Appraisal Analysis of Selected Literary Book Reviews in English and Arabic

Abstract

This paper aimed at investigating the use of evaluative language in English and Arabic literary book reviews. To this end, Martin and White's (2005) model of  Appraisal Theory was adopted. The distribution of the three appraisal systems attitude, engagement, and graduation were scrutinized by analyzing a corpus of ten literary book reviews, five of which were written by English writers and five of which were written by Arabic writers. The findings indicated that reviewers in both languages functionalize appraisal resources extensively to express evaluation, stance, and engage readers. However, as compared to English reviews, Arabic reviews show a higher overall frequency of appraisal resources, indicating a stronger preference for explicit evaluation and interpersonal involvement. Attitude is the most commonly used category among the three appraisal systems in both corpora, indicating the reviewers' focus on affective and aesthetic evaluation. Furthermore, the attitude resources were the most frequently utilized, with appreciation emerging as the dominant subcategory of appraisal resources. Conversely, engagement occurs least frequently, indicating a comparatively limited use of dialogic positioning and alternative perspective. The analysis also reveals differences in the intensity and rhetorical realization of evaluative meanings, reflecting the influence of linguistic conventions and sociocultural writing practices on literary criticism in the two languages.  The results show how Appraisal Theory can be applied to literary book reviews in both Arabic and English. They also offer practical implications for discourse analysis, translation studies and academic writing instruction by enhancing understanding of evaluative language and stance-taking across linguistic and cultural contexts.