2。 Literature Review 

     Appraisal theory is a new theory which is derived on the basis of systemic functional linguistics to explore the interpersonal meaning, it was first developed from research project ‘write it right’ by Martin and his colleagues in the 1990s。Based on the text classification and analysis of words, investigators know about the speakers on the surrounding environment, people, things around and attitude。

2。1The definition and content of appraisal theory 

     The definition of appraisal theory from J。R。Martin is that the appraisal theory is an interpersonal system at the level of discourse semantics; appraisal theory concerns types of attitudes, the strength of the involved feelings and the ways in which values and readers aligned in the discourse。 (LiZhanzi, 2004:164)。 

     The appraisal theory consists of three subsystems, attitude, engagement, graduation, in this theory, the attitude is the center, and the engagement and graduation are the attitude of service。 There is a large amount of evaluation resources in English commercial advertisements, at the same time; there are many differences in distribution between the attitude, engagement and graduation。

     The appraisal theory is based on the systemic functional linguistics; it is also the development of interpersonal metafunction。 The centre of appraisal theory is the ‘system’, the focus of appraisal theory is the ‘evaluation’ and the language is the ‘tool’。 (WangZhenhua, 2001:21)。 The attitude also has three subsystems, affect, judgment, appreciation, and this thesis will analyze the English commercial advertisements from the three aspects。论文网

2。1。1Affect 

     The affect is the centre of attitude system; it is the response to the behavior, phenomenon and process (WangZhenhua, 2001:31)。 The affect belongs to the scope of reaction in psychics and the affect can be realized by predicative, adjective, psychology reaction, conceptual metaphor and so on。 The affect is the most straightforward way to express the attitude (Martin, 2003:56)

     The resource of affect has two kinds of connotation, they are positive and negative, and the positive connotations are happy, excited, calm, enthusiasm and so on。

2。1。2Judgment

     The negative connotations are sad, angry, anxious, and guilty and so on, the judgment evaluates the behavior of the speaker which is based on the certain moral standards, the judgment includes two sides, one is social esteem, and the other is social sanction。 The social esteem and social sanction both have the connotation of positive and negative。 The social esteem does not have the legal significance; the positive social esteem is enviable and advocated。 However, the negative social esteem does not conform to moral standards which should be criticized。 The social sanction is mainly to evaluate the authenticity and legitimacy of behavior。 (Martin and White, 2003: 53)

2。1。3Appreciation 

     Appreciation is an evaluation about objects, phenomenon and process; it has three subsystems including reaction, constituent and value。 The reaction is the attract strength and impact strength, value refers to whether the things are important, valuable or not。 (Martin and White, 2003:33)。 The appreciation resource also has positive and negative sides。

2。2 The development and influence of English advertisements

     A large amount of English advertisements are used interiorly, with the development of economy and the international standards, the importance of English advertisements is getting more and more outstanding。 We can often see many English advertisements on television and movies, especially in the use of drugs, the popularization of English has been an important feature 。What’s more, the translation of advertisements is getting more and more important 。A great advertisement and slogan can earn much more benefits for the businesses, at the same time, it can make the man who has the idea of advertisements succeed。