Phân tích nghĩa liên nhân trong chuyên mục phản hồi của độc giả gửi ban biên tập bằng tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt theo thuyết Đánh giá
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
126
02(45) (2021) 126-140
An Appraisal analysis of interpersonal meaning in letters to Editors
Written written in English and Vietnamese
Phân tích nghĩa liên nhân trong chuyên mục phản hồi của độc giả gửi ban biên tập bằng
tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt theo thuyết Đánh giá
Van Thu Vana, Ha Nhu Hangbc*
Văn Thu Vâna, Hà Thị Như Hằngbc*
aEast Gia Lai’s Ethnic Minority Boarding High School, Gia Lai, Vietnam
aTrường THPT Dân tộc nội trú Đông Gia Lai, Gia Lai, Việt Nam
bSchool of Computer Sciences, Duy Tan University, Danang, 550000, Vietnam
bTrường Khoa học máy tính, Đại học Duy Tân, Đà Nẵng, Việt Nam
cGraduate School, Duy Tan University, Danang, 550000, Vietnam
cBan Sau đại học, Đại học Duy Tân, Đà Nẵng, Việt Nam
(Ngày nhận bài: 05/03/2021, ngày phản biện xong: 15/03/2021, ngày chấp nhận đăng: 29/03/2021)
Abstract
This paper investigates the interpersonal meaning of English and Vietnamese letters to the Editors by using Appraisal
Theory, which focuses on the interpersonal metafunction of language. The data were chosen from 100 samples of letters
to the Editors. Attitude system was employed to find out the similarities and differences in construing interpersonal
meaning between English letters to the Editors (ELTEs) and Vietnamese letters to the Editors (VLTEs). The findings of
the study reveal that in terms of frequency of Attitude values distributed in the two sets of data, the common feature
shared by the two languages is that both English and Vietnamese writers used a wide range of three systems of Attitude
in their letters. Appreciation is predominant in the attitudinal coding. The second highest is Judgement found in the two
languages. Affect is found to occur at the lowest rate in the two corpora. As regards the resources of evaluative
language chosen by the writers with the aim of highlighting the interpersonal meaning, the study reveals that English
and Vietnamese letters to the editors share some similarities at level of various lexical items to convey emotional
reactions. Via Affect, Judgement and Appreciation analysis, the similarities and differences between ELTEs and VLTEs
in the way they use subtypes of values to construe interpersonal meaning are pointed out.
Keywords: Appraisal theory; attitude system; interpersonal metafunction; English letters to the editors (ELTEs);
Vietnamese letters to the editors (VLTEs).
Tóm tắt
Bài báo này nghiên cứu nghĩa liên nhân trong chuyên mục phản hồi của độc giả gửi ban biên tập bằng tiếng Anh và
tiếng Việt. Thông qua việc sử dụng thuyết đánh giá, tập trung vào việc phân tích tập các chức năng ngôn ngữ để xử lý
dữ liệu gồm 100 mẫu thư gửi cho ban biên tập. Hệ thống Thái độ đã được sử dụng để tìm ra những điểm giống và khác
*
Corresponding Author: Ha Nhu Hang; School of Computer Sciences, Duy Tan University, Danang, 550000, Vietnam;
Graduate School, Duy Tan University, Danang, 550000, Vietnam.
Email: hatnhuhang@duytan.edu.vn
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
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nhau trong cách hiểu ý nghĩa giữa các cá nhân trong các thư tiếng Anh (ELTEs) và thư tiếng Việt (VLTE). Kết quả của
nghiên cứu cho thấy xét về tần suất của các giá trị Thái độ trong hai bộ dữ liệu, người viết tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt đều
sử dụng một loạt ba hệ thống Thái độ trong các bức thư của họ. Thứ tự cao thấp của các hệ thống thái độ này được xếp
như sau: Sự đánh giá cao, Sự phán xét, Sự ảnh hưởng. Liên quan đến các nguồn ngôn ngữ đánh giá được người viết lựa
chọn với mục đích làm nổi bật nghĩa liên nhân, nghiên cứu cho thấy rằng thư tiếng Anh và tiếng Việt gửi cho các biên
tập viên có một số điểm tương đồng về mức độ dùng các loại từ khác nhau để truyền tải cảm xúc. Thông qua phân tích
Ảnh hưởng, Phán xét và Đánh giá cao, những điểm giống và khác nhau giữa ELTE và VLTE kết quả có thể sử dụng để
xây dựng các nghĩa liên nhân khác nhau.
Từ khóa: Thuyết đánh giá; hệ thống thái độ; Nghĩa liên nhân; Thư gửi ban biên tập bằng Tiếng Anh; Thư gửi ban biên
tập bằng Tiếng Việt.
1. Introduction
importance in interactive media. In a written
way of talking to readers of a regularly printed
publication, it aims to express writer’s opinions
with respect to previously published articles, to
offer an idea, to raise awareness, comment on an
issue or suggest a solution. LTEs, more
importantly, enables the writer’s voice to be
heard in the community; it is expressed to
educate the public, influence public opinion.
Language, a way used to transmit news in
general, in LTEs in particular, has become the
most effective means in news media through
which people can share information, convey our
ideas as well as make the public sphere become
a global interconnectedness of media. On
account of this importance, it is essential to have
the knowledge of language used in letters to the
editor.
With the trend of global integration and
development, the media, an essential and
indispensable tool, takes an important role in our
life. It is also a mean to bring us to the world and
makes the world known to us. One of the most
popular, paramount sorts of mass media, the
main sources for spreading news and events
throughout the world today, is online
newspapers. We, especially, can keep track on
the latest news of every areas happening all over
the world, from or with every part of the world
through online news. There is a variety of items
in an online article nowadays. The up-to-the-
minute news and events of serious, time–
sensitive issues of politics, economics, business,
technology, science, education, etc which are
immediately reported by journalists are regarded
as hard news while arts, entertainment and
lifestyle are considered as soft news. It can be
believed that most newspaper publishers are
highly aware of leaving a place for communities
to discuss, contribute, share, or address common
issues spurred by news articles. And this site for
reader contribution in an article is under the
terms of opinion pieces, which involves
Editorials, Op-Ed, and Letters to the editor.
Among them, Letters to the Editors (LTEs)
section which is ranked as one of the most
widely read items is an important part of
newspapers. It is calculated that about half of
readers indicate reading the LTEs (Hynds,
1994). The roles of LTEs are of great
In general, newspaper editors may receive
many LTEs on any given topic, but they are not
obligated to publish all; they want pieces that
not only display expertise; but they are also
well written, timely and provocative, all the
hallmarks of any good nonfiction writing. Thus,
the LTEs’writers have to choose the source of
language to demonstrate its values to the
readers. The writers always put an emphasis on
the use of the linguistic resources for which
they come to express opinions or attitudes
towards people or things, negotiate and convey
evaluation and position oneself with respect to
the evaluations of other people, which is
regarded as the interpersonal meaning and
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realized through appraisal theory by Martin and
2.2. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)
White (2005). Presently, the study on
interpersonal meaning of different aspects of
discourse is becoming increasingly popular.
However, the investigation of interpersonal
meaning in the genre of news captured from the
framework of Appraisal theory has little been
observed. Specifically, research on LTEs is still
relatively sparse. This study aims to investigate
Interpersonal meaning from the perspective of
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), based
on Appraisal framework proposed by Martin
and White (2005). Attitudinal values will be
employed to explore this mode of meaning in
100 pices of English and Vietnamese LTEs.
The findings of the study will be of great help
to Vietnamese learners of English as a foreign
and second language, especially those who
have paid attention to editing and writing LTEs
section in articles.
SFL is a linguistic school, developed by
Halliday, describing and models language in
functional than formal terms. SFL views
language as a recourse for making meaning
descriptions which are based on extensive
analyses of written or spoken texts (Halliday,
1995). There are three social functions or
metafunctions of language: Interpersonal,
Textual, and Ideational. The ideational
metafunction is realized in transitivity and
serves to represent situations and events in the
world and the entities, actions and processes
involved (Halliday, 2007). The interpersonal
metafunction conveys how language is used to
interact with other people, and how language is
used to express judgments and attitudes. The
textual metafunction is about the verbal world,
especially the flow of information in a text, and
is concerned with clauses as messages.
2. Literature Review
2.3. Interpersonal meaning
2.1. Letters to the editors (LTEs) as a genre
Interpersonal meaning is a fulfillment in
clarification of the metafuntions of language. It
is a mode of meaning for people to negotiate
their attitudes and feelings in social
relationships with others. Butt et al. (2000)
asserts that the interpersonal metafunction uses
language to describe interaction, to show our
propositions, to explain ideas about obligation
and inclination, and to express our points of
view or attitudes. In Martin and White’s new
book (2005) - The language of Evaluation:
Appraisal in English, interpersonal meaning
can be construed by one of the major discourse
semantic resources from appraisal perspectives.
From this view, the interpersonal function of
language serves to establish and maintain social
relations. Appraisal is defined as an approach to
exploring, describing and explaining the way
language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances,
to construct textual, to manage interpersonal
Hyland (2004) states that a genre is a term
for grouping texts together, representing how
writers typically use language to respond to
recurring situations. According to Iedema et al.
(1994), there are different sub-genres of media
in terms of the functions they serve for a
particular communicative purpose. LTEs are
considered as a professional genre which are
"products of a set of established procedures that
form an important part of the disciplinary
culture within a profession” Bhatia (1993, page
number). They are defined as letters written by
readers of a newspaper, magazine, or other
sources on topics relevant to the publication’s
audience. They address diverse topics, from
commentary on local, state, national, and
international current events, to responses to
opinions and stories previously put forth in the
publication (Beckett, 2008).
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positioning and relationships (White, 2005). It
offers a functional model of interpersonal
meaning by attending to three axes along which
the speaker’s/writer’s intersubjective stance
may vary. Appraisal system has three
interacting domains: Attitude, Engagement, and
Graduation. The language resources for
amplifying attitudinal meanings coded to show
the domain attitude are under the terms of
Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation.
Appreciation is the system by which
aesthetic or functional evaluation of
things, processes and states of affairs is
made. It typically evaluates natural
objects, manufactured objects, texts, as
well as more abstract constructs such as
plans and policies. Like both affect and
judgment, values of appreciation have
either positive or negative status
harmonious versus discordant, beautiful
versus ugly, etc.
Affect deals with resources for expressing
feelings or author’s emotion as represented
by the texts; it evaluates an entity, process
or state of affairs emotionally. Affect is
3. Methodology
3.1. Data collection
English and Vietnamese letters to the Editor
(50 letters to the Editor written in English
(ELTEs) and 50 letters to the Editor written in
Vietnamese (VLTEs)) were collected from two
newspapers of high prestige and wide
circulation rates. The New York Times
because it is the official newspaper in America
and has had a long foundation since 1887; it is
also read in more than 180 countries in the
typically
processes
realized
of reaction,
through
mental
attributive
relationals, nominalization, and it may be
realized as nouns. Values are also
classified into Authorial and Non -
authorial ones (Martin and White, 2005).
Judgement refers to the act of judging
peoples’ character in discourse; it also
deals with author’s attitude towards the
human behavior ethically. This type of
evaluation is divided into two broad
categories and five narrower subtypes
within these two categories (Martin and
White, 2005). Social esteem is the region
of judgments in which the evaluation of
people’s conduct is based on social ethics
and on a standard of appropriateness. In
this region there are judgments of
normality, capacity, and tenacity. Social
sanction is the region of judgments in
which the evaluation of people’s conduct
is based on legal/ religious rules. Those
rules on which social sanctions are based
are usually confided and written; they
may be legal or moral and hence
judgments of social sanction turn on
questions of legality and morality. This
region comprises judgments of two traits
involving veracity, and propriety.
world.
The
Thanh
Nien
(http://
largest Vietnamese newspapers with a daily
circulation of more than 400,000 copies, and
provides a wide range of areas. The letters were
selected with respect to their content, topic,
taking into account their length with a
minimum of 150 words. Data were the results
of a relatively random selection from 100 texts
published from June, 2009 to June, 2015.
Random sampling is one of the simplest forms
of collecting data from the total population.
Under random sampling, each member of the
subset carries an equal opportunity of being
chosen as a part of the sampling process.
Random sampling ensures that results obtained
from the sample should approximate what
would have been obtained if the entire
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population had been measured (Shadish et al.,
2002). The English and Vietnamese texts were
classified into two types: type 1 (of from 150 to
250 words) and type 2 (of more than 250
words) in Table 1.
Table 1. Description of the Corpus
Types
Type 1
Type 2
≤ 250 words
155 (77.5%)
176 (88%)
> 250 words
45 (22.5%)
24 (12%)
Total
200
200
ELTEs
VLTEs
analyze in English and Vietnamese
letters to the Editor.
3.2. Data Analysis Procedures
With the collected data from 100 samples of
letters to the Editor written in English and in
Vietnamese, the procedure for analyzing will
follow. The data are grouped into categories:
ELTEs (English Letters to Editors) and VLTEs
(Vietnamese letters to Editors) to identify the
interpersonal meaning of this genre. The
specific analysis will be done as follows:
(7) Giving some implications for teaching
and learning both languages and some
suggestions for further research.
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1. Attitude in ELTEs and VLTEs
There were 454 items of attitude in ELTEs
and 505 in VLTEs. The authors of ELTEs and
VLTEs are similar in the way they prefer
choosing the language resources to adopt their
stance towards phenomenon and to judge states
of affairs to exposing their reactions to attract
social evaluation. In ELTEs, of 454 attitudinal
values, the dominant category is Appreciation
(217 instances, accounting for 47.8%),
suggesting that letters are concerned with
evaluating aesthetics, form, appearance,
construction, presentation or impact of objects
and entities. Ranked the second is Judgment
with 154 instances, making up 33.9%. The value
of Affect is found to account for the lowest
percentage, which explains the fact that ELTEs
do not focus much on exposing emotional
reactions to what have been reflected (Figure 1).
(1) Identifying, presenting, and describing
the types of attitudinal meanings
(Affect, Judgment, and Appreciation) in
ELTEs and VLTEs.
(2) Analyzing and counting the number of
subtypes of attitude in letter.
(3) Describing the samples qualitatively in
terms of interpersonal meaning in
ELTEs and VLTEs.
(4) Describing the samples quantitatively in
terms
of
interpersonal
meaning
performed in ELTEs and VLTEs, and
illustrating in some tables based on the
distribution of frequency of attitudinal
meaning types.
(5) Comparing the
similarities,
and
differences in distribution of attitudinal
values between the two newspapers to
convey interpersonal meaning.
(6) Discussing the results of findings on the
basis of the analysis of Interpersonal
meaning from the SFA perspective, the
Appraisal framework by Martin and
White (2005) which will be employed to
Figure 1: General Distribution of Attitudinal resources
in ELTEs and VLTEs
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The following are the examples of Affect,
Judgement and Appreciation in ELTEs taken
from the collected data:
(VL 1c) Chuyện xả rác bừa bãi, giẫm đạp
lên cỏ, bẻ hoa lá, chen chúc nhau giành lối
đi [Explicit Jud- veracity]… lại xảy ra. Đây
là những hình ảnh đáng xấu hổ [App-
valuation] mà năm nào cũng nói, năm nào
báo chí cũng phản ánh nhưng chẳng ăn thua
gì [Judgement – implicit].
(EL 3) I truly hope – [Affect - Inclination
-
desire] that Margaret Morganroth
Gullette and those she loves [Affect -
Inclination - desire] never experience the
disease as my family has. I implore her not
to use her public platform to minimize the
horror [Affect- disinclination] that is
Alzheimer’s. It is, as has been accurately
described, death on an installment [App -
reaction] plan.
4.2. Affect in ELTEs and VLTEs
Frequency of Affectual values in ELTEs and
VLTEs
Table 2 displays the detailed distribution of
Affectual values investigated in ELTEs and
VLTEs. In ELTEs, there are 18 instances,
comprising 21.7%, and VLTEs also show 18
instances of Inclination, making up 22.8%. The
highest use of Inclination in both types of texts
reveals that for the problems indicated, the
readers construe their emotions by longing for
the shared reaction from the community
involved; they express their attitude with an
emotion of wishful thinking to find out a proper
solution for the issues concerned.
(EL 5) May [Judgement - cability] she use
her voice instead to draw positive attention
to elder-care issues, [Judgement - implicit]
including the profound emotional and
financial costs of providing decent care. You
do not need to minimize Alzheimer’s to
advance such concerns.
Here are some instances of attitudinal items
in VLTEs:
(VL 1b) Năm nào cũng vậy, tại các dịp lễ
hội đều có những hình ảnh phản cảm [App-
valuation] mà nguyên nhân chính là do
ý thức của nhiều người quá kém [Explicit
Jud- propriety]
Table 2: The detailed distribution of
Affectual values in ELTEs and in VLTEs
fear
6
18
5
3
3
7.22 %
21.7%
6.02 %
3.62%
3.62%
6.02 %
12.05% 10
19.3%
8.4 %
12.05% 10
100% 50 33
6
5
6
18
9
3
5
11
5
16
2
4
79
7.6%
6
8
9
Disinclination
Inclination
Unhappiness
desire
misery
cheer
affection
disquiet
confidence 10
displeasure 16
interest
18
22.8%
11.4%
3.8%
6.3%
13.9%
6.3%
20.3%
2.53%
5.07%
100%
10
3
2
3
2
Happiness
1
5
3
11
5
Insecurity
Security
Dissatisfaction
5
16
16
7
10
83
7
2
4
26
Satisfaction
Total overall
pleasure
53
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The excerpts comprise Inclination affect in
the two kinds of data was shown below:
(VL 11) Tôi thấy thật buồn cười khi ngày
nay lại mang chuyện cái kết của truyện Tấm
Cám ra bàn cãi, sửa đổi... Có nhà viết kịch
còn sửa cả cốt truyện, châm biếm việc Tấm
giết Cám, làm mắm Cám để gửi cho bà mẹ
kế ăn là quá sức tàn độc...
(EL3) I was hopeful [Inclination -
desire] in reading “The Body Politic,” that
in the continuing discussion about
menopausal treatments for middle-aged
women, some mention might be given to the
option of bioidentical hormone replacement.
Although the number of Affect items is
rather equal in both languages, the specific
number of each subtype is unevenly distributed.
Exemplified for this finding is the distribution
of Insecurity in the two languages. Expressing
feelings of anxiety in relation to the negative
states of affair is marked in VLTEs. This
finding implies that Vietnamese readers tend to
show their anxiety, and disquiet when negative
(EL5) I truly hope [Inclination - desire]
that Margaret Morganroth Gullette and
those she loves never experience the disease
as my family has.
(VL 2) Rất mong [Inclination - desire ]Bộ
Giao thông vận tải và chính quyền các tỉnh có
dự án mở rộng, nâng cấp QL1A và QL14
ngang qua, đừng để rơi vào tình trạng tương
tự. Người dân buộc phải sống và chịu cảnh khổ
sở trong chuyện làm đường sá quá nhiều rồi!
problems come about. For
a
problem
concerned, English and Vietnamese writers
have different ways in expressing anxiety as
illustrated:
(VL 10) Tôi kiến nghị [Inclination -
desire] Sở VH-TT-DL TP.HCM nên xem lại
vấn đề cấp phép biểu diễn cho các ban nhạc
nước ngoài, ca sĩ hải ngoại và kể cả trong
nước. Xin đừng để người yêu [Inclination -
desire] âm nhạc thiệt thòi vì những lý do
không rõ ràng, như bài báo đã nêu.
(EL24) “Concern for Minorities as Catholic
Schools Close” (news article, June 21)
misses the mark in one important regard.
Many of us who work in Catholic schools
have more hope than despair, and we have
reason to believe that the future of Catholic
schools in urban communities looks less like
hospice or retrenchment and more like
transformation and urban renewal. These
children and their teachers are completely
changing the narrative for Catholic
education. Despite constraints, the Catholic
school community is filled with zeal, not
In ELTEs, there are 16 instances out of 83
values of Affect, accounting for 19.3%. In
VLTEs, Dissatisfaction ranked the second
among the values of Affect after Inclination, 16
instances of Dissatisfaction out of 79 used by
the writers. The following extracts are an
illustration of the way the writers of ELTEs and
VLTEs convey Dissatisfaction values.
cynicism.
Catholic-school
champions
continue to fight for their children’s future.
(EL16) A face-to-face meeting in a
classroom imposes accountability, inspires
effort and promotes academic responsibility
in subtle ways that we don’t fully
appreciate. On a campus, students attend
class and stay alert because they worry what
the teacher will think if they don’t.
(VL 28) “Dù đã trải qua nhiều lần chỉnh
sửa nhưng SGK cũng như các loại STK hiện
nay vẫn không hết được những sai sót và
không có sự đồng nhất. Giải pháp an toàn
và để các học sinh không bị mất điểm oan
uổng là dạy cho học sinh bám sát kiến thức
trong SGK. Tuy nhiên, bản thân lịch sử đã
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133
đòi hỏi tính chính xác nên dạy thì vẫn phải
dạy nhưng đôi khi thấy băn khoăn và áy
náy với chính bản thân mình”.
“emotions of ennui, displeasure, curiosity, and
respect”, and variable of emotions concerned
with ‘ecosocial well-being’ including anxiety,
fear, confidence and trust. For example, to
reflect the bad image of a cultural festival at the
national level, the author of the Vietnamese
letter used a set of negative Affect values:
The two extracts have clarified different
ways in exposing the attitude towards an
important problem concerned. In the English
letter, the writer tends to show his opinions
with giving specific analysis of reality of the
problem, and tries to persuade the audience to
be hopeful for improving the problem.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese writer seems to
express her personal thinking in which she
shows more disappointment than desire to
improve the problem.
(VL1) Sau khi Thanh Niên các số ra ngày
xộn trước chùa Hương Tích, nhiều bạn đọc
có ý kiến bức xúc [negative- dissatisfaction]
về những hình ảnh phản cảm, thiếu văn hóa
tại các lễ hội và lo ngại [negative-
inclination] cho sự biến tướng của lễ hội.
Positive and negative affect values in ELTEs
and VLTEs
The writer in the excerpt above expresses his
negative explicit attitude towards the bad
images displayed at festivals where the value of
nation’s culture should be honored. Once, the
finding confirms that through the variables of
negative Affects, the authors bid to set up an
interpersonal bond with the readers, to share the
sympathies with the audience as what Martin
and White (2005) state. As far as polarity of
Affect is concerned, the writers’ feelings are
popularly construed by the culture as the
sharing of both positive and negative emotions
in ELTEs.The ratio between two polarities is
not remarkable. In every letter, emotions are
marked with the use of both positive and
negative ones. The following extract is an
illustration:
The distribution of positive and negative
affect values in ELTEs and VLTEs is shown in
Figure 2. In most of the letters, the writers
construe the feelings by the culture by
employing both good and bad vibes. The
distinct feature of the two kinds of data is that
the use of positive Affects in ELTEs is higher
(60.24%) than that of negative ones (39.76%).
On the contrary, in VLTEs, as shown in chart
4.2, up to 67.09% of the opinions are through
negative Affects, only 26 instances out of 79
conveying positive ones.
(EL21a) As I drank my morning coffee, I
read that the Encyclopaedia Britannica will
no longer publish in print its wonderful set
of reference books “Britannica Is Reduced
to a Click,” front page, March 14). I felt
stabbed in the heart, and it took me until
midmorning to understand my sadness.
Figure 2: Positive and Negative Affect values in ELTEs
and in VLTEs
Across of the Affect values used in VLTEs,
emotional responses were most likely to be the
ones associated with negative feelings, which is
compatible with what Martin (2000) terms
(EL21c) Living in Montana, I am reminded
constantly to be “green” but the absence of
books will be a cultural loss. Books in print
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
134
represent more than the words and wisdom
Vietnamese texts used more Non-authorial
affects than authorial ones. 27 instances out of
83, comprising 32.5% sources of emotional
reaction in ELTEs can be traced to the writers
themselves. In VLTEs, there is a bit larger
proportion of the use of authorial affects with
32 instances among 79, making up 40.5%.
they contain. My hope is that for the next
generation, electronic information will come
to represent the same.
Authorial and non-authorial affect values in
ELTEs and in VLTEs
In terms of Authorial and Non-authorial
affect values, as presented in table 3 a
noticeable feature is that both English and
Table 3: Authorial and Non-authorial Affect
values in ELTEs and in VLTEs
Total of affect
AFFECT
Authorial
values
Non- authorial
Occurrence
Rate
Occurrence
Rate
27
32
32.5 %
40.5 %
56
47
67.5 %
59.5 %
83
79
ENGLISH
VIETNAMESE
phải trả tiền vậy. Lúc đó tôi chợt nghĩ ngay
tới vịnh Hạ Long quê nhà và thầm mong
ước chúng ta cũng sẽ làm như họ.
This finding is remarkable because it is little
different from the study of English general hard
news report. The balance of using authorial and
non-authorial affects in both ELTEs and
VLTEs is understandable. For clearer
understanding, the texts below are the
illustrations:
From the analyses presented, it is important
to conclude that English and Vietnamese texts
operate in the same voice in terms of authorial
and non- authorial Affect. Due to the nature and
style of LTEs, the freedom to contribute
opinions to issues published in the public, the
emotional reactions can come from both the
writers themselves and from the other
individuals, groups, or social groups.
(EL9) I am a Muslim-American and I am
outraged. As an American, I am angry and
heartbroken that innocent compatriots were
brutally murdered and United States
diplomatic missions in Benghazi and Cairo
were attacked. As a Muslim, I am shamed by
the heinous acts of those who claim to share
my religious beliefs.
Judgment in ELTEs and VLTEs
Social esteem and social sanction in ELTEs
and VLTEs
Another example extracted from Vietnamese
data is a further illustration for this aspect.
The table 4 shows English and Vietnamese
letters in terms of overall usage of Social Esteem
and Social Sanction Judgment resources.
(VL 6) Phí tham quan, thực chất đã nằm
trong giá thành của tour du lịch mà chúng
tôi đã trả. Song không hiểu sao tôi vẫn thấy
rất thú vị, có một cảm giác như mình không
Table 4: The distribution of Social Esteem
and Social Sanction
Social esteem
English
Vietnamese
Occurrence
Rate
Occurrence
Rate
Normality
Capacity
Tenacity
Total
27
48
26
101
17.5%
31.2%
16.9%
65.6%
25
50
27
102
12.8%
25.6%
13.8%
52.2%
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
135
Social sanction
Veracity
Propriety
Total
English
14
39
Vietnamese
21`
72
9.1%
25.3%
34.4%
10.8%
37%
47.8%
53
93
In ELTEs, capacity values account for the
highest percentage with 31.2% compared with
normality (17.5%), and tenacity (16.9%).
Below is the illustration for the instances of
Social Esteem with respect to the more frequent
use of capacity than tenacity and normality in
both languages.
(VL 37) Chẳng biết đến khi nào SV Việt
Nam mới có khả năng làm việc độc lập, tự
học, tự nghiên cứu [capacity - Jud] như các
SV ở các nước phát triển. Ở các nước có nền
giáo dục phát triển, SV chọn đề tài để tốt
nghiệp từ lúc mới vào trường và họ phải
hoàn thiện đề tài mình chọn [capacity -
Jud] trong cả quá trình học... Và luận văn,
đồ án tốt nghiệp của họ thể hiện rõ nhất kết
quả của một quá trình học tập dài lâu
[tenacity - Jud] mà họ trải qua.
(EL22) Despite the attention paid to
hospitals, they aren’t equipped to influence
attitudes [implicit capacity jud], foster
prevention or handle millions of newly
insured patients. Primary care doctors are.
Without solutions [normality jud] from
policy makers and innovators, however, they
could disappear, and health care reform
along with them.
Implicit and explicit judgments in ELTEs and
VLTEs
As can be seen from Figure 3, a common
tendency shared by the two languages is the
percentage of explicit judgments, which is
much higher than that of implicit ones.
English Texts
Vietnamese Texts
Figure 3: Frequency of implicit and explicit Judgment in ELTEs and VLTEs
These figures show a general picture taken
from the two corpora is that the writers of in
both languages are likely to evaluate the
happenings explicitly on the facts or events
presented. The examples below illustrate some
of the explicit and implicit judgments taken
from the collected data:
(EL6a) Bravo, Warren E. Buffett, for
expressing my feelings exactly about tax
increases for the rich. Although not among
the 400 wealthiest, my family is willing and
able to pay more taxes [explicit Jud] to help
our country emerge from its financial
nightmare [implicit Jud]
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
136
(EL6b) Although Vice President Joseph R.
Positive and negative judgments in ELTEs and
VLTEs
Biden Jr. was ridiculed during the 2008
campaign when he declared that it was
patriotic to pay taxes [explicit Jud], I agree
with him 100 percent and am ready to do my
part if the legislators in Congress will stop
placating.
As with Affect, Judgment can be positive
(admiring) or negative (criticizing). Analyzed
from the corpora of two languages, values of
negative or positive Judgments in ELTEs and
VLTEs are tabulated in Table 5.
Most values of Judgment in the Vietnamese
data are inscribed, which means that the way
the Vietnamese people evaluate human
behavior is explicitly direct to the reality of the
problems, the shortcomings of the happenings.
Table 5: Positive and negative Judgments in
ELTEs and in VLTEs
Positive
Negative
Total values of Judgment
English texts
Vietnamese texts
60
45
94
150
154
195
against recent school reforms that also
improve life chances.
In the English texts, Judgment values are
encoded more in a negative (61.03%) way than
a positive (38.97%) way. This pattern of using
more negative judgments than positive ones
also appears in the Vietnamese data.This
reveals that both sources of data exploit
criticism rather than admiration.
Extract 3:
(VL 1) Năm nào cũng vậy, tại các dịp lễ hội
đều có những hình ảnh phản cảm mà nguyên
nhân chính là do ý thức của nhiều người quá
kém [Negative Jud]. Chuyện xả rác bừa bãi,
giẫm đạp lên cỏ, bẻ hoa lá, chen chúc nhau
giành lối đi [Negative Jud]… lại xảy ra. Đây
là những hình ảnh đáng xấu hổ mà năm nào
cũng nói, năm nào báo chí cũng phản ánh
nhưng chẳng ăn thua gì.
Extract 1:
(EL20) In our diverse, complicated country,
some people are unfairly neglected or
unaware of [Negative - Jud] the services or
rights that are due them. People fall
between the cracks. [Negative Jud] Our
ingenious representative government is
intended to deal with [Positive Jud] that
problem.
Extract 4:
(VL 4) Các cơ quan chức năng địa phương
làm gì [Negative Jud], có xử lý hay làm
ngơ [Negative Jud] cho bến xe dù hoạt
động? Trách nhiệm [Negative Jud] trước
hết của tình trạng này thuộc cơ quan chức
năng địa phương và lực lượng CSGT.
Extract 2:
(EL27) David L. Kirp “Making Schools
Work,” Sunday Review, May 2 is right
[Positive Jud] that school integration has
done more to improve the life chances of
poor and minority children than other
known interventions. He is wrong [Negative
Jud] to suggest that there’s no longer any
way to achieve integration and to pit it
In extract 1, judgement items ‘unfairly
neglected or unaware of’, ‘fall between the
cracks’ are negative values, and only one
positive item ‘to deal with’ is employed. Two
sides of polarity interplay to reflect the reality
of incapacity and the way Congress did to solve
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
137
that problem. A mix of negative and positive
assessment passed on the Congress to persuade
the readers to place their positions at a certain
stage to give solution to the situation. Similar to
extract 1, extract 2 conveys an interpersonal
position between the readers and the writer
through a positive judgment ‘right’ and a
negative one ‘wrong’ to evaluate the act of
David L. Kirp. In the same way, VLTEs’
common interest in the evaluation of their
social significance in relation to culturally or
ideologically established conventions. The
examples below are evident for the dominance
of values of Appreciation performed in the two
languages:
(EL17) While online shopping may not
always offer the precise level of
personalization Ms. Ephron requires, it is a
growing [valuation] part of retailing - and
for good [valuation] reason. It offers
convenience, saves time, adds value and
provides access to goods and services
[valuation] that might otherwise be difficult
to obtain.
authors show their assessments in
a
combination of negative and positive judgment.
However, Vietnamese letters’ writers would
rather express the weak points than give the
praises. Most of the Judgment values in letters
are negative ones. In extract 3, ‘ý thức của
nhiều người quá kém’, ‘xả rác bừa bãi’, ‘giẫm
đạp lên cỏ’, ‘bẻ hoa lá, chen chúc nhau giành
lối đi’ are expressions conveying negative
judgments criticizing the unconscious behavior
of visitors to Huong Pagoda. Additionally, a lot
of negative judgments used in extract 4 are
aimed at evaluating the irresponsibility of
officials related, and influencing public
opinions directly.
(VL 7) Tôi tự hỏi, với bộ máy nhà nước dày
đặc [composition]từ Trung ương đến địa
phương như thế tại sao lại để “lọt” được
những hàng hóa “rác” [valuation] như thế?
Mà có phải lọt ít đâu [composition] hàng
loạt container chứ không phải một hay vài
ký. Với sự kiểm soát lỏng lẻo, thiếu chuyên
nghiệp, vô trách nhiệm [composition] như
thế thì ai biết liệu còn những hàng hóa nguy
hiểm [valuation] nào sẽ lọt vào Việt Nam,
khi ấy hậu quả là khôn lường [valuation].
Appreciation in ELTEs and VLTEs
Frequency of appreciation values in ELTEs and
VLTEs
As with valuation, reaction appreciations
have to do with the degree to which an entity,
process, or phenomenon capture our attention
and the emotional impact it has on us. In terms
of this reaction values, VLTEs contain fewer
items than ELTEs.
The overall distribution of Appreciation and
its subtypes found in the two corpora. In
ELTEs, there are 88 instances of valuation,
accounting for 40.55% of the total Appreciation
values; the second highest is composition with
65 instances, which constitute 29.95%; reaction
with 64 instances, making up 29.5%. The
Vietnamese counterparts show the same pattern
of valuation use that is, the valuation (45.9%)
with 106 instances, composition (40.7%) with
94 instances, and reaction (13.4%). Both sets of
data are coded with valuation which reflects the
worth, significance of things appraised. This
similarity in the two languages shows a
(EL5) If only it were simply a fear of
forgetting [Reaction - impact]. Alzheimer’s
is so much more [Reaction- impact]. It is, in
our case, a comatose [Reaction - impact]
state with eyes wide open and the experience
of watching a kind and funny man become
an agitated, angry and afraid person with no
connection to the world in which he sits
(because he cannot stand or walk anymore).
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
138
In the English example, many reaction
(EL3) We certainly acknowledge that what
is warranted in this situation is a sincere
[App/Reaction - Jud/ veracity] apology - but
not a generalized [Valuation] defamation of
an efficient and valuable [Valuation] way
of shopping today.
values of Appreciation are displayed by the
writer. Here, the author uses evaluative
resources to describe the emotional impact of
Alzheimer’s (a serious disease) on the readers.
In VLTEs, the amount of the reaction
appreciation is too small, only 31 instances per
50 texts.
Similarly, this feature is also realized in the
Vietnamese data:
(VL 12) Việc VNPT, Vinaphone ban hành
quyết định kỳ quặc này không những xâm
phạm quyền lợi của đại lý mà còn xâm phạm
nghiêm trọng quyền lợi khách hàng, là
những người đã mua sim/kit của Vinaphone
nhưng chưa sử dụng. Khi mua sim/kit trả
trước, khách hàng không hề được thông báo
thời hạn bắt buộc phải kích hoạt cũng như
việc nếu không kích hoạt sim sẽ bị hủy. Sẽ
có hàng ngàn khách hàng bị ảnh hưởng
[Reaction - impact]. nếu quyết định này đi
vào thực tế. Hiện nay, không chỉ Vinaphone,
VNPT có cách làm lạ đời như thế, một số
nhà mạng khác cũng chẳng vừa, khách đã
mua sim và đã dùng, nhưng vì lý do riêng,
vài tháng khách không sử dụng sim thì bỗng
nhiên số bị cắt, bán cho người khác, khiếu
nại [Reaction-quality].
(VL 1) Sau khi Thanh Niên các số ra ngày
28 và 29.1 đăng các bài viết Bát nháo ở
xộn trước chùa Hương Tích, nhiều bạn đọc
có ý kiến bức xúc về những hình ảnh phản
cảm, thiếu văn hóa [Reaction - quality] tại
các lễ hội và lo ngại cho sự biến tướng
[Valuation] của lễ hội.
Appreciation reaction referring to quality
demonstrates the bad images happening at
festivals where there should have been
significant values of culture represented.
Additionally, appreciation valuation evaluates
the criticism of the bad act done by
irresponsible and unconscious people. From
this instance, it is noted that different sub- types
of Appreciation (valuation and reaction in the
examples above) are embedded within invoked
Judgment. In other words, instances of these
appreciation values represent of some kinds of
other Judgment.
Another interesting feature found from the
examples in both sets of data is the
Appreciation valuations and compositions
embedded within evoked Judgment values.
Instances of Appreciations at one level
contribute to the representation of Judgment at
another. This phenomenon is performed in the
English example below.
Positive and negative appreciation in ELTEs
and VLTEs
Vietnamese have significantly higher
frequencies of negative Appreciation items than
positive ones. Only 60 instances out of 231
values of Appreciation convey positive
assessements on events, process, products or
the happenings. English shows a more balanced
pattern in appraising entities. There are 110
instances of positive values, making up
approximately 50 % like negative ones.
(EL12) Clearly, this is
a
serious
[App/Composition - Jud / capacity] matter
that must be handled in a professional
[App/Valuation - Jud / capacity] manner.
There are lives at stake [Composition] in
addition to TV ratings.
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
139
(EL38) In “Honor Code” (column, July 6),
David Brooks writes that in the Western
world, “the education system has become
coding. The second highest is Judgement found
in the two languages. Affect is found to occur at
the lowest rate in the two corpora. These
findings indicate that there is a common
tendency of the normative assessment of human
behavior and assessment of forms, aesthetics,
and system of social values rather than
evaluations by means of disclosure of personal
emotions to the phenomena mentioned by the
writers of both languages. However, our
analysis shows a difference in the rate of
distribution of subcategories in each language.
The English writers pay attention to both
negative and positive sides of the problem to
invite the audience to have an argument. On the
contrary, Vietnamese writers put emphasis on
the effect of what is going on, what is right,
what is wrong, and trace to the responsibility of
individual and group involved. The finding is
very meaningful for both teachers and students
in teaching and learning reading, academic
writing and journalism. For the language
teaching, this study may emphasize the need of
teaching students to exploit the evaluative
linguistic resources in writing skill, especially
skill of writing academic texts, articles, and
LTEs in an effective way. Further, language
and culture are two important elements in
making a successfully interactive relation in
cross – cultural interactions. Thus, the findings
will help students express their attitudinal
meanings in public with a polite strategy and
focus them on choosing the linguistic resources
to express assessments with argumentative and
informative attitude. For journalism students,
understanding and mastering language used in
writing genre is very necessary and
challenging. The way the students employ
evaluative language to express objective
viewpoints embedded in their pieces of writing
based on various cultural aspects is very
important. Specifically, the ability to do
culturally
cohesive,
rewarding
and
encouraging a certain sort of person: one
who is nurturing, collaborative, disciplined,
neat, studious, industrious and ambitious.”
And this is a complaint!
(VL 28) Dù đã trải qua nhiều lần chỉnh sửa
nhưng SGK cũng như các loại STK hiện nay
vẫn không hết được những sai sót và
không có sự đồng nhất. Giải pháp an toàn
và để các học sinh không bị mất điểm oan
uổng là dạy cho học sinh bám sát kiến thức
trong SGK. Tuy nhiên, bản thân lịch sử đã
đòi hỏi tính chính xác nên dạy thì vẫn phải
dạy nhưng đôi khi thấy băn khoăn và áy náy
với chính bản thân mình.
Theoretically, the present study is expected
to reaffirm the importance of Systemic
Functional Grammar in analyzing and
understanding online news, letters to the Editor
as a genre, a class of communicative events, the
members of which share some set of
communicative purposes. Moreover, it will
hopefully provide scholars who are interested
in Appraisal with the enrichment of knowledge
of evaluation language, by which an Appraisal
analysis shed light on the interpersonal
meaning. Practically, our findings may offer
some advantages and be instructive for writing
and teaching letters to the Editor column in an
article, a discourse of media genre.
5. Conclusion and Implications
Our comparative analysis of Attitudinal
meanings, especially of the three systems
(Affect, Judgment and Appreciation), shows
that there are similarities and differences in the
ways the writers of ELTEs and VLTEs express
their attitude to convey interpersonal meanings.
Appreciation is predominant in the attitudinal
Van Thu Van, Ha Nhu Hang / Tạp chí Khoa học và Công nghệ Đại học Duy Tân 02(45) (2021) 126-140
140
judgments and associate emotional responses
meaning is concerned, it is more adequate for a
research to employ Mood and Modality
analysis as well.
with participants and processes deployed in
either spoken or written form is of great
importance. LTEs genre is a type of opinion
news in public where language resources are
evaluated with high criteria involving
objectiveness, depth, accuracy, completeness,
source reliability, newsworthiness, interactivity,
and trustworthiness. Therefore, values of
attitudinal meanings play an important role in
helping the writers choose the effective
resources of persuasion exposed in the public
news texts. For scholars, especially linguistic
scholars, this small study contributes a humble
part to knowledge of evaluative language.
Moreover, the present study is expected to
reaffirm the importance of Systemic Functional
Grammar in analyzing and understanding
online news and letters to the Editor as a genre,
a class of communicative events. The study was
limited to LTEs in English and in Vietnamese
in terms of interpersonal meanings based on
Appraisal analysis. One of the restrictions of
this thesis is the limited number of letters (100
in total). The future research should employ a
wider range of selected LTEs. In addition,
Attitude is the only one system investigated
among the three ones in relation to Appraisal
Theory. It is of great relevance and importance
for future research to employ Engagement and
Graduation as a tool to explore interpersonal
meaning. Finally, as far as interpersonal
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