The expressions of evaluative vocabulary we have looked at so far have all been explicit. This means that attitudes are ‘written into’ the dictionary meaning of words or phrases. Explicit evaluative vocabulary is closely related to the concept of denotation (the actual meaning of a word). However, effective writers and speakers also use a range of strategies for expressing evaluative meanings implicitly; that is, using connotation (the additional idea or emotion that a word suggests). Implicit evaluative meanings are not clearly ‘written into’ particular words; however, writers and speakers often provide signals in the text to evoke an evaluative response from the reader. Some signals of implicit evaluation in Nooria’s speech (text 6.4) are shown in table 6.3.
Signal of implicit evaluation
Example (vocabulary that carries implicit evaluation is underlined)
Meaning category
Lexical metaphor a new horizon with no more death and killing was welcoming us
positive affect (happiness)
Behaviours associated with values
our boat was guided by the Royal Australian Navy
positive judgement (caring)
Contrast But my dream wasn’t over, since I found myself in a prison.
negative affect (unhappiness)
Contextual references We arrived the day before the Olympic Games started.
positive affect (joy, fun)
positive judgement (welcoming all nations) Table 6.3
Implicit evaluation, particularly with contextual references, allows audiences to ‘read in’ evaluation; that is, to interpret the text evaluatively. This brings a degree of subjectivity to the reading. However, good readers use signals such as those shown in table 6.3 to support their interpretation. References to shared cultural values and iconic events are particularly powerful in evoking evaluations as the associated attitudes are typically deeply felt and complex. For an Australian audience, references to the Olympic Games, which were held in Sydney in 2000, are likely to evoke positive feelings and judgements. In a similar way, the reference to ‘a detention centre with fences around it’ is likely to evoke equally strong contrasting feelings and judgements, and assist Nooria to make her argument for compassion for refugees.
Exercise 6.5
Political speeches, such as Kevin Rudd’s Apology to the Stolen Generations, make strategic use of explicit and implicit judgement of human behaviour to justify the apology. Read the following extract, which describes Nanna Fejo’s character.
Exercise 6.4
Highlight the explicit evaluative vocabulary and underline the targets of the evaluation in the following extracts.
Text 6.5: extracts from Christopher’s review of The Cay
The book The Cay by Theodore Taylor is a thrilling story about survival and friendship with a powerful message about racial prejudice ...
Timothy has lived a hard life with both his parents being slaves. He never went to school and had worked on fishing boats since he was ten … He is wise and very knowledgeable …
The story is written in a fast-paced narrative style, with Phillip as the narrator … The writer uses detailed descriptions to create a vivid picture in the reader’s mind of the scenes as well as the action …
I found this book an exciting novel. The writer made me want to keep reading and reading until I was finished. Many of the scenes kept me in suspense. I could feel the characters’ emotions and, as I was reading, could clearly see the main themes beginning to emerge.
Complete the table by first listing examples of evaluative vocabulary you have identified in each paragraph. Then identify the targets of evaluation and the meaning category.
Paragraph Target of evaluation Examples of evaluative vocabulary (explicit)
Meaning category
1 The Cay (the book, story) thrilling appreciation
1 2 3 4 4
Note that most of the evaluative vocabulary in this review is appreciation. Even though Christopher does share his emotional reaction to the book, this is mostly expressed as qualities of the book rather than as his own feelings (‘thrilling’, ‘exciting’). Other evaluative choices relate to the crafting and value of the novel (appreciation) and to the characters and their development (judgement). Christopher uses these resources to create a more objective evaluative stance.
English teachers may be aware that many of their students get trapped in their own immediate emotional reactions as they attempt to write a review, unable to move into the more cognitively demanding forms of appraising the text. The tool kit we have introduced here provides teachers with a means of identifying where in a review their students react emotionally, where they are able to make judgements of characters and their development, and where they are able to evaluate the aesthetic, crafted features of the text.
Exercise 6.6
Circle the explicit values of judgement and underline the expressions of implicit judgement in the two paragraphs of text 6.7. Complete the table with information about the target, grammatical category and type of evaluative vocabulary. Examples from the first paragraph have been completed to guide you.
Text 6.7: extract from a review by Ming (Year 10)
‘Like a Long-legged Fly’ is a short story written by Ursula Dubosarsky. The title refers to a quote by William Yeats that starts the story and alerts the reader to important themes in the story …
Despite the rich descriptions and relevance of the themes to young people, however, the story itself seems a bit hollow. Even though we learn about the characters through their actions, we don’t learn enough about Martin or his grandmother to be able to empathise when Martin tells Snow, ‘She’s got cancer. She’s going to die very soon.’
Paragraph Target of evaluation
Examples of evaluative
vocabulary (explicit and implicit)
Grammatical category
1 title alerts the reader
(positive appreciation: implicit)
whole sentence
1 themes important
(positive appreciation: explicit)
attitudinal adjective (pre-modifier) 2 2 2 2
In this response, Ming has made choices of explicit appreciation to assess the crafting and value of the novel (‘important’) as well as implicit choices which combine assessments with information about the literary techniques used (‘The title refers to a quote by William Yeats ... and alerts the reader to important themes in the story’). Implicit vocabulary often appears more objective because it relies on some technical knowledge as well as the reader’s interpretation, rather than simply making the writer’s evaluation obvious.
As students progress through the years of secondary English and learn to use more of the technical terminology for evaluating literary texts, the more sophisticated reviews are often those that use more implicit forms of evaluation. For students who have diffi culty in reading or writing such implicit evaluations, a table such as the one in exercise 6.6 can provide a useful framework.
Text 6.6: extract from Kevin Rudd’s Apology speech
Let me begin to answer by telling the parliament just a little of one person’s story— an elegant, eloquent and wonderful woman in her 80s, full of life, full of funny stories, despite what has happened in her life’s journey, a woman who has travelled a long way to be with us today, a member of the Stolen Generation who shared some of her story with me when I called around to see her just a few days ago.
Circle the explicit values of judgement and underline the expressions of implicit judgement. Write your answers in the table and identify the signals of implicit evaluation.
Explicit Implicit Signals of implicit evaluation
How do these patterns of vocabulary choices for expressing judgement encourage listeners to respond to the story?
In this description, a list of positive judgements of Nanna Fejo’s character are introduced explicitly towards the beginning (elegant, eloquent and wonderful). Rudd then uses a number of signals to carry the positive evaluation implicitly through the whole description. Creating a positive picture of Nanna Fejo was an important rhetorical strategy for Rudd because it encouraged the audience to take her version of events seriously. However, if only explicit evaluation had been used, some listeners may have reacted negatively. As with Nooria’s story (text 6.4), Nanna Fejo’s story draws on a combination of implicit and explicit evaluative vocabulary to persuade audiences.
Some students are able to draw on intuitive understandings of how language encodes feelings, judgements and aesthetic appreciation. Yet, as many English teachers know, other learners have considerable diffi culty in this area. Knowing about the meaning categories of evaluative resources can be very empowering for students in constructing more effective texts of their own. Knowing also that affect, judgement and appreciation can be expressed implicitly as well as explicitly, and the ways in which such implicit evaluations can be made, is further empowering.
Now let’s look at how implicit and explicit evaluative vocabulary is used to assess aspects of a literary text in a well-developed student response.
80 Working Grammar Resources for expressing and grading attitudes: evaluative language 81
Graded meaning
(turning the volume down)
Core meaning Graded meaning
(turning the volume up) lope, amble, jog, trot run sprint, dash, hurtle, charge
whisper, mutter, mumble say scream, yell, snarl
scary frightening, terrifying, horrifying Table 6.4
Well-crafted stories adjust the ‘volume’ repeatedly so that the audience goes on a roller-coaster ride of emotions as confl icts are created and resolved across phases. In the chase scene of the story ‘The Sudden Snow’, the author, Paul Collins, uses multiple choices of graded vocabulary to create suspense. For example:
The girl veered off from the jetty, dodged Cade, and somehow sprinted across the foreshore.
The ground jarred … ‘The boat ramp!’ I screamed. We smacked into the ground hard.
Students can be encouraged to identify graded core vocabulary in the stories they read and to discuss how it is used to build and control suspense. English teachers can help students to build graded vocabulary banks around core meanings, thus providing a valuable resource as students learn to adjust the volume of events and descriptions in their own stories.
Exercise 6.7
Use adverbials and graded core vocabulary to enrich the meanings and create greater suspense in the adventure story (text 6.9). At this stage, focus only on adjusting the volume of the action, sensing and saying verbs, which are underlined.
Text 6.9: adventure story
One night two boys took their father’s car and drove it through the streets of the town. After ten minutes, they saw a police car in the distance.
‘Oh dear,’ said Ethan. ‘What will we do?’ ‘Turn here,’ John answered.
Ethan turned. Then they saw that the road was a dead end. ‘Stop,’ said John.
‘I can’t find the break pedal,’ answered Ethan. Then John leaned over and pulled up the handbrake. The car stopped.
‘Phew. That was close,’ said John.
‘Thank goodness,’ said Ethan. ‘I think I’ll wait till I’m 16 to drive this again’.