A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Attitudinal Resources in Modern English Poetry: The Appraisal System

Abstract

Languages are means by which speakers and writers communicate their common beliefs and personal attitudes. This study thus sought to analyze the attitudinal resources in four modern English poems written by the international poetess Lang Leav. The main aim was to find out the kind of worldview the poetess attempted to share with her readers from the perspective of the attitudinal system. This system is divided into three sub-systems: Affect, judgment, and appreciation. After the attitudinal resources were collected and classified, the results indicated that both affect and appreciation resources were frequently used in the comprised corpus, followed by judgment resources. Moreover, the study found that Leav mostly shared a pessimistic view of love and romantic relationships. Therefore, the poetess utilized negative attributes more than positive ones throughout her compositions. Finally, this study may give useful implications about how modern English poetry is constructed based on a reliable perspective.