An Appraisal Analysis of Attitude in Dr. W.C. Minor and Prof. James Murray’s Utterances in The Professor and the Madman (2019) Movie
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v13i1.6789Keywords:
Appraisal Analysis, Attitude types, Movie, Characters, Utterances, The Professor and the Madman Movie (2019).Abstract
This study is a discourse study which was conducted to find out the appraisal analysis through Attitudes from James Murray and W.C. Minor, the main character in The Professor and the Madman movie. The study examined the features of the three types of attitudes: affect, judgement and appreciation using Murray and Minor Minor’s utterances as the main data. The analysis focused on clauses, which were segmented from the characters’ utterances. These clauses were examined and interpreted using Halliday’s (1994) framework of interpersonal meaning within the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) approach. SFG views language as a resource of meaning making, and interpersonal meaning is one of the meanings of language which shows the role relationship between interlocutors. The analysis revealed that Murray employed more attitude resources of judgement, whereas Minor used more attitude resources of affect. The findings also revealed that each of the two characters presented the attitude types and polarity that shows their characteristics and the background issues underlining it. Finally, the findings indicate that the overall atmosphere of the per scenes in the movie was highly affected by the attitudinal exchanges between the characters and their respective background issues.
References
Aljuraywi, J. A., & Alyousef, H. S. (2022). Attitude in political discourse: An appraisal analysis of attitude in Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s interviews on 60 Minutes. Journal of Language and Linguistic Studies, 18(3), 176–193. jlls.org+4ResearchGate+4Academia+4
Bednarek, M., & Caple, H. (2022). News discourse. Bloomsbury Academic.
Daulay, S. H. (2010). An analysis of appraisal in Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo. Journal of Language and Literature, 9(2), 87–100.
Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Halliday, M. A. K. (2014). Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar (4th ed., revised by C. M. I. M. Matthiessen). Routledge.
Hidayati, N. (2017). Appraisal analysis in the Freedom Writers movie. Journal of English Education, Literature, and Culture. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.30659/e.2.1.317-333
Hyland, K. (2020). Second language writing (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Indriyani, L. S., & Widyastuti, R. S. (2023). Attitude in political discourse: A comparative analysis of Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s inaugural speeches. Linguistics and Literature Journal, 24(1), 50–62.
Khadafi, B. I. (2019). Evaluative language of male and female movie reviewers in Atomic Blonde movie reviews (Systemic Functional Linguistics Approach).
Martin, J. (2000). Beyond exchange: Appraisal systems in English. In S. Hunston & G. Thompson, Evaluation in Text (pp. 142–175). Oxford University Press.
Martin, J. R. (2003). Introduction. Text & Talk, 23(2), 171–181. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.2003.007
Martin, J. R., & Dwyer, P. (2020). Evaluating documentaries: Appraisal in non-fiction movies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Martin, J. R., & Rose, D. (2007). Working with Discourse. Continuum.
Martin, J. R., & White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Palgrave Macmillan.
Matthiessen, C., Teruya, K., & Lam, M. (2010). Key terms in systemic functional linguistics. A & C Black.
McCarthy, M. (1991). Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge University Press.
Masruddin, M., Amir, F., Langaji, A., & Rusdiansyah, R. (2023). Conceptualizing linguistic politeness in light of age. International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 11(3), 41-55.
Masruddin, Hartina, S., Arifin, M. A., & Langaji, A. (2024). Flipped learning: facilitating student engagement through repeated instruction and direct feedback. Cogent Education, 11(1), 2412500.
O'Donnell, M. (2011). UAM Corpus Tool (Version 3.2). Retrieved 24 December 2024, from http://www.wagsoft.com/CorpusTool/index.html
Shabriani, E. (2023). The Ideological Representation of Appraisal Resources in Nadiem Makarim’s Speech at the G20. English Education Journal, 13(4).
Taboada, Maite & Carretero, Marta & Hinnell, Jennifer. (2014). Loving and hating movies in English, German, and Spanish. Languages in Contrast. 14. 10.1075/lic.14.1.07tab.
Troiano, G., Kooli, M., & Sosa, A. (2022). Modeling emotional meaning in computational linguistics: An appraisal framework perspective. Journal of Pragmatics, 198, 13–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2022.08.008
Van Dijk, T. A. (1997). What is political discourse analysis? In Blommaert, J. & Bulcaen, C. (Eds.). Political linguistics. John Benjamins.
Wetherell, M. (2012). Affect and emotion: A new social science understanding. SAGE Publications.
Yongsatianchot, S., Aroonmanakun, W., & Higgs, M. (2023). Evaluating affective meaning in large language models: A case study using appraisal theory. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, 38(2), 423–439. https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/fqad004
Zain, A.R., & Nababan, M.R. (2021). An Appraisal Theory Approach to Translate an Emotional Dimension in The Tell-Tale Heart. International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 10(6), 4622.
Zhang, Z. (2015). An appraisal analysis of attitude in movie review discourse. International Journal of English Linguistics, 5(5), 71–77. https://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v5n5p71
Zhou, X. (2023). Appraisal analysis of evaluative stance in Chinese movie subtitles. Language and Semiotic Studies, 9(1), 88–101.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
Citation Check
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Novia Setyana Khusnul Khotimah Khotimah, Widhianto

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See the Effect of Open Access)