The term Appraisal refers to the semantic resources—such as words, phrases, and structures—that speakers and writers use to express emotions, make judgments, and convey evaluations. According to Martin (2000), Appraisal Theory focuses on how negotiable attitudes and emotional intensities are expressed in discourse, and how speakers and writers position themselves and align their audience through evaluative language. In essence, Appraisal Theory examines how individuals evaluate people, texts, objects, events, and states of affairs, thereby forming alliances with those who share their views and distancing themselves from those who do not.

Appraisal Theory is regarded as an extension of the interpersonal metafunction within Systemic Functional Linguistics (Wang, 2001). When speakers and writers employ evaluative language, they are not merely expressing personal feelings; they are also negotiating social relationships. That is, by expressing agreement with certain values or opinions, they align themselves with others who hold similar views. Conversely, they oppose or distance themselves from those who hold conflicting positions.

From a semantic perspective, Appraisal Theory consists of three interrelated domains: Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation. Among these, Attitude occupies a central role. It concerns the expression of feelings, including emotional responses, ethical judgments, and evaluations of objects or phenomena. Engagement deals with the ways in which voices and perspectives are presented and negotiated within discourse. Graduation involves the scaling of intensity and the adjustment of category boundaries in evaluative expressions (Martin & White, 2005).

Each of these systems comprises specific subcategories. Attitude includes three types of sentiments: Affect (emotional responses), Judgment (moral evaluation of behavior), and Appreciation (aesthetic or value-based evaluation of things). Engagement is divided into Monoglossia (single-voiced discourse) and Heteroglossia (multi-voiced discourse). Graduation is further categorized into Force (degree of intensity) and Focus (degree of prototypicality).

The whole framework of Appraisal Theory is given below:

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