In considering Attitude, we are concerned with those utterances which can be interpreted as indicating that some person, thing, situation, action, event or state of affairs is to be viewed either positively or negatively. That is to say, we classify as attitudinal any utterance which either conveys a negative or positive assessment or which can be interpreted as inviting the reader to supply their own negative or positive assessments.
There are various ways in which attitude can be conveyed or invoked, some of which make for easier analysis and others for less easy analysis. The most straightforward cases involve the use of individual words or phrases which overtly indicate the attitudinal position being taken by the writer or speaker. In the following, for example, it is a relatively straightforward matter to identify the individual words which convey the writer's positive attitude towards the newly elected US President Bush and his just delivered inaugural speech. (See underlining)
The new president's speech was elegant and well-woven, sounding a panoply of themes without seeming scattered. A man not known for his silver tongue, he delivered it with an uncharacteristic grace. (New York Post, Jan 21 2001 - Comment)
The situation, however, if often rather more complex. For a start, the indication of attitudinal position is often conveyed not by single words but by phrases or by the interaction of multiple elements of the utterance. Consider, for example, the following.
George W. Bush delivered his inaugural speech as the United States President who collected 537,000 fewer votes than his opponent. Without the intervention of a partisan, right-wing Supreme Court to ensure the election of a Republican, Mr Bush would now be a forgotten loser. The Observer considers his election an affront to the democratic principle with incalculable consequences for America and the world. Mr Bush's inaugural attempt to assert his brand of one-nation, compassionate conservatism is bluster and hogwash. He has acted from the moment Al Gore conceded as if he had won a wholehearted mandate. But the Bush cabinet is neither centrist nor compassionate. In home affairs, it is brutalist and reactionary - for tax cuts overtly biased towards the rich, against the protection of consumers, workers and the environment. In overseas affairs, Mr Bush has appointed Cold War warriors from his father's era who do not appreciate the nuances of a transformed international environment. (The Observer, Jan 21, 2001 - leader page)
Certainly there are intances of individual words conveying a clear attitudinal meaning - for example, `partisan', `compassionate', `hogwash', `brutalist' and `reactionary'. But at numerous points it is not individual words but word combinations with convey Attitude - for example, `his election [is] an affront to the democratic principle' and `Cold War warriors who do not appreciate the nuances of a transformed international environment.' As a consequence, it is better to see Attitude as a feature or property, not of individual words (though individual words may be `attitudinal), but of complete utterances, of stretches of language which present a complete proposition or proposal.
The extract above points us to an additional, related complication - the fact that Attitude can be implicit or invoked, rather than explicitly indicated. Consider for example,
George W. Bush delivered his inaugural speech as the United States President who collected 537,000 fewer votes than his opponent.
On the face of it, this may present itself as a simple statement of fact. Certainly the utterance contains no explicit indication of attitude, no individual word of phrase which can be said to indicate a positive or negative assessment. Yet, at least in this context, the proposition presented certainly can be interpreted as indicating something negative about the new President, as indicating that there is something wrong, illegitimate, dishonest or perverse about his election victory. This potential depends, of course, on what is often termed `reading position'- it depends on the reader's views of the democratic process generally, of the US electoral system specifically, and probably on the reader's party-political leanings and views of the personal qualities of the US Presidential candidates. Nevertheless, at least for some readers (presumably not George Bush supporters) the utterance does convey, or at least trigger, a negative attitudinal response and this is a response which it is reasonable to assume was intended and expected by the Observer leader writer. (The evidence for this lies, of course, in what follows after in the article.)
This, then, is an example of what can be termed `implicit' or `evoked' Attitude, which stands in contrast to `explicit' or `inscribed' Attitude. Here the `evocation' of a negative assessment rests on the apparent contradiction or incongruity of someone being elected for high office in a democratic system when they received some half a million fewer votes than their defeated opponent. Such `implicit' Attitude must be seen as only potentially a feature of such an utterance since, as we have seen, it depends on the reader bringing particular sets of beliefs and expectations to the process of interpretation. Thus a Bush supporter or an expert in the complexities of democratic electoral systems may resist seeing anything negative in this depiction of events.
Such evocations of Attitude don't, of course, occur in textual isolation. The reader is typically guided to some attitudinal interpretation by other parts of the text, most typically by instances of explicit Attitude. Consider, for example, the following proposition.
[The Australian Aborigines] were nomads who in 40,000 years left no permanent settlements.
Out of any textual context, such an utterance is, perhaps, neutral attitudinally, or at least it is open-ended as far as its attitudinal significance. Ecologically minded readers might see the proposition as conveying a positive assessment since it shows the Aborigines minimising their impact on the natural world. Alternatively, those readers possessed of a pro-development ideology might read it as conveying a negative assessment. Of course, in context, there is no ambiguity about the type of attitudinal response it is intended to trigger.
The Aussies are being asked to tear out their hearts over the plight of the poor old Abos. They are asked to believe that, before the white man stole their land, Australia was a paradise inhabited by gentle, trusting, children of nature living on the fat of the land. In fact, the Aboriginals were treacherous and brutal. They had acquired none of the skills or the arts of civilisation. They were nomads who in 40,000 years left no permanent settlements. (The Sun [UK], January 1988)
To summarise, then, in analysing Attitude, we conclude that attitudinal meanings are better seen as carried by utterances, by complete propositions than by individual words, although in some instances it IS possible to point to individual lexical items as carrying attitudinal assessment. The unit of analysis, then, is the proposition or proposal, or a sequence of interconnected propositions or proposals, analysed in the context of the larger text in which they operate. We also distinguish between explicit and implicit Attitude. Under explicit Attitude we can point to overtly evaluative/attitudinal words or combinations of words, that is to say words and phrases which unproblematically carry a positive or negative sense. In contrast, under implicit Attitude, it is not easy to identify instances of evaluative/attitudinal wordings in the utterance under consideration. Rather, the writer/speaker relies on the audience/respondent interpreting the happening or state of affairs therein presented in evaluative terms. The writer/speaker relies on the reader/listener seeing the state of events described as right or wrong, strange or normal, attractive or distasteful, heart-warming or upsetting, and so on.
