English Idioms and Appraisal

English Idioms and Appraisal* CHANG Chenguang Sun Yat-sen University 1. Introduction This paper analyzes the evaluative functions of English idioms. Working within the Appraisal framework developed by Martin and his colleagues (Christie & Martin 1997; Eggins & Slade 1997; Martin 2000, 2002; Martin & Rose 2003; White 1998, 1999), the paper first demonstrates how idioms are used to express Affect, Judgment and Appreciation, and then focuses on how these expressions provide grading in terms of the interpersonal force attached to an utterance. It will be shown that idioms often evaluate implicitly by describing extraordinary behaviour or with metaphorical expressions and that they serve to entail multiple values, which work together as amplifiers to intensify the evaluative force. 2. English Idioms and attitudinal meanings It is now generally acknowledged that, in addition to communicating propositional content, speakers/writers also use language to express personal feelings, attitudes, value judgments, and assessments of people, entities and events in the world (Halliday 1994/2000). Lemke (1998), for example, maintains that “lexicogrammatical resources enable us to construct attitudinal stances not only toward interlocutors and audiences but also toward the ideational content of propositions and proposals” (see also Biber et al 1999/2000; Halliday 1994/2000; Hunston & Thompson 2000; Thompson 1996/2000). Yet until recently, interpersonal assessment has remained “one of the least understood and most under-researched areas in linguistics” (Eggins & Slade 1997), and “the semantics of evaluation” has tended to be elided in linguistic analysis (Martin 2000). Martin and his colleagues (e.g. Martin 2000, 2002; Martin & Rose 2003; White 1998, 1999) have greatly expanded the account of attitudinal meaning within the Systemic Functional framework to develop new analyses of the semantics of attitude, evaluation and inter-subjective positioning. According to Martin (1997, 2000, 2002), the term “Appraisal” is used as an umbrella term to encompass all evaluative uses of language, including those by which speakers adopt particular value positions or stances and by which they negotiate these stances with either actual or potential respondents. According to Eggins & Slade (1997), a great deal of Appraisal is realized through lexis as well as grammar (see also Lemke 1998, Thompson 1996/2000: 65-67). The Appraisal theory establishes three sub-categories of attitude: Affect, Judgment and Appreciation, as well as resources for amplifying attitudinal meanings. According to Martin (2000), Affect, which is concerned with emotional response and disposition, can be taken as the basic one. This basic system is then institutionalized as Judgment and Appreciation. Judgment encompasses meanings which serve to evaluate human behaviour by reference to a set of institutionalized norms – norms about how people should and should not behave. It can therefore be taken as Affect “recontextualized as an evaluation matrix for behaviour, with a view to *

The author would like to thank Professor J. R. Martin for all his suggestions and encouragement. 1

controlling what people do”. The system of Appreciation by which evaluations are made of products and processes can be regarded as Affect “recontextualized as an evaluation matrix for the products of behaviour, with a view to valuing what people achieve” (Martin 2000). The affectual basis of Judgment and Appreciation can be represented in Figure 1 below: Ethics/morality (rules and regulations) Feeling institutionalized as proposals

JUDGEMENT: 'a boring speaker' institutionalisation of feeling with respect to behaviour

AFFECT: 'he bores me'

APPRECIATION: 'a boring speech' institutionalisation of feeling with respect to products and processes

Feeling institutionalized as propositions Aesthetic/value (criteria and assessment) Figure 1: Judgment and Appreciation as institutionalized Affect (based on Martin 2000, White 1998) In the following, we will briefly illustrate how the evaluative meanings of English idioms can be modeled in the Appraisal theory. (1) Idioms and Affect Idioms are frequently used to encode affect. According to the Appraisal framework, affect can be realized prosodically as a mental state or predisposition, where attitudinal meaning is encoded as “quality” attributed to the participants. When idioms are involved, affect is typically realized through attributive relationals of affect or through mental processes of reaction, as in the following examples (based on Martin’s classification). a. Duncan Harris is over the moon [happiness: cheer: disposition]. He’s just bought the house of his dreams and because he was ready to take on a larger mortgage, Abbey National has just the right deal for him. (Advertisement, Sunday Times Magazine, October 1992) b. We were approaching Cape Horn, where we had almost lost our lives two years ago, and so until we would get around Cape Horn, I was definitely on pins and needles [insecurity: disquiet: disposition]. (Bank of English) c. The post was delivered at noon and at five minutes to she looked at her watch and him. Though Ashenden knew very well that no letter would ever come for

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her he had not the heart to keep her on tenter-hooks [insecurity: disquiet: disposition]. (Maugham, W. S. Ashenden. 1928) More often, however, affect is realized through the use of idiomatic expressions as a surge of feeling, embodied in some paralinguistic or extralinguistic manifestation. For example: d. One pregnant lady, about to deliver, went to her pit latrine to relieve herself, and the baby started coming out. It was a near catastrophe; just thinking about it gave me the willies [insecurity: surprise: surge of behaviour]. (Hale, T. On the Far Side of Liglig Mountain. 1989) e. He wasted no time with social niceties, asking her immediately how many times she had tried to commit suicide. She was taken aback [insecurity: surprise: surge of behaviour], but her reply was equally forthright: ‘Four or five times.’ (Morton, A. Diana: Her True Story. 1992) f. I saw her just before her talk and she was shaking like a leaf [insecurity: disquiet: surge of behaviour]. (Cambridge International Corpus) Whether affect is realized prosodically as a mental state or predisposition or through the use of idiomatic expressions as a surge of feeling, the idioms usually involve hyperbole or metaphor. For example: g. European peace negotiator Lord Owen also made an emotional plea for an end to the carnage. “My heart bleeds for [unhappiness: misery: surge of behaviour] the people of Gorazde,” he said. “We have to get a food convoy in there.” (Bank of English) h. These men and women, although some of them no doubt had chips on their shoulders [insecurity: disquiet: disposition] or personal axes to grind, had also an admirable devotion to a Cause they could get nothing from in the foreseeable future except victimization. (Day-Lewis, C. The Buried Day. 1960) The use of hyperbole or metaphor in these expressions also serve to upscale the evaluative force, a point to which we will return later in this paper. (2) Idioms and Judgment Judgment, according to Martin (2000, 2002), can be thought of as “the institutionalization of feeling, in the context of proposals”. The social norms at risk with judgment take the form of rules and regulations or of less precisely defined social expectations and systems of value. Thus, under judgment we may assess behaviour as moral or immoral, as legal or illegal, as socially acceptable or unacceptable, as normal or abnormal and so on. English idioms are more often used to encode this kind of evaluative meaning. The value of judgment can be explicitly expressed by means of a particular lexical choice, where evaluation is overtly “inscribed” in the text. When idioms are involved, however, judgment is more often indirectly evoked or implied by “tokens” of judgment. These can be exemplified in: i. Italy’s continuing corruption probe took a fresh turn with the confession by Carlo De Benedetti, Olivetti’s Chairman, that he, too, was forced to grease a few palms [Judgement: -propriety] along the way. (Bank of English) j. In all of this, I see a standard British mess – of wanting to have cakes and eat them [Judgement: -propriety]. We want the old university system, but we won’t give it either money or the discipline that used to make it work. (Sunday Times, 17 January 1993) 3

k. You may fear that I am about to use my column inches as a whetstone on which to grind a very private axe [Judgement: -veracity], but I can assure you that, so far as I can remember, I have no personal reason to dislike this ludicrous figure … (Daily Telegraph, 22 November 1991) l. On the phone, Paul doesn’t mince his words [Judgement: -veracity] to the grower. “You are basically giving us a load of rubbish in the North,” he says, sitting at his desk in shirt sleeves, dark spotty tie and flashy watch. (Good Housekeeping, December 1991) In many of the metaphorical idioms, what appears literally to be unevaluated descriptions of some events or state of affairs have become institutionalized tokens of judgment. More examples of such idioms include: add insult to injury, bite off more than one can chew, call a spade a spade, fiddle while Rome burns, flog a dead horse, have one’s hand in the till, keep up with the Joneses, kick someone when they are down, not rest on one’s laurels, lose one’s marbles, toss in the towel, take the bull by the horns, take the low road, climb on the bandwagon, etc. (3) Idioms and Appreciation Appreciation, in the Appraisal theory (Martin 2000, 2002), can be thought of as the system by which human feelings, either positive or negative, towards products, processes and entities are institutionalized as a set of evaluations. The system is organized in three subcategories: reaction, composition and valuation. Under reaction, the product or process is evaluated in terms of the impact it makes or its quality. Under composition, the product or process is evaluated according to its makeup, according to whether it conforms to various conventions of formal organization. Finally, valuation has to do with our assessment of the social significance of the product or process. For example: m. I work as a technician in a secondary school where we have 21 Macs. The staff think the machines are the best thing since sliced bread [+valuation] and use them all time for their work. (Macuser, 1 May 1992) n. The world’s most beautiful and most talented people we are told are walking bean poles. Luciano proves this to be a load of codswallop [-valuation] and he doesn’t have to sing in the rain in order to prove it. (Mid Sussex Times, 16 August 1991) o. The problem concerns that old chestnut [-reaction: impact] the professional foul, and the new guidelines issued by FIFA in July that affect not only British football but the game the world over. (Mid Sussex Times, 6 September 1991) p. Herrings supreme – There are enough red herrings [+composition: complexity], plots, twists and anti-climaxes in the first two hours of this drama to keep the keenest mind guessing. (TV Guide, 11-17 September 1978, cited in Fernando 1996: 118) As Martin & Rose (2003) point out, “valuation is especially tied up with field, since the criteria for valuing a text/process are for the most part institutionally specific”. In (p), for example, the idiom red herrings, which normally evaluates negatively, is used here to expresses approval. Moreover, there are also borderline cases where two readings are possible (White 1998), i.e. where attitude could be analyzed as either judgment of character or appreciation of things. So it is always important to take the co-text into account. After all, attitudinal meanings are better seen as carried by utterances or complete propositions than by individual lexical items, although it is 4

possible to point to individual lexical items as carrying attitudinal assessment. The unit of analysis should therefore be the proposition or proposal, or a sequence of interconnected propositions or proposals. 3. Idioms and evaluative force As has been argued elsewhere (Chang 2004), idioms are important lexical resources which are evaluative in the sense that they are not neutral alternatives to their literal counterparts but include some attitude or comment on the entities and phenomena they describe. Idioms represent institutionalized sociocultural values. When a speaker uses an idiom, he/she is invoking an ideology, locating a concept within it, and appealing to it as authority, thus making the evaluation more forceful and harder to challenge. The evaluative force of idioms can also be explained by analyzing the different makeup of the various idiomatic expressions themselves. Martin (1997, 2000; see also White 1998, 1999) links the sub-systems of Affect, Judgment and Appreciation with Graduation and Engagement. In the Appraisal framework, graduation refers to values by which (i) speakers graduate (raise or lower) the interpersonal impact, force or volume of their utterances, and (ii) by which they graduate (blur or sharpen) the focus of their semantic categorizations (White 1998). In Eggins & Slade (1997: 133-137), the general resources for grading is referred as Amplification, which is subcategorized into enrichment, augmenting and mitigation. White (1998) provides a more detailed network of the system of Graduation, making finer distinctions between isolating and fused values, between graders and amplifiers and between experiential and interpersonal values under the sub-system of Force. White’s network of the system Force is reproduced below.

Solitary

Grade

slightly, somewhat, very

Repeat

he laughed and laughed

Colour

bloody awful

Graders

Force Experientialise

Measure

small, large

Metaphor

prices skyrocketed

Quality

the car veered

Fused

Interpersonalise

Measure Plus

gargantuan

Evaluatory

desperate bid

Universalise

endless talks

Figure 2: The system of GRADUATION: FORCE (White 1998)

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According to White (1998), Graders are lexical items which form sets of terms by which different degrees of intensity may be specified. Amplifiers, on the other hand, operate in sets which only serve to indicate high or maximal values of intensity. In the following, we will only concern ourselves with idioms as amplifiers, exploring them in terms of the values proposed by White in the system above. It should be pointed out from the outset, however, that idioms, as special lexical items, often serve to entail multiple values, thus intensifying the evaluative force. (1) Repetition in binomials and trinomials Binomials, trinomials and idioms with like structures often serve to augment attitudinal meaning and are similar to repetition as amplifiers of attitudinal values. Idioms such as part and parcel, safe and sound, hustle and bustle, alive and kicking, by and large, first and foremost, cheek by jowl, with might and main, stuff and nonsense, come hell or high water, the whys and wherefores, etc. all have an emphatic function and can raise or intensify the interpersonal impact or force. The following are more examples of such idioms in use. q. Because of your age, it develops into a serious thing and then you can’t get involved with other people. You want the closeness, but because you’ve only got three years at university, you also want to be footloose and fancy free. (Daily Express, 8 October 1991) r. “He loved gardening,” sniffed Mrs. Gascoigne. “He went at it hammer and tongs as soon as he got back from work.” (Bank of English) s. I am not advocating a general wailing and gnashing of teeth or sackcloth and ashes. But emotional outbursts might be less dramatic or violent if a little steam were occasionally vented harmlessly. (Daily Mail, 12 September 1991) t. Once your child passes his second birthday, speech develops in leaps and bounds and the more you talk to him and involve him in what you do, the greater his vocabulary becomes. (Bank of English) As is obvious, many of these idioms consist of synonymous terms, and produce effects akin to those in repetition such as he laughed and laughed; it was horrible, horrible…(White 1998). Other binomial or trinomial idioms amplify by universalizing exaggeration, as in far and wide, any Tom, Dick, or Harry, left, right and center, lock, stock and barrel; hook, line and sinker, where the values are maximized, heightening the sense of “all”, “everywhere”, “everything”, etc. The intensified force here is entailed by a combination of the universalizing exaggeration and the repetition. Similarly, Sinclair (quoted in Moon 1998: 154) also notes that many antonymic binomials have a meaning along the lines of “everything” or “no matter what”, and are therefore emphatic, as in from the cradle to the grave, up hill and down dale, by fair means or foul, by hook or by crook, etc. (2) Metaphors and comparative elements in idioms Attitudinal meanings can be enriched by idioms containing comparative elements and metaphors (transparent or opaque). Institutionalized comparisons are typically but not always transparent, and are signaled by as or like. These idioms often produce clear and vivid images through which the sense of “very”, “extremely”, etc. is enriched. u. I didn’t see her face, but I knew it was a women. She tore across the highway like a bat out of hell. I damn nearly ploughed right into her. (Bank of English)

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Idioms of this category also include as black as the devil, as dead as a doornail, as nutty as a fruitcake, as simple as falling of a log, like a bull in a china shop, like a red rag to a bull, like lambs to the slaughter, built like a tank, spread like wildfire, etc. In metaphorical idioms, especially those involving transparent or semi-transparent metaphors, the institutionalized idiomatic meanings get strengthened through the images or vehicles of the metaphors, which are often exaggerated and represent the epitomes of certain actions or qualities under evaluation, as in burn a hole in one’s pocket, talk the hind leg off a donkey, put the cat among the pigeons, bark up the wrong tree, call a spade a spade, etc. (3) Manipulation in the use of idioms The use of idiomatic expressions, particularly proverbs and metaphorical idioms, can be seen as part of a discourse of familiarity, enforcing an acknowledgement of common ground between the discourse participants by appealing to shared sociocultural schemas and evaluation. Béjoint (2000/2001: 216) argues that the manipulated forms can function in discourse only because there are “canonical” forms in the language that the receiver of the message knows as such. Metaphorical idioms lend themselves easily to manipulation since they contain images which are most easily exploited. In the manipulated forms, the original images or vehicles are further exaggerated, generating a heightened authorial force, as in the following example. v. He works 18 hours a day. He rings people up at 4 a.m. his time. He burns the candle at five ends. He might look like this huge heavyweight boxer, but his family and friends have worried about his health for years. (OHPT data, cited in Moon 1998) Clearly, the exploitation of the idiom in the example makes the text more vivid through the exaggerated metaphorical image, thus amplifying the attitudinal force. As indicated in White’s model (White 1998), the infused values can be further divided according to whether the value which entails the intensification is experiential or interpersonal. In cases of idioms manipulation, the value of intensification is often fused with an experiential element, as in the following example. w. The paper’s editorial described the section as “a nasty piece of work” which gave the police “a considerable measure of arbitrary and unchallengeable judgment”. Using it against the hippies was like relying on “an earthmover to crack a nut”. (OHPC data, cited in Moon 1998) Here, the intensification is entailed by an experiential value, with earthmover substituting for sledgehammer in the canonical form of the idiom (use a sledgehammer to crack a nut), further exaggerating the metaphorical image. Of course, the infused values can also involve interpersonal intensification in manipulated idioms. For example, a common form of manipulation is the modification of idioms by the insertion of adjectives as well as other intensifiers or evaluatives. x. Titmuss is contemptuous, hooded-eyed, vindictive; he staggers visibly under the weight of a giant chip on the shoulder. (The Times, 4 September 1991) y. Economic reform, political stability and close ties with Washington are the biggest feathers in Mr Menem’s cap. (Financial Times, 13 November 1991) In these two examples, the two modifiers giant and biggest are added to the manipulated idioms (have a chip on one’s shoulder, a feather in one’s cap) and can be classified in White’s network as Measure Plus under the Interpersonal, which serve to entail evaluations of double intensity.

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(4) Up-scaling expletives in idioms A special category of the interpersonalized values concerns the use of up-scaling expletives in idioms, as in all hell breaks loose, like hell, get the hell out, not give a damn about something, scare the hell out of someone, scream bloody murder, work one’s ass off, etc. Expletives may also be added in the manipulated forms of idioms to amplify the attitudinal force, as in z. Nicola is refreshingly down-to-earth and not afraid to call a spade a bloody shovel if she has to. (Bank of English) Other expletives and up-scaling non-core lexis include arse, crap, fuck, shit, sod, toss, etc., which often get fused as an interpersonalized value in the idioms. (5) Idioms and the prosodic amplification of attitudinal force Martin (1992) points out that interpersonal meanings predispose prosodic forms of realization, which spreads across a clause or group, especially where these meanings are amplified. To illustrate the prosodic form of representation, Martin analyzes the sentence “That stupid cretin is really giving me the bloody shits”, where the prosody is realized continuously, and the negative attitude is amplified wherever the potential for expressing attitudinal meaning is made available. Where idioms are involved in the encoding of attitudinal meanings, the values of the different sets along the two different axes in White’s system often work together to realize the amplification of meaning. Moreover, idioms also join force with other idiomatic and non-idiomatic expressions in discourse to produce prosodic forms of representation. For instance, in example (u) above, the amplification of attitude is expressed prosodically, through the use of metaphor (tore across), quality amplifier (ploughed into), an idiom involving institutionalized comparison (like a bat out of hell), and up-scaling expletive (damn), etc. 4. Conclusions In this paper, we have tried to show that English idioms are an important lexical resource in the expression of a range of different attitudinal meanings, which can be modeled within the Appraisal theory. We have focused on how idiomatic expressions provide grading in terms of the interpersonal force attached to an utterance. It is argued that many idioms serve to entail multiple values, which work together as amplifiers to intensify the evaluative force. These values also join force with other idiomatic and non-idiomatic expressions in discourse to produce prosodic realizations of appraisal.

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References Béjoint, H. 2002/2001. Modern Lexicography: An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press / Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Biber, D. et al. 1999/2000. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Pearson Education Ltd. / Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Chang Chenguang 2004. English Idioms and Interpersonal Meanings. Guangzhou: Sun Yat-sen University Press. Christie, F. & Martin, J. R. (eds.) 1997. Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Continuum. Eggins, S. & Slade, D. 1997. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell. Fernando, C. 1996. Idioms and Idiomaticity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliday, M. A. K. 1994/2000. An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). London: Edward Arnold./ Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (eds.) 2000. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lemke, J. L. 1998. Resources for attitudinal meaning: evaluation orientations in text semantics, Functions of Language, Vol. 5, No. 1: 33-56. Martin, J.R. 1992. English Text: System and Structure. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Martin, J.R. 1997. Analyzing genre: functional parameters, in Christie, F. & Martin, J. R. (eds.). Genre and Institutions: Social Processes in the Workplace and School. London: Continuum. 3-39. Martin, J.R. 2000. Beyond Exchange: APPRAISAL Systems in English, in Hunston, S. & Thompson, G. (eds.) Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 142-175. Martin, J.R. 2002. Appraisal: An Overview. http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal /Appraisal Guide/UnFramed/Appraisal-Overview.htm Martin, J. R. & Rose, D. 2003. Working with Discourse: Meaning Beyond the Clause. London: Continuum. Moon, R. 1998. Fixed Expressions and Idioms in English: A Corpus-Based Approach. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thompson, G. 1996/2000. Introducing Functional Grammar. London: Edward Arnold. /Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. White, P. R. 1998. Telling Media Tales: the News Story as Rhetoric. University of Sydney. Unpublished PhD. thesis. White, P. R. 1999. An introductory tour through appraisal theory. http://www.grammatics.com/ appraisal/AppraisalOutline/UnFramed/AppraisalOutline.htm

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