Journal article
Predication and propagation: A method for analyzing evaluative meanings in technology policy
Text, Vol.22(2), pp.227-268
2002
Abstract
In this article I outline and demonstrate a synthesis of the methods developed by Lemke (1998) and Martin (2000) for analyzing evaluations in English. I demonstrate the synthesis using examples from a 13-million-word technology policy corpus drawn from institutions at the local, state, national, and supranational levels. Lemke's (1998) critical model is organized around the broad 'evaluative dimensions' that are deployed to evaluate propositions and proposals in English. Martin's (2000) model is organized with a more overtly systemic-functional orientation around the concept of 'encoded feeling'. In applying both these models at different times, whilst recognizing their individual usefulness and complementarity, I found specific limitations that led me to work towards a synthesis of the two approaches. I also argue for the need to consider genre, media, and institutional aspects more explicitly when claiming intertextual and heteroglossic relations as the basis for inferred evaluations. A basic assertion made in this article is that the perceived Desirability of a process, person, circumstance, or thing is identical to its 'value'. But the Desirability of anything is a socially and thus historically conditioned attribution that requires significant amounts of institutional inculcation of other 'types' of value - appropriateness, importance, beauty, power, and so on. I therefore propose a method informed by critical discourse analysis (CDA) that sees evaluation as happening on at least four interdependent levels of abstraction.b © Walter de Gruyter.
Details
- Title
- Predication and propagation: A method for analyzing evaluative meanings in technology policy
- Authors
- Philip Graham (Author) - University of Queensland
- Publication details
- Text, Vol.22(2), pp.227-268
- Publisher
- De Gruyter Mouton
- Date published
- 2002
- DOI
- 10.1515/text.2002.009
- ISSN
- 0165-4888
- Copyright note
- Copyright © 2002 The Author. The author accepted version is reproduced here with kind permission. The final definitive version is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/text.2002.009
- Organisation Unit
- Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic); University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; School of Creative Industries - Legacy
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99450923602621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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