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2.12.3 GRADUATION
Under GRADUATION as the last sub-system of APPRAISAL , or sometimes referred to as the semantics of scaling, it is argued that.
…concerned with values which act to provide grading or scaling, either in terms of the interpersonal force which the speaker
attaches to an utterance or in terms of the preciseness or sharpness of focus with which an item exemplifies a valuer relationship.
These two dimensions are variously labeled ‘FORCE’ variable scaling of intensity, and ‘FOCUS’ sharpening or bluring of
category boundaries APPRAISAL Homepage, 2001.
Therefore, it can be inferred that GRADUATION divides itself into two sub- categories, 1 FORCE and 2 FOCUS. The following figure will clarify.
Force gradables
Focus non-graded Graduation
Sharpen scaled up
Soften scaled down a true friend
kindv, sortv, as good as Implicit
Explicit adore versus love versus like
slightly, somewhat, really etc
Adopted from White 1998:110
Figure 2-30 GRADUATION
To further elaborate, I discuss FORCE and FOCUS under separate headings.
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2.12.3.1 FORCE
The aim of giving ‘force’ is to intensify the meaning of an utterance with gradable attitudal values, such as found in the following Javanese phrases.
1
gandeng renteng reruntungan
arm in arm together 2
kentar-kentar bagus pasuryane
more and more handsome his face 3
Temanten putri dedege sedheng ora duwur ora cendhek
The bride’s posture appropriate not tall not short
The phrases printed in bold represent ‘gradable force’ which may be considered
‘exaggerating’ but they are very common in describing a wedding reception. White 1998 enlists possible gradable forces, such as by using the following linguistic features:
• colour: a bloody awful day • repetition: he laughed and laughed; it was horrible, horrible
• metaphor: prices skyrocketed; they thrashed out a compromise; staff have been axed; mired in controversy; civil war has erupted amongst Scottish Tories; rain
bucketed the state • quality: the car veered off the road, prices plunged, they ousted the president,
he gulped the drink, the film star was whisked away. • evaluatory: desperate bid, damning indictment, key figure, formidable
opponent • universalise, The talks went on endlessly, Everyone wants to be rich and
famous, The Opposition is always complaining, He thinks of food all day long. • Measure plus: minuscule, tiny, huge, gargantuan
White 1998:111
2.12.3.2 FOCUS
Unlike FORCE which gives gradable force to an entity, FOCUS gives non- gradable force to an entity, such as shown in the following phrases.
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1 katresnan jati
love true true love
2 tuhu satria pinunjul
definitely knight distinguished definitely distinguished knight
3 saestu dereng emah-emah
really not yet married really not yet married
The words printed in bold represent non-gradable values. According to White
1998 non-gradable values can be of 1 low intensity and 2 high intensity such as exemplified below.
Table 2.10 Intensification
Low INTENSITY High INTENSITY
Probability Perhaps he’s a post-modernist
He’s definitely a post-modernist Appearance
He seems to be a post-modernist It’s obvious he’s a post- modernist
Proclaim I’d say he’s a post-modernist
I declare he’s a post-modernist Extra-vocalise
She say’s he’s a post-modernist She insists he’s a post modernist
Affect He likes post-modernists
He adores post-modernists Judgement
He’s a satisfactory post- modernist
He’s a brilliant post-modernist Appreciation
An attractive post-modernist work.
A minor post-modern work An exquisite post-modernist
work. A major post-modern work
Focus It’s a post-modern work, kind of
It’s genuinely post-modern
It should be noted, however, that ‘appraisal theory is very much an on-going project, many problems are still to be solved and many lexicogrammatical and semantic
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issues have not yet been addressed The Appraisal Homepage 2001. Therefore, the theoretical framework presented above may later be modified in accordance with the data
found in the field. Continuous checking with the up-dated references is conducted to fully describe the data the Javanese used by a Pranatacara.
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CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHOD
This chapter presents the research method of the study. First of all, I describe the research design to give an overview of how the study was conducted. Then, I describe
the unit of analysis by which each step of analysis was bound. Described next are the setting and procedures of data collection, followed by triangulation. Finally I describe the
procedures for data analysis
3.1 Research Design
The study was socio-pragmatically designed with the aim of investigating the interpersonal meanings of the Javanese language used by Pranatacara in a wedding
reception. It is therefore descriptive, qualitative and interpretative in nature. It documented the phenomena of interest, and then it describes the observed phenomena in
the form of words rather than numbers. The significant behaviours, i.e. especially the interpersonal language metafunction of the Pranatacara on duty, with regards to his
spoken discourse were identified and analyzed. The study employs the design of observational case study. It focuses on one
case, namely the interpersonal meanings of the oral performance of the Pranatacara in a wedding reception.
The site selected was one of the wedding events in which the subject was on duty. Observation was the primary way to collect the data. It was therefore a passive