An analysis of APPRAISAL in childbirth narratives with special consideration of gender and storytelling style

Abstract

This study uses the APPRAISAL framework developed by Martin (1996Martin ( , 2000 to analyze the evaluation offered by women and men when narrating experiences about childbirth. 1 The textual patterns constructed by the speakers' use of attitudinal appraisal are considered in relation to gender in two ways.First, findings suggest that the women and men in this study have subtly differing story-telling styles as indicated by the relative proportion of AFFECT and APPRECIATION found in their narratives. The women's narratives are seen as more personalized and exhibiting a higher degree of potential interpersonal involvement than the men's-features which are understood as connected with the patterns of social interaction between speakers.Second, gender is also important in understanding the speakers' selfcharacterization as expressed through JUDGMENT. Through the comparators (Labov 1972) used here, the speakers depict a particular identity for the prospective father as one who may be peripheral and ineffective-a world view that is mirrored in the representation of the father as a social actor (van Leeuwen 1996) in current childbirth advice literature.The analysis of APPRAISAL in these narratives supports recent trends in the study of language and gender that suggest there is no universal mapping between gender and linguistic form. Rather, like the evaluation used here, gender itself is seen as culturally constructed and related to contextual issues in a complex and multiple manner.

An Analysis of Current Research on the Appraisal Theory

“…With the purpose of exploring the differences of Attitude resources between genders, Page [26] analyzed the evaluations offered by women and men on the topic of the experience of childbirth. 23 sets of evaluations were obtained from an informal interview of nine pairs of women and men who had recently had children and an additional five women who acted as birthing partners.…”

Assessing social responsibility: A quantitative analysis of Appraisal in BP’s and IKEA’s social reports

“…The analysis of Appraisal is further complicated by the fact that inscriptions can, in certain cases, evoke secondary interpretations at different levels (Page, 2003). Consider, for example: (9) We are also developing plans for pioneering power plants with carbon capture and storage.…”

'Language has a Heart': Linguistic Markers of Evaluation in Selected TRC Testimonies

“…Ochs and Schieffelin (1989: 14) list code-switching and the use of dialects as examples of linguistic expressions of affect, although they do not explore it any further. The recent SFL appraisal framework does not include code-switching as a marker of evaluation, probably because the work to date has concentrated on monolingual English texts (Martin & White, 2005;Menard-Warwick, 2005;Page, 2003). On the basis of my analysis of the TRC testimonies, however, I will argue that code-switching should be recognized as an appraisal resource.…”