ABSTRACT
The interpersonal metafunction has been extensively expanded, under the heading “Appraisal”. Appraisal is an attempt to analyse the traces of the subjective presence of the speaker which are present in his text. This is analysed in terms of three basic systems known as “attitude”, “engagement” and “graduation”. Attitude is concerned with the feelings of the speaker and how these are expressed in the text; this can be further divided into “affect”, “judgement” and “appreciation”. Appreciation is concerned with the ways the speaker evaluates things. Within the function of engagement, the speaker can simply put forward something which he accepts as being his own position or he can express it in relation to other possible points of view. In heteroglossic engagement, disclaiming is where the speaker presents something as being the position of others, but which he does not necessarily accept, by denying or countering it in some way.
