Comments on blogs for teachers of English: an appraisal analysis

ABSTRACT

This article aims at presenting an analysis of the subsystem of Attitude in comments from participants of two blogs for teachers of English and the possible responses of solidarity presented by the interlocutors. The blogs were selected by the occurrence order in Google website and also for containing evaluative comments on the subject treated in the post. The assumptions of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (Halliday 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen 2004) in the comprehensiveness of the Appraisal System and Attitude subsystem (Martin & White 2005; Martin & Rose 2003) were used both in the description and interpretation of the data found. It is a qualitative and interpretative research in which social and interactional aspects are taken into account in the discussion of the results. The data pointed to some evaluative alignment between the blog participants and the bloggers through the choices of the intensified lexicogrammatical elements used in the evaluations and in the solidarity responses made.

Key-words: comments; blogs; appraisal system; systemic-functional grammar