ANALYSIS OF COMMENTARY OF “A FAREWELL TO ARMS” USING APPRAISAL THEORY

Abstract

Appraisal theory is concerned about the interpersonal meaning of a language. It acts as a tool for people to negotiate their attitudes and feelings. Therefore, every social event that appears is social relationship which results in a text that might be spoken or written. Novel commentary is one kind of text in which the reviewer poses his or her attitude and feelings towards the writer. This paper examines the language used by the writer of the Great American Bathroom Book (GABB) Volume 1 in giving commentary towards Ernest Hemingway’s novel entitled A Farewell to Arms on page 5-A2. Appraisal theory is used to investigate the evaluative language expressed by the writer in reviewing the novel and presenting his opinion on the novel under review.

The findings demonstrate that the commentary mostly contains positive Appreciation as it reviews the novel. Positive Appreciation means that the writer evaluates the novel good and worth to read. Moreover in the last paragraph, he uses the word preeminent to appraise the novel writer, Ernest Hemingway. The analytical tool, afforded by the Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation systems, have been useful for the analysis of the novel commentary as it had allowed for a linguistic description to give review for the readers.

Keywords: appraisal theory, novel commentary, discourse analysis