Discourse Analysis Interfaces with the Analysis of Grammar

Introduction

Discourse analysis interfaces with the analysis of grammar and the analysis of social activity, somewhere between the work of grammarians on the one hand and social theorists on the other'( Martin & Rose 2007:4). It is classically assumed that social situation and properties of the interlocutors, includes power, status, influence the context of the language use. In this paper, a transcription of a reality show 'American Next Top Model Cycle 18' is examined to explore the relationship between the spoken discourse and the social motivation and interpersonal meaning behind. Appraisal analysis is adopted. The paper would evaluate the attitude and graduation system shown in the discourse and discuss the development of the emotional framework and the constructed setting of the event under the different camera angles.

'American Next Top Model Cycle 18' features 7 British models from previous cycles of Britain's Next Top Model alongside 7 new American models. It was created by top model and talk-show host, Tyra Banks. The transcription is an extract from the conversation between one of the contesters, Louise Watts and the judges, famous American fashion publicist, Kelly Cutrone, Jay Manuel, Tyra Banks and Nigel Barkers.

Discussion on the Register

'Register' is adopted for the study of the relation of language and social context, making use of three categories: field, mode, tenor. Field refers to what is going on in terms of culturally recognized activity; tenor refers to the way you relate to other people when doing what you do; mode refers to the channel you select to communicate ( Martin 2010: 16) . In the transcript, the field is the interaction between Louise and the judges during the process of shooting and in the boardroom. The representing participant objects are nominal groups, like 'great shot', 'best shot you chose'. The circumstances are demonstrated by the adjectival word groups like 'on set'. The mode is face-to-face conversation, which interlocutors can give spontaneous response with feedback tokens and indicative gestures. The tenor is the contestant and the judges. The relationship is supposed to be highly hierarchical but when considering the setup of the text, it is shown that the contestant didn't pay respect to the authority.

Appraisal Analysis

Appraisal offers the theorization of interpersonal meaning choices in discourse (Martin & Rose, 2003, 2007; Martin & White, 2005). In the appraisal theory, it centralizes on how speakers use evaluative resources "for negotiating our social relationships, by telling our listeners or readers how we feel about things and people (in a word, what our attitudes are)" (Martin & Rose, 2003:19). The theory includes the system of attitude, graduation and engagement. The focus of this paper deals with the graduation and attitude

Gradation

The system of graduation includes resources which strengthen or weaken attitude, resources for "adjusting the volume" of items (Martin & Rose, 2003: 41). It can be subdivided into force, the strengthening or weakening of the intensities of the evaluation and focus, the sharpening or softening of the categories of the non-gradable items. In the transcript, there are four intensifiers, 'that I've ever seen' prosody which codes the judgmental word 'worst' strongly ,whereas there are 'clearly very' double intensifiers grading up the affect 'upset', 'very' strengthening the value of 'telling' and another 'very' intensifying the force of 'mean'.

Attitude

Attitude refers to "our feelings, including emotional reactions, judgments of behavior and evaluation of things" (Martin & White, 2005: 35). It can be subdivided into affect, judgment and appreciation. Affect is defined as "resources for expressing feelings" while judgment refers to "resources for judging character", and appreciation to "resources for valuing the worth of things" (Martin & Rose, 2003: 24).

The table below shows the affect of Louise in the whole process.

Table 1. Analysis of affect

Image description Text/ image with Affect Polarity of Affect

Setting Louise is waiting for shooting Running around. ( Happy) Positive

Problem Louise is lectured by Kelly it's just making me angry Negative

Points to the mirror then herself, keeps looking at the mirror. ( impatient, unhappy) Negative

Shakes her head a bit (angry, unhappy) Negative

Photo shooting Louise was clearly very upset Negative

Solution Photo shooting that anger and that adrenaline force her to get a place where she thought "you know what? I'm just gonna show them Negative to Positive

Evaluation after the photo shooting I swear to god that I do not cry... I do not cry but tears are running down. It was a happiness that it is over. It was just all just released. Positive

As shown in table above, Louise was in a good mood at the beginning. After the lecture by Kelly, Louise felt she was being exceptionally badly treated. Her emotion went down shown in her word 'angry' in her monologue. She used explicit word to refer directly to her feelings. As we can see, Louise was not compliant to authority and not resilient in a way that she generated hostility towards Kelly's mild criticism. Moreover, she was hard to control her emotion even in the competition in front of the camera. The affect cannot be only shown by the text, but also visual images. When Kelly was