Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background of the present study 1
1.2 Rationale for the present study 2
1.2.1 Why evaluation？ 2
1.2.2 Why evaluation in movie reviews？ 3
1.3 Objectives of the present study 4
1.4 Organization of the book 5
Chapter 2 Literature Review 6
2.1 Previous studies of evaluation in media discourse 6
2.2 Previous studies of prosody 13
2.3 Research questions 18
Chapter 3 Theoretical Foundations 20
3.1 Appraisal Theory 20
3.2 Attitude 22
3.3 Theoretical framework 31
Chapter 4 Methodology 35
4.1 Data collection 35
4.2 Analytical tools 37
4.2.1 UAM CorpusTool 37
4.2.2 AntConc 3.2.1 43
4.3 Analytical procedures 44
Chapter 5 Semantic Features of Attitude in Movie Reviews 47
5.1 Overview of the semantic features of attitude 47
5.2 Affect in movie reviews 60
5.3 Judgement in movie reviews 71
5.4 Appreciation in movie reviews 82
Chapter 6 Prosodic Patterns of Attitude in Movie Reviews 93
6.1 Structure and prosody 93
6.2 Prosodic patterns of attitude at the discourse level 97
6.3 Harmonious attitudinal prosodic unity 114
Chapter 7 Modulations of Attitude in Movie Reviews 121
7.1 Modulations of the dialogic space 121
7.1.1 Closing of the dialogic space 122
7.1.2 Contraction of the dialogic space 125
7.1.3 Expansion of the dialogic space 130
7.2 Modulation of the force of attitude 137
7.3 Sample analysis 144
Chapter 8 Discussion 153
8.1 Generic structure potential of movie reviews 153
8.2 Influence of context of culture 163
Chapter 9 Conclusion 176
9.1 Major findings 176
9.2 Implications of the present study 179
9.3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies 180
Appendix 1 Information of the Data for Analysis 182
Appendix 2 Movie Review Sample 188
References 192