AN ATTITUDINAL ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE LOVE SONGS FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF APPRAISAL THEORY

Abstract

The present study examined two sub-categories of Attitude, Affect and Judgement, in lyrics of English and Vietnamese love songs in the light of Appraisal Theory. The study aimed to investigate the semantic values and syntactic realizations of Attitude sub-categories from 50 English love songs and 50 Vietnamese ones. This descriptive study employed the qualitative method to describe and interpret the data of the sub-categories of Affect and Judgement in terms of semantics and syntax. In addition, quantitative method was also applied to show the distributions and occurrences of instances of Affect and Judgement in English and Vietnamese love songs’ lyrics by some statistical tables. The findingsof the research revealed that the two sub-categories of Attitude could be recognized in various groups and phrase. Moreover, the study worked out typical functions of Affect and Judgement as components in Mental and Behavioural processes. Semantically, the findings showed that all Appraisal evaluating values were reflected in English and Vietnamese love songs. The study also put forward some implications to comprehending of the sub-categories of Attitude in the love songs and provided the teachers and university students majoring in English with practical implications to evaluate a discourse fragment and interpret a discourse fragment in the light of Appraisal Theory and in line with Systemic Functional Linguistics.