The purpose of this article is to review the current research of Appraisal Theory both at home and abroad with a focus on the application of the Appraisal Theory. This analysis shows that Appraisal Theory is an effective framework for analyzing attitudes expressed and interpersonal meanings in various types of discourse such as literary works, news, legal, scientific and academic discourse. There are still some arguments about the theory itself and future studies are recommended to focus on the identification and classification of appraisal resources.

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Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0266078408000096 How to cite this article: Solveig Granath and Michael Wherrity (2008). Thinking in space: the lexis of thinking from a cognitive perspective. English Today, 24, pp 41-48

In this article I address the issue of word meaning: Do lexical items have many meanings or do they have one basic meaning which speakers exploit in various contexts to achieve their communicative goals? While most cognitivists assume the former, there are some others who opt for basic meanings. In what follows I propose that both analyses can be used to advantage if the semantic variation that exists among linguistic items is considered. In effect, I suggest that while semantically rich words do exhibit polysemy, more schematic, semantically sparse items are best explained in terms of basic meanings.