APPRAISAL ATTITUDE IN STUDENTS’ NARRATIVE WRITING
AN ANALYSIS OF EVALUATIVE ORIENTATION IN AN EFL CONTEXT
Abstract
This study investigated the use of appraisal attitude resources in students’ narrative texts to reveal their evaluative orientation and pedagogical needs in narrative writing. The topic is important because narrative writing is not only concerned with structure and grammar but also with how students construct evaluative meaning to engage readers and convey moral and emotional perspectives. The purpose of this study was to identify the types of appraisal attitude found in students’ narrative texts, determine which attitude resources were most dominant, and explain what the dominance of particular resources reveals about students’ evaluative orientation. The study employed a qualitative descriptive research design. The data consisted of students’ narrative texts produced during regular classroom writing activities. The texts were analyzed using the appraisal framework, focusing on affect, judgment, and appreciation resources. The findings showed that all three appraisal attitude subsystems were present in the students’ narratives, although they were unevenly distributed. Judgment emerged as the most dominant attitude resource, followed by affect and appreciation. Capacity and tenacity were the most frequent judgment types, while inclination and happiness dominated affect. Appreciation appeared least frequently and was limited to reaction and valuation. These findings indicate that students tended to evaluate characters’ actions and express basic emotions rather than develop reflective or aesthetic evaluations. The study concludes that appraisal analysis can serve as a diagnostic tool for understanding students’ narrative writing and highlights the need for explicit instruction on evaluative language in narrative pedagogy.
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