in eliminating theprejudices of society towards homosexuals Giving honest, accurate andobjective information about homosexual community in the media will helpthe community know and understand more about homosexuals as well as helpthem to have a peaceful life, study and contribute positively to build the socialdevelopment In these articles, the

authors use a large number of evaluative languages of the opinion and attitudewith the view of having positive impacts on readers.

In order to achieve the purpose of conveying ideas to millions ofreaders around the world, the journalists or the writers need to use language

to express their emotions or attitudes towards homosexuals, and thanks to thislanguage resource to make the articles become more impressive andpersuasive Therefore, the Appraisal theory developed by Martin and White(2005) is considered as a useful tool for analyzing the texts in terms ofattitudinal aspects of the writers Appraisal is still a new and ideal land forresearchers to explore and investigate

In modern life, with looking forward to having a partial glimpse ofhomosexuality, many researchers have conducted studies of homosexualissues in different aspects of linguistics Among those are the studies byBarringer (2011) on “Religious Women and Homosexuality: ADenominational Breakdown” Besides, Bazo (2010) had “an Exploration ofTheatre Created by Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth” and onsocial norms and college dating violence gay bisexual transgender and queerstudents by Rivera (2009) Another study was conducted by Ha (2013) onpublic perceptions on LGBT issues in modern Vietnam or Mai (2016) with

“Constructing the Vietnamese Queer Identities: A Hierarchy of Class,

Gender, and Sexuality”.

In fact, many researchers have conducted studies of homosexual issues

in different aspects of linguistics However, little research has been done inthe homosexual articles in the light of the Appraisal theory of attitudinal

resources I decided to conduct a study entitled “A Comparative Analysis of the Attitudinal Resources in English and Vietnamese Articles about Homosexuality” I hope that the study will provide some useful knowledge

of homosexuality or LGBT as well as knowledge of using sub-types of

Attitudes for Vietnamese leaners and teachers of English and for thoseinterested in Appraisal theory.

1.2 Aims and objectives of the study

1.2.1 Aims of the study

The study aims to investigate the attitudinal resources used in Englishand Vietnamese articles about homosexuality in the light of appraisal theory

In addition, this study is carried out to find out the similarities and differences

of attitudinal values about homosexuality in the two languages

1.2.2 Objectives of the study

The objectives of the study are:

- To investigate sub-types of Attitude, including Affect, Judgement,and Appreciation, in English and Vietnamese articles about homosexuality;

- To find out the frequency of occurrence of these attitudinal

resources;

- To draw out the similarities and differences of these attitudinal resources in English and Vietnamese articles about homosexuality

- To put forward some implications for teaching and learning in

practical language skills

1.3 Research questions

To achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the following research questions are raised:

1. What types of attitudinal resources are used in English and

Vietnamese articles about homosexuality?

2. What is the frequency of their occurrence of these attitudinal

resources?

3. What are the similarities and differences in English and Vietnamese articles about homosexuality in terms of attitudinal resources?

1.4 Significance of the study

The results of the study will bring out values and contribution toreaders in both theories and practices Theoretically, this paper will offer afoundation for further researches to be done in the light of the Appraisaltheory Besides, it is a valuable significance for readers who are interested inlinguistic theory and evaluative language usage Practically, the findings ofthe study will help learners of English can know how to use Attitudinalresources effectively in expressing attitude as well as making persuasivewritings From a pedagogical perspective, it has significant contributions forVietnamese teachers and learners in the process of teachings and learningwriting and reading skills

1.5 Scope of the study

Even though the Appraisal theory includes three systems, namelyAttitude, Engagement, and Graduation, the object of the study focuses onattitudinal resources used in English and Vietnamese articles abouthomosexuality Therefore, I conduct the research based on the material of 10English articles and 10 Vietnamese ones with the average length of eacharticle being from 800 to 2000 words These articles are selected at randomfrom the reliable websites, such as, https://tuoitre.vn,

https://www.nytimes.com, http://vnexpress.net, https://www.theguardian.com,

http://theconversation.com The scope of this study is for the analysis ofdistribution of attitudinal resources on homosexual articles Due to the lack oftime, space as well as relevant materials, the present study does not deal withother areas in appraisal theory except for the attitude

1.6 Organization of the study

Within the scope mentioned above, the study consists of five chapters

as follows:

Chapter 1, Introduction, covers the rationale, the aims and objectives,

the significance of the study, research questions, the scope of the study, andthe organization of the study

Chapter 2, Literature Review, presents the overview of Systemic

functional grammar, and the theory of Appraisal Besides, the theoreticalbackground for the analysis is also summarized in this chapter Then, a briefpresentation of the previous studies related to the problems underinvestigation is also reviewed to indicate a gap in the study

Chapter 3, Research Methodology, describes the research methods,

which include data collection, data analysis, the reliability and validity, andthe procedure of the study

Chapter 4, Findings and Discussion, presents the results of the data

analysis of English and Vietnamese articles about homosexuality throughtypes of attitudinal resources Besides, it presents and analyses the similaritiesand differences in attitudinal meanings expressed in the data of twolanguages

Chapter 5, Conclusion and

findings, and provides implications for

out the limitations of the study Some

also included in this chapter

Implication, summarizes the majorteaching and learning as well aspoints suggestions for furtherresearches are

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter concerns itself with a brief review of the theoretical

background for the research and the description of the previous studies

2.1 Systemic Functional Grammar and Interpersonal meaning

Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) is an approach to language in useand one of the most influential theories in linguistics developed by M.A.KHalliday in the 1960s Systemic theory pays much attention to the relationshipbetween language and context If the speakers or writers can understand a text,there will be a great deal about the context in which the text occurs to berevealed According to Halliday (1994), he considered language as “a network ofsystems, or interrelated sets of options for making meaning” In other words,language contains a set of choice systems, in which each system provides thespeaker or writer with a variety of ways to express their intended meaning.Eggin (2004) also indicated that SFG is described as a systemic functionalapproach to language, which are introduced to readers in order that they mayanalyze and explain how meanings are made in everyday linguistic interactions

Halliday (1985) also stated that language in systemic functionalgrammar has three functions, namely ideational function, textual function,and interpersonal function Figure 2.1 describes genre in SFG

Figure 2.1 Genre in Systemic Functional Linguistic (Martin & Rose, 2008: 17)

Ideational meaning refers to the use of language to represent and makesense of the patterns of experience The ideational function is the contentfunction of language and allows people to conceptualize the world for theirown benefit and that of others In addition, it is utilized to express pureinformation of language for communicating, conveying new information, andsharing contents that others do not know Halliday shows that ideationallanguage function can be divided into two components of meanings:experiential and logical The experiential meanings are realized through thesystem of transitivity which specifies different types of process in languageand the structures In the experiential metafunction, there are six types ofprocess suggested: material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, andexistential It also presents the logical relationship between process, events,actions etc

Textual metafunction of language is an interpretation of language in itsfunction as a message as well as concerning with the organization ofinformation within individual clauses and with the organization of the larger

text Accordingly, the textual meaning is realized by using language to createcoherent and cohesive texts Two important constituents involving to theexpression of textual function in the clause consist of Theme and Rheme.According to Ton (2017), “Theme is where the subject matter of the sentence

is usually laid out for the reader The Rheme is the part of the clause in whichthe Theme is developed The identification criteria for the Rheme are simple:everything that is not the Theme is the Rheme” Theme-Rheme analysisallows us to identify which information is to be given high priority

According to Halliday (2002), the interpersonal meaning plays animportant role in setting up and maintaining social relations, and indicates theroles of the participants in communication In other words, the interpersonalmeaning conveys how language is used to express attitude It is about therelationship between speaker and hearer, and is concerned with clause asexchange, which is interpersonal as interactive speech roles orcommunicative functions According to Halliday, there are two components

of a clause as an exchange which we focus on: Mood and Modality The

Mood consists of two parts, Subject and Finite Subject is a nominal group,while Finite is part of a verbal group and sometimes Modal Adjuncts It is theorder of the Subject and Finite in the Mood block which distinguishes theprincipal mood types, such as declarative, interrogative, imperative, assummarized in Table 2.1

Table 2.1 Relation of Mood selection to Mood structure (Source: Martin et al, 1997: 630, as cited in Ton, 2017: 45)

Declarative

Non-exclamative Subject ^ Finite They will build the house.

Exclamative Wh- ^ Subject ^ Finite How quickly they will

build the house!

Interrogative

Halliday (1994) states that Modality is the main interpersonal resourcealong with mood that signals social interaction Modality is about those wordsthat mark ‘probability’, ‘usuality’, ‘necessity’, ‘obligation’, ‘possibility’ or

‘impossibility’ such as should, could, must, probably, maybe, etc

Martin and White (2005) indicate interpersonal meaning is closelyrelated to Appraisal Theory since this metafunction is concerned with howspeakers or writers approve or disapprove, praise or criticism and with howthey position the listeners or readers to view the issues on a certain way.Appraisal addresses the means employed by speakers or listeners in order to

“overtly encode what they present as their own attitudes” and implicitlytrigger evaluative stances and position readers or listeners The followingsection will be made on the Appraisal Theory in more detail

2.2 Overview of Appraisal Theory

The Appraisal framework developed by Martin and White and theircolleagues in the 1990s has been viewed as a significant development of the

interpersonal function of a language Martin and White (2005) state that

“Appraisal is one of three major discourse semantic resources construing interpersonal meaning (alongside involvement and negotiation) Appraisal is related to work on evaluation in other models in various ways” M.A.K

Halliday was a well-known linguist describing this function of language in

the paradigm of Systemic Functional Linguistics Appraisal is defined as “an approach to exploring, describing and explaining the way language is used

to evaluate, to adopt stances, to construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and relationships” (White, 2001: 1) Appraisal

theory is concerned with the exploration of speaker/ writers’ style in theirpositive or negative assessment of people, places, things, happenings andstates of affairs In other words, appraisal system is also concerned withlinguistic resources which express the emotion by the speakers

With the aim of using the Appraisal Theory as an analytical tool tounderstand the interpersonal relationship that texts create, Appraisal system iscomposed of three interacting domains, namely Attitude, Engagement andGraduation First of all, Attitude is the way of expressing feelings Attitudecan be sub-divided into three domains of feelings including Affect,Judgement and Appreciation Secondly, Engagement deals with the sourcing

of attitudes and the play of voices around opinions in discourse Basically,Engagement is concerned with the linguistic resources for positioning thespeakers or writers’ voice with the respect to proposals showed by a text Thissystem consists of two sub-systems: Monoglossia, and Heteroglossia The lastsystem, Graduation relates to the resource which is used to raise/ lower theintensity of an utterance or for sharpening/ blurring the focus of valuerelationships Graduation also contains two sub-systems: Force and Focus.The outline of Appraisal theory is drawn in Figure 2.2

Figure 2.2 The outline of Appraisal theory (Martin and White, 2005: 38)

In brief, the Appraisal framework aims to describe the various ways oflinguistic realization of interpersonal meanings in language use Appraisalsystem has three kinds of semantic resources, namely Attitude, Engagement,and Graduation Then, each system contains its own sub-systems for thewriter or speaker to make semantic choices All of these semantic areas ofAppraisal are discussed in detail in the following section

2.2.1 Engagement

According to Martin and White (2005: 94), Engagement refers to “theauthorial voice positions itself with respect to the other textual voices andalternative positions” in a given communicative context The Engagementsystem is also the sources of evaluation shown in two categories which areMonogloss and Heterogloss Monoglossic resources deal with factualinformation from the authors whereas Heteroglossic resources are concerned

with multiple voices, use variation for the declaration as well as show theexistence of the other opinions Table 2.2 illustrates the distinction betweentwo types of Engagement:

Table 2.2 The monoglossic and The heteroglossic (Source: Martin and White, 2005: 100)

Monoglossic

Heteroglossic

(no recognition of dialogistic

(recognition of dialogistic alternatives)

alternatives)

The banks have been greedy There is the argument though that the

banks have been greedy

In my view the banks have been greedy.Callers to talkback radio see the banks asbeing greedy

The chairman of the consumersassociation has stated that the banks arebeing greedy

There can be no denying the banks havebeen greedy

Everyone knows the banks are greedy.The banks haven’t been greedy

Needless to say, it can be seen that more than one voice can be inferredfrom the hetoroglossic examples (the voice of the author – “in my view”, thevoice of “the chairman of the consumers association”, and the voice of

“everyone”) On the other hand, there is only one voice which is found in themonoglossic example In other words, as can be seen from Table 2.2, the

examples in the right are regarded as Heteroglossic utterances with ofdialogistic alternatives because the viewpoint reported is not from the writersand it is an instance of attribution.

Regarding Heteroglossic, there are two distinct resources, including

dialogic contraction (extra-vocalization) and dialogic expansion

(intra-vocalization) Dialogic expansion is the existence of allowance for thedialogistic alternatively positioned in the utterance categorized as Entertainand Attribute Entertain values deals with the internal voice of speaker whileAttribute relates to the external sources by either acknowledging the source ordistancing from it On the contrary, dialogic contraction is the act of refusinganother voice divided into Disclaim and Proclaim Under Disclaim, there are

Deny and Counter Under Proclaim, there are Concur, Endorse and Pronounce.

In short, within the framework of Appraisal Theory, Engagement is thelinguistic resource whereby “the authorial voice positions itself with respect

to the other textual voices and alternative positions” at stake in a givencommunicative context (Martin & White, 2005: 94) Figure below is thechoices of the dialogic contraction and dialogic expansion of Engagementsystem (Martin & White, 2005: 134)

Figure 2.3 The engagement system (Martin & White, 2005: 134)

2.2.2 Graduation

According to Martin & White (2005: 35), Graduation is defined as

“grading phenomena whereby feelings are amplified and categories blurred”.Writers or speakers use this kind of Appraisal to graduate (raise or lower) theinterpersonal impact, force or volume if their utterances Graduation can beclassified into two main types, namely Force (raising or lowering the intensity

of an utterance) and Focus (sharpening/ blurring the focus of a value) Forcecan be in the form of Intensification (like, love, adore, worship, very,extremely,…), and Quantification (hundreds, dozens, thousands,…) Theterm “Intensification” refers to the assessment of degree of intensity whichcan operate over qualities, over processes, or over the verbal modalities of

likelihood, usuality, inclination and obligation Assessment of amountQuantification refers to assessment of amount found via these imprecisely

measure number such as few, many, and the presence or mass of entities

regarding some features, including size, distribution, weight or proximity

(small, large, nearby, distant).

Focus indicates that “graduation according to prototypicality operates

as phenomena are scaled by reference to the degree to which they matchcome supposed core or exemplary instance of a semantic category” (Martin &White, 2005) Martin & White (2005) state that Focus applies to categories

which are not scalable It can provide the effects of either softening (e.g they sort of play jazz, they are kind of crazy) or sharpening (e.g a real father, a true friend, a real husband) Figure 2.4 illustrates the graduation network as

demonstrated to this point

Figure 2.4 A preliminary outline of Graduation (Martin & White, 2005: 138)

Nevertheless, this paper only focuses on Attitude of the AppraisalTheory without Engagement or Graduation Thus, the following section willclearly present various aspects of Attitude

writers or speakers to positively or negatively express their attitude(s) towardpeople, places, things, events, happenings, state of affairs, or other phenomena.According to Robbins and Judge (2007), attitudes are evaluative statementseither favourable or unfavourable about objects, people, or events They reflecthow we feel about something An Attitude is also defined as a positive ornegative evaluation of people, objects, events, ideas or just about anything inyour environment (Zimbardo et al, 1999) All attitudes take a stance eitherpositive or negative but they can vary in intensity.

Attitude is divided into three regions of feelings, namely Affect,Judgement and Appreciation Affect refers to emotional responses of humanbeings and is indicated through various lexical items such as verbs ofemotion, adverbs and adjectives of emotion, and nominalization Judgementdeals with normative assessment of human behavior typically makingreference to rules or conventions of behavior Appreciation is concerned withthe subsystem of resources for aesthetics evaluation of objects, artifacts,entities, presentation via the form, appearance, composition, impact,significance, etc The Figure below will summarize the sub-types of Attitude:

Figure 2.5 Typology of Attitude subsystem (Source: Liu & Thompson, 2009: 3)

2.2.3.1 Affect

Affect refers to the evaluation by means of the writer/speakerindicating how they are emotionally disposed to the person, thing, happening

or state of affairs In other words, Affect is considered as a linguistic resource

to show positive or negative feelings; whether a speaker is bored, interested,happy, sad, etc The following example is considered as a way of illustration:

So this meant the grieving took place again The grief came for my

younger sister and two brothers whom I thought I would never see again.

The day I left the Orphanage – that was a very sad day for me I was very

unhappy, and the memories came back There was nowhere to turn.

You was on your own I was again in a different environment … I had

no choice but to stick it out With the hardships going and thinking of

my sister and brothers which I left at the Orphanage My heart full of sorrows for them.

(Martin & White, 2005: 42)

This example used the phrases grieving, grief, very sad, very unhappy, and my heart full of sorrows in order to express the feeling of unhappy of a

member of Australia’s Stolen Generation because she is separated from hersiblings

Affectual values may be realized through various lexical items as verbs

of emotion, adverbs, adjectives of emotion, and nominalization

• Through emotional verbs with Mental Process such as: to like/to dislike, to love/to hate, to interest/to bore, to frighten/to reassure…

For example:

I hate chocolate.

I love my mother very much.

• Through adverbs of emotion (typically circumstances of Manner):

delightfully, sadly, happily, angrily, disappointedly…

For example:

Unhappily, Mark failed the English Speaking Contest.

• Through adjectives of emotion: frightened/ confident, worried/ pleased, satisfied/ glad/ happy, keen/ uninterested…

For example:

Jane was one of the most confident girls in her class.

• Through nominalization: un/ happiness, sadness, dis/ satisfaction, insecurity, scare/ confidence…

For example:

Many are the anxieties and concerns that can cause the heart to

be weighed down with sadness.

According to Martin and White (2005), Affect can be divided intoAuthorial and Non-authorial stance (Observe Affect) In particular, Martin

and White (2001b: 5) indicate that “the writer also bids to establish an interpersonal bond with the reader to the extent that the reader agrees with, understand or at least sympathizes with that emotional reaction” In other

words, Authorial affect involves the speakers or writers’ feelings toward theissues It indicated that the speaker often expressed his/her loving or affectiontowards someone or something Non-authorial affect, on the other hand, is notassociated with the speakers or writers’ feelings and this is the affect that thespeakers observe from other people’s feeling The writers focus on reportingonly the emotional responses of the people involved in a particular story Forexample,

And I love [Auth] this country.

(Ananda, Nababan, & Santosa,

2018) We want [Non-Auth] agreement that is a great deal for the

Israelis and a great deal for the Palestinas.

(Ananda, Nababan, & Santosa, 2018)Martin and White (2005) divide Affect into four sub-categories:

Un/Happiness, In/Security, Dis/Satisfaction, And Dis/Inclination.

• Un/Happiness indicates the moods of feeling of the speaker whether

he is sad or happy It deals with emotions concerned with “affairs of the heart” –

sadness, hate, happiness, love…

• In/Security deals with the feelings of peace and anxiety in relation

to our environs, including the people sharing them with us, such as confident, trusting, together, anxious, comfortable, startled…

• Dis/Satisfaction covers the speaker’s feelings of achievement and

frustration in relation to the activities The typical words are thrilled, satisfied, pleased, caution, fidget…

• Dis/Inclination meaning covers how the speaker is inclined or

disinclined to something This sub-type can be typically described through words

like fearful, wary, shudder, suggest, demand, miss…

For example:

…I want to start by saying that I miss [HAP] you, and you have

no idea how much I love [HAP] you I know you don’t need another reminder because I tell you a thousand times a day how much I love [HAP] you, but I do and that is my only way to show you I love [HAP] the hundred ways you show me how much you love [HAP] me,

and I know my simple words can never compare…

(Le, 2014)

… Anh vẫn nghe đời chia tình yêu thành những giai đoạn riêng rẽ.Khi

say, khi cuồng, khi bình ổn [SEC], khi chán ngán nhau và rồi sẽ có khi tình yêu

hóa thành cái nghĩa yêu đương để giữ tay nhau không rời Mình đã qua khi say,

khi bình ổn [SEC] chưa em? Để khi cảm thấy bản thân cứ nhàn nhạt và nỗi lo sợ [SEC] sự bay nhảy kéo phăng ta ra khỏi nhau…

(Le, 2014)

According to Martin & White (2005: 42), Affect “is concerned with registering positive and negative feelings: do we feel happy or sad, confident

or anxious, interested or bored?”

The following extracts are typical examples of positive and negative

affect On this visit, my heart has been touched [+HAP] by the kindness

for which the Vietnamese people are known In the many people who

have been lining the streets, smiling and waving, I feel the friendship

between our peoples [+HAP].

(Le, 2017)

Just as we learned in America that, even if we disagree about a war,

we must always honor these who serve and welcome them home with

the respect [+HAP] they deserve, we can join together today,

Vietnamese and Americans, and acknowledge the pain [-HAP] and the sacrifices [-HAP] on both sides.

(Le, 2017)Table 2.3 states the positive and negative Affect of all four sub-categories

Table 2.3 Sub-categories of Affect (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 51)

Dis/Inclination miss, long for, yearn for wary, fearful, terrorised

Un/Happiness cheerful buoyant, jubilant; sad, melancholy, despondent;

like, love, adore cut-up, heart-broken …

broken-hearted,heavyhearted,sick at heart;

sorrowful … grief-stricken,woebegone … dejected …;dejected, joyless, dreary,cheerless, unhappy, sad;gloomy, despondent, …downcast, low, down,down in the mouth,depressed …; weepy,wet-eyed, tearful, in tears …

In/Security together, confident, Uneasy, anxious, freaked out;

assured; comfortable, startled, surprised, astonishedtrusting

Dis/Satisfaction involved, absorbed, Flat, stale, jaded; cross, angry,

engrossed; satisfied, furious; bored with, sick of,

chuffed/impressed,charmed, thrilled

Affect refers to positive and negative feelings of people such ashappiness, sadness, anxiety, interest or bore According to Halliday (1994),affect resources are realized via grammatical functions Table belowintroduces grammatical realization of Affect

Table 2.4 Grammatical Realizations of Affect (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 46)

Circumstance The captain left sadly

The captain wept

Nominalizations Subject, Object… Sadness, grief, etc

In brief, Affectual values are used to illustrate feelings about people,

things, events, happenings, or states of affairs positively or negatively Affect

is concerned with author’s own emotions (Authorial affect) whereas Affect

refers to the characters’ emotions in the text (Non-authorial affect) In thefollowing section, another sub-category of Attitude which is calledJudgement can be presented

2.2.3.2 Judgement

The second type of Attitude is Judgement, which evaluates humanbehavior ethically Judgement focuses on attitudes towards the humanbehavior In this sub-type, language is used to admire, criticize, praise orcondemn the behavior White (2001) indicates the Judgement system allows

us to present the attitude towards someone’s behavior and are deployed forconstruing moral evaluations of behavior to people and the way they behave,

as well as how people should or should not behave According to Martin &

White (2005), judgement is classified into two broad categories: Social Esteem and Social Sanction by reference to social norms or rules.

Social Esteem deals with the evaluation of people’s conduct based on

social ethics and on the standard of appropriateness In other words, SocialEsteem refers to the admiration and criticism without legal implications.Social Esteem resources come in three kinds of Judgements: Normality,Capacity and Tenacity

• Normality refers to how unusual or special someone is The typical

words to illustrate this kind are stable, fashionable, un/lucky, fortunate, charmed, unpredictable …

• Capacity is concerned with how capable someone is More

specifically, it is used to express our evaluation of how ably or competentlysomeone has accomplished something Capacity is illustrated through the words

such as powerful, stupid, uneducated, vigorous, robust, unsuccessful, unproductive …

• Tenacity is related to how dependable they are There are some

common words - faithful, weak, loyal, timid, im/patient, unreliable, flexible …

More examples of these kinds are presented in Table 2.5

Table 2.5 Judgement – Social Esteem (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 53)

Social Esteem Positive (admire) Negative (criticize) Normality lucky, fortunate, charmed …; unlucky, hapless,

“How normal, natural, familiar …; star-crossed …;

special?” cool, stable, predictable …; odd, peculiar, eccentric …;

in, fashionable, erratic, unpredictable …;

celebrated, unsung … obscure, also-ran …

Capacity powerful, vigorous, mild, weak, whimpy …;

capable?” sound, healthy, fit …; immature, childish,

witty, humorous, droll …; slow, stupid, thick …;

insightful, clever, gifted …; flaky, neurotic, insane …;balanced, together, sane …; naive, inexpert, foolish …;sensible, expert, shrewd …; illiterate, uneducated,literate, educated, learned …; ignorant …;

competent, accomplished …; incompetent;

successful, productive … unaccomplished …;

unsuccessful, unproductive…

Tenacity plucky, brave, heroic …; timid, cowardly, gutless …;

cautious, wary, patient …; rash, impatient,

impetuous …;

hasty, capricious,reckless …;

weak, distracted,despondent …;

unreliable, undependable …;unfaithful, disloyal,

inconstant …;

stubborn, obstinate, wilful …

Social Sanction deals with the evaluation of people’s conduct based on

legal or religious rules Social Sanction “is more often codified in writing, asedicts, decrees, rules, regulations and law about how to behave as surveilled

by church and state – with penalties and punishments as levers against thosenot complying with the code” (Martin & White, 2005: 52) Social sanctionconsists of two kinds, namely Veracity and Propriety

• Veracity is related to how truthful someone is This kind of Social

Sanction resources can be utilized to convey the views on a person’s truthfulness

by using lexical items as truthful, honest, credible, frank, candid, deceptive …

• Propriety evaluates a person’s ethical morality as complying with or

deviating from our own point of view The typical social sanction

resources are good, moral, ethical, bad, evil, sensitive, polite

… Table 2.6 presents the typical resources of Social Sanctions

Table 2.6 Judgement – Social Sanction (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 53)

Social Sanction Positive (praise) Negative (condemn) Veracity [truth] truthful, honest, dishonest, deceitful,

frank, candid, direct …; deceptive, manipulative,

blunt, blabbermouth …

Propriety good, moral, ethical …; bad, immoral, evil …;

[ethics] law abiding, fair, just …; corrupt, unfair, unjust …;

“How far sensitive, kind, caring …; insensitive, mean, cruel …;beyond unassuming, modest, …; vain, snobby, arrogant …;Reproach?” polite, relevant …; rude, discourteous,

altruistic, charitable … irreverent …;

selfish, greedy, avaricious …The sub-types of Judgement can be seen in the examples below.(Source: Martin & White, 2005: 54-55)

1 It’s normal for him to be naughty. (Judgement of Normality)

2 He’s strong enough to go. (Judgement of Capacity)

5 It’d be unfair for you to go. (Judgement of Propriety)

Like Affectual values, Judgement is used to indicate positive andnegative evaluation of human behavior Moreover, Judgement values can be

Explicit or Implicit Explicit judgment (inscribed) relates to direct or literal

meanings while Implicit judgement (or tokens of Judgement) is realizedthrough underlying meanings In other words, in the case of ExplicitJudgement, the evaluations of positive and negative human behavior aredirectly indicated by means of lexical items, typically adjectives such as

cruel, smart, kind, generous, loyal, etc On the contrary, Implicit Judgement isrealized via ideational meanings, lexical metaphors, and non-core vocabularyitems or inferred from events, actions and conditions in a sentence or thewhole text as well as it depends on the reader’s own cultural and ideologicalposition In the following example, Implicit Judgement and ExplicitJudgement are realized:

(i) Vợ tôi cũng là giáo viên, cô ấy kể cuối mỗi học kỳ đều nâng điểm cho học sinh yếu lên mức trung bình theo yêu cầu của tổ trưởng, của hiệu trưởng để lấy chỉ tiêu thi đua với các tổ khác, với các trường khác [Implicit

Judgement]

(Vo, 2017)(ii) … You say I’m perfect and that you’re the luckiest guy in the

world, but you don’t see what I see when I look at you To me, you make me so, so

lucky to even have you touch me with your hands.

[Explicit Judgement]

(Le, 2014)

In Example (i), there is no direct indication of evaluation However, thewhole sentence as well as the contextual situation readers can understand thatthe lies are considered as an achievement disease in our life In the secondexample, it is obvious that the explicit evaluation is shown via the words –

perfect, luckiest, lucky.

To sum up, Judgement refers to human behaviors and performanceabilities according to the social norms The following section will focus onthe third sub-type of Attitude, namely Appreciation

concerned with emotional states and responses, and Judgement evaluateshuman behaviors, whereas Appreciation is the system which indicatespositive and negative assessments of progresses, objects, artefacts and state ofaffairs rather than human behaviors or actions For example (Amazon.comonline reviews)

and, as a bonus, a very psychedelic, destructive

(literally!),cathartic, and liberatory version of Jimi Hendrix's 'Third

Stone from the Sun'.

In this example, the words psychedelic, destructive, cathartic, and liberatory are identified as values of Appreciation.

Similar to Affect and Judgement, Appreciation involves positive andnegative evaluations Appreciation is divided into three sub-types: Reaction,Composition and Valuation

• Reaction describes emotional impact of something on the reader or

listener In other words, it is related to affection In this sub-category, it consists oftwo systems: impact and quality While impact relates to whether the phenomenagrab our attention, quality deals with whether the phenomena are likely by the

speaker The typical words to illustrate this kind are fine, beautiful, fascinating, lively, dramatic, intense …

• Composition (balance and complexity) describes the texture of

something Balance is concerned with whether the phenomena are

order, has a sense of balance and connectedness in it On thecontrary, complexity refers to whether the phenomena are easy ordifficult to comprehend Composition is realized through the typical

words such as shapeless, unclear, plain, disorganized, distorted, balanced, harmonious, unified …

• Valuation is related to social value of something (whether the

phenomena are worthwhile) The typical words in this kind are

priceless, worthwhile, profound, appropriate, helpful, effective …

Illustrative realizations for types of Appreciation are presented in Table 2.7.

Table 2.7 Types of Appreciation (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 56)

Reaction: arresting, captivating, dull, boring, tedious …;impact ‘did it engaging …; dry, ascetic, uninviting …;grab me?” fascinating, exciting, flat, predictable,

lively, dramatic, intense …; unremarkable,remarkable, notable, pedestrian …sensational …

Reaction: okay, fine, good … bad, yuk, nasty …;

quality “did I lovely, beautiful, plain, ugly, grotesque …;

appealing, enchangting, off-putting …welcome …

Composition: balanced, harmonious, unified, unbalanced, discordant,

symmetrical, proportioned …; irregular, uneven,

balance “did I consistent, considered, flawed …; contradictory,

together?” shapely, curvaceous, willowy shapeless, amorphous,

Composition: simple, pure, elegant …; ornate, extravagant,

Complexity lucid, clear, precise …; byzantine …;

“was it hard intricate, rich, detailed, arcane, unclear, wooly …;

simplistic…

Valuation penetrating, profound, shallow, reductive,

worthwhile?” innovative, original, derivative, conventional,

timely, long awaited, dated, overdue,

inimitable, exceptional, dime-a-dozen, every day,

authentic, real, genuine …; glitzy …;

valuable, priceless, worthless, shoddy,

cosmetics are available in a range of shades to bring out the beauty [+REAC] of your eyes.

(Hoang, 2015)

In terms of grammar, Eggins (1994) states that the Appreciationframework is related to mental processes Specifically, in “The Language ofEvaluation: Appraisal in English” book, Martin and White also indicate that:

Reaction is related to affection (emotive – ‘it grabs me’, desiderative – ‘I want it’); composition is related to perception (our view of order); and valuation is related

to cognition (our considered opinions) Alternatively, the appreciation framework might be interpreted metafunctionally – with reaction oriented to interpersonal significance, composition to textual organization and valuation to ideational

worth.

A summary of this relation is covered in Table 2.8 below

Table 2.8 Sub-types of Appreciation (Source: Martin & White, 2005: 57)

Appreciation Mental process type Metafunction

In short, the Appraisal Theory consists of three main systems, namelyAttitude, Engagement, and Graduation This thesis focuses on analyzing thefirst type of Appraisal system – Attitude Attitude is concerned with ourfeelings, including emotional reactions, Judgements of behavior, andevaluation of things

2.3 Overview of homosexuality

2.3.1 Definition of homosexuality

Homosexuality has been increasingly discussed and debated over

recent years According to Wikipedia,

Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to people of the same sex It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions”.

In simpler terms, “homosexuality” may be defined simply as sexualrelationships between people of the same sex It exists sexual attraction to orsexual relations with members if the same sex

2.3.2 Classification of homosexuality

Homosexuality consists of two types, namely Gay and Lesbian Morespecifically, Gay is a term which refers to a homosexual person or the trait ofbeing homosexual This term relates to men who have sex with men On thecontrary, Lesbian refers to women who have sex with women According tothe Urban dictionary, Lesbian is “a woman or women that are sexuallyattracted to their gender” (https://www.urbandictionary.com) In other words,the word lesbian is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity orsexual behavior regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective tocharacterize or associate nouns with female homosexuality or same-sexattraction

However, we need to know that along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual

orientation There have been many scientific researches that proved that

“homosexuality is a normal and natural variation in human sexuality and isnot in and of itself a source of negative psychological effects”

2.4 Previous studies

2.4.1 Previous studies on Appraisal Theory

Needless to say, the Appraisal system is one of the most attractiveperspectives for many linguists and discourse analysts Therefore, manydifferent researches have been conducted on the Appraisal Theory Up tonow, many linguists and researchers have made great contributions and putfoundation for the overall picture of the Appraisal system in general, and inparticular, Attitude such as Martin and White (2005), White (2004, 2009), Liuand Thompson (2009), Wu (2013), Farhad and Sanaz (2016) …

As a starting point with Martin and White (2005), who developed theAppraisal framework in company with their colleagues in the 1990s has beenviewed as a significant development of the interpersonal function of alanguage In the book “The language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English”,Martin and White extended a comprehensive framework for analyzinglanguage of evaluation in discourse and presented the account of theinterpersonal by attending to three axes along which speaker’s or writer’sintersubjective stance may vary

Pekarová (2011) applied the Appraisal Theory to investigate evaluativelanguage in Journalistic Discourse The findings of this thesis indicate that it

is important to be able to identify the cases of the usage of evaluativelanguage by the quality newspapers that are analyzed

Turner (1992) analyzed the use of Appraisal for Selection This paperevaluates international appraisal theory in western continental Europe,Britain, United States and Canada through a study of existing literature thatexplains appraisal ideas and discusses their practical application Based onthis theory, further researchers can have a better understanding of Appraisalfor selection since it is considered as a crucial archival function that

demarcates knowledge of our past and influences our ability to form ourfuture.

Liu and Thompson (2009) carried out the research “Attitude in students’ argumentative writing: A contrastive perspective” The results of

that paper show that there were several distinctive features between Englishand Chinese essays for the percentage of Affect, Judgement and Appreciation

as well as the similarities in the distribution of attitudinal resources After theprocesses of applying such kinds of teaching to writing, the findings of thisstudy can help students develop better of using the language of evaluation,improve their writing skill and enhance their critical ability

In addition, Appraisal is also the focus of White (2004) in the thesis

“Subjectivity, evaluation and point of view in media” This study presented the

differences between the term “emotion” - the emotional reactions or states ofhuman subjects and the term “opinion” – an inherent property of thephenomena being evaluated In 2009, White continued to do another study

with the title “Media power and the Rhetorical potential of the ‘hard news’ report – Attitudinal mechanisms in journalistic discourse” in order to

investigate the applications of the appraisal system in analyzing the attitudinalmechanisms

Similarly, Farhad and Sanaz (2016) make an attempt to discover theevaluative language in political speeches of Iranian and American Presidentsbased on Appraisal framework This study aimed at exploring andinvestigating evaluative instances in the speeches The findings indicated thatRouhani opted for greater use of authorial and non-authorial affect in hisspeech than Obama The flexible nature of the different emotional markers letthe speakers frame them to the current social, economic, political situation ofthe world in both speeches Besides, the results of the study also suggested

that both Hassan Rouhani - Iran’s president and Barak Obama preferred toapply more adjectives and nominalizations than verbs and adverbs to expresstheir emotion.

In Vietnam, there have been several researches as well as mater theses

in English are conducted related to Appraisal Theory in recent years Nguyen

et al (2014) carried out their research paper entitled “An Expansion resources analysis of English and Vietnamese political editoricals in the light of Appraisal theory” This study mainly focuses on employing Expansion

resources and its sub-types, including Entertain and Attribution in order todraw out the similarities and the differences in the English and Vietnamesepolitical editoricals about North Korea within Appraisal framework Togetherwith studies based on Appraisal Theory, Vo (2011) compared the stylistic,structural and ideological properties in English and Vietnamese business hardnews reporting His findings show that there is a similarity in the twolanguages Specifically, they share the same organization and – the orbitalstructure and operate with the same reporter voice However, there is also asignificant difference in the presentation of the key social groups

In addition, in the thesis of Tran (2017) “A study on the Attitudinalresources in Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s Speeches in the USPresidential Election 2016”, she uses evaluative language to investigate theattitudinal values in Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s speeches Thefindings indicate that the proportion of Judgement in both candidates’speeches is the highest among three sub-types It is obvious that the twocandidates have a tendency to focus on evaluation of human behavior

Tran (2017) investigated the category Attitude in English andVietnamese articles warning against childhood epidemics in view ofAppraisal Theory In her study, except for the description three kinds ofAttitude, namely Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation, she also explores a

wide range of linguistic devices to mark the speakers or writers’ attitude withdifferent structures through verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns in the twolanguages.

Another remarkable thesis is that of Tran (2015) which investigated on

“The Language of Affect in the novel ‘Nỗi Buồn Chiến Tranh’ by Bảo Ninhand in its translated version in the Appraisal Perspective” His thesis analyzedAffect in the novel and the English translational equivalents in the light ofAppraisal Theory and stylistic devices His research results provide teachersand learners with knowledge about semantic features and grammaticalrealizations of Affect so that they can utilize understand it more effectively

To sum up, there are many studies conducted from the perspective ofAppraisal Theory in Vietnam and in other countries However, up to now,there is no study applying Appraisal system in analyzing attitudinal resources

in articles on the homosexual aspect Therefore, the investigation onAttitudinal resources in English and Vietnamese Articles aboutHomosexuality is essential to be carried out to fill this gap

2.4.2 Previous studies on Homosexuality

With regard to Homosexuality, although homosexuality still remains to

be one of the most controversial issues in the world today, there have been alot of studies carried out to investigate this topic Wiley Lynch (2005)

conducted an investigation into “the relationship of Lesbian and Gay identity development and involvement in Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender student organizations” This thesis was surveyed at a large, mid-Atlantic, state

university with eighty nine undergraduate and graduate students who identified as gay, lesbian These findings support the concept thatdevelopment occurs over time, and that for gay and lesbian identitydevelopment, coming out can serve as important milestones