Attitudinal Cartography: Mapping Style Preferences
摘要
This chapter and Chap. 5 report findings arising from the project’s first analytical perspective: a synoptic view of attitudinal disposition. This synoptic perspective is concerned with tendencies in a disputant’s evaluative language use across an entire text or a complete textual stage. Specifically, this chapter investigates disputants’ attitudinal orientations towards the self and others: what attitudes the disputing spouses conveyed, in what combinations, and at what frequencies. In Appraisal terms, the analysis focuses on options within the attitude system. The exploration unfolds in two complementary stages, addressing ‘preference’ through ‘occurrence’ and ‘ratio’ analyses. Each analytical stage provides distinct insights into the above questions around the disputants’ attitudinal choices during the mediation exchange.