An investigation into “Affect”, “Judgement” and “Appreciation” in english speeches by nobel peace prize laureates

Abstract

Appraisal Theory, which has been developed by linguists Martin & White since the 1990s, is the development of functional grammar in terms of interpersonal meaning. Based on the Appraisal Theory, this article aims to investigate the three sub-categories namely “Affect”, “Judgement” and “Appreciation” in English Speeches by Nobel Peace Prize Laureates (ESNPLs) with focus placed on identifying and describing syntactic realizations and semantic features of the three above-mentioned sub-categories in 25 ESNPLs collected from the official website of the Nobel Prize in the period 2000-2019. With regard to the syntactic aspect, the sub-categories can be realized by means of various groups in which Nominal Groups, Verbal Groups and Adjectival Groups are more noticeable. In terms of the semantic aspect, the research results show that both positive and negative values were demonstrated in the above speeches; however, positive values proved to be dominant.