Developing attitude: An ontogenetic perspective on APPRAISAL

Abstract

Within SFL and other approaches to early child language, the predominant emphasis with respect to 'interpersonal' meaning has up till now been with the infant's proto-'speech acts' and their development into conversational exchange. This article argues for broadening our consideration of the interpersonal in language development to include the emergence of evaluative and attitudinal language. To do this, naturalistic case study data from children aged between nine months and four years is examined, using Martin's (2000) appraisal analysis as an informing theoretical framework. It is argued that language itself should be recognized as founded upon affectual beginnings and that the earliest 'protolanguage' phase can be construed as a system of semioticized affect. Following from this, the article tracks the development of two children's resources for expressing emotional, moral and other evaluations, examines the interplay of implicit (evoked) and explicit (inscribed) attitudinal construals in mother-child talk, and explores the role of ATTITUDE in language development generally. With respect to the latter, it is argued that apparently impersonal areas such as causal relations and generalizations arise initially from the impetus to share 'attitude'. The enterprise of construing experience in the evaluative terms relevant to the meaning group is thus central to the child's endeavor of learning the mother tongue.

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