Univerza V Mariboru
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UNIVERZA V MARIBORU Filozofska fakulteta ODDELEK ZA ANGLISTIKO IN AMERIKANISTIKO DIPLOMSKO DELO EXPRESSING APPRAISAL IN ENGLISH TEXTS ON UNSCHOOLING IZRAŢANJE VREDNOTENJA V ANGLEŠKIH BESEDILIH O RAZŠOLANJU Mentorica: Kandidat: doc. dr. Katja Plemenitaš Boris Pirš Maribor, september 2016 Zahvala Iskreno se zahvaljujem se svoji mentorici prof. dr. Katji Plemenitaš za pomoč pri pripravi diplomskega dela ter vsem za dano spodbudo in podporo. ABSTRACT Unschooling refers to a number of educational approaches that are outside standard formal education. Unschooling supporters advocate that learning outside formal education is more effective than formal and that learners should be educated according to their own wishes through natural experiences such as playing, social interaction, household activities, family, friends, television and computer, usually without any curricula or grading. In my graduation thesis we will explore the language used in various text types on unschooling, such as in the monograph Weapons of Mass Instruction by John Taylor Gatto (2009), reviews on Amazon.com, comments in a Youtube clip and comments in a Yahoo! News article. We were interested in finding out what language the authors use in order to support or oppose unschooling and what differences and similarities there are between them. Key words: unschooling; discourse analysis; appraisal theory. POVZETEK Pojem »razšolanje« se nanaša na vrsto izobraţevalnih pristopov, ki so izven standardnega formalnega izobraţevanja. Podporniki razšolanja so mnenja, da je učenje izven formalnega šolstva učinkovitejše od formalnega in da bi se učenci morali izobraţevati v skladu z lastnimi ţeljami, kot so igra, socialna interakcija, gospodinjska opravila, druţina, prijatelji, televizija in računalnik, brez točno določenega učnega načrta ali ocenjevanja. V diplomski nalogi bomo raziskovali in analizirali jezik vrednotenja, ki ga uporabljajo avtorji v različnih besedilnih vrstah na temo razšolanje, in sicer v monografiji Weapons of Mass Instruction avtorja John Taylor Gattoja (2009), v komentarjih na spletni strani Amazon.com, na spletnem portalu Youtube in v članku na spletni storitvi Yahoo! News. Ţeleli smo ugotoviti, kakšen jezik uporabljajo avtorji za izraţanje svojih mnenj in stališč o razšolanju ter ugotavljali podobnosti in razlike med njimi. Ključne besede: razšolanje, diskurzna analiza, teorija vrednotenja. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................... 1 2. UNSCHOOLING ....................................................................................................... 2 3. AIMS AND HYPOTHESES ..................................................................................... 3 4. DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................ 4 4.1. THE LANGUAGE OF EVALUATION – APPRAISAL IN ENGLISH .......... 4 4.1.1. Attitude ....................................................................................................... 5 4.1.2. Engagement .............................................................................................. 6 4.1.3. Graduation ................................................................................................. 7 5. POPULAR TEXT TYPES IN WHICH UNSHOOLING IS DISCUSSED ........... 8 5.1. Monographs ...................................................................................................... 8 5.2. Articles ............................................................................................................... 9 5.3. Comments ......................................................................................................... 9 5.4. Reviews ............................................................................................................. 9 6. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 10 7. EMPIRICAL PART ................................................................................................. 10 7.1. Materials .......................................................................................................... 10 7.2. APPRAISALS IN THE PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER 1 OF THE BOOK “WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION” BY JOHN TAYLOR GATTO .............. 11 7.2.1. Context ..................................................................................................... 11 7.2.2. Analysis .................................................................................................... 12 7.2.3. Findings and observations .................................................................... 16 7.3. APPRAISALS IN REVIEWS OF THE BOOK WEAPONS OF MASS INSTRUCTION BY JOHN TAYLOR GATTO ON AMAZON.COM ..................... 17 7.3.1. Context ..................................................................................................... 17 7.3.2. Analysis .................................................................................................... 18 7.3.3. Findings and observations .................................................................... 27 7.4. APPRAISALS IN THE YOUTUBE CLIP “UNSCHOOLING VS. HOMESCHOOLING VS. FORMAL EDUCATION” AND COMMENTS .............. 28 7.4.1. Context ..................................................................................................... 28 7.4.2. Analysis .................................................................................................... 28 7.4.3. Findings and observations .................................................................... 34 7.5. APPRAISALS IN THE ARTICLE “WHY UNSCHOOLING IS THE NEXT WAVE OF HOME-BASED EDUCATION FOR KIDS” ON THE WEBSITE YAHOO! NEWS .......................................................................................................... 35 7.5.1. Context ..................................................................................................... 35 7.5.2. Article analysis ........................................................................................ 35 7.5.3. Findings and observations .................................................................... 37 7.6. APPRAISALS IN COMMENTS ON THE ARTICLE “WHY UNSCHOOLING IS THE NEXT WAVE OF HOME-BASED EDUCATION FOR KIDS” ON THE WEBSITE YAHOO! NEWS ........................................................... 38 7.6.1. Context ..................................................................................................... 38 7.6.2. Analysis .................................................................................................... 38 7.6.3. Findings and observations .................................................................... 43 8. CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 44 9. LITERATURE .......................................................................................................... 46 INDEX OF TABLES Table 1: Analysis of the book Weapons of mass instruction by John Taylor Gatto .......................................................................................................................................... 12 Table 2: Positive reviews of the book Weapons of mass instruction by John Taylor Gatto on Amazon.com ....................................................................................... 18 Table 3: Negative reviews of the book Weapons of mass instruction by John Taylor Gatto on Amazon.com ....................................................................................... 23 Table 4: User comments on the Youtube clip Unschooling vs. Homeschooling vs. Formal Education\ .......................................................................................................... 28 Table 5: Appraisals in the article Why Unschooling is the Next Wave of Home- Based Education for Kids on Yahoo! News ............................................................... 35 1. INTRODUCTION Rhetoric is “speech designed to persuade” Cicero “The pen is mightier than the sword” is a well-known philosophical saying meaning that communication can cause people to change their beliefs more effectively and on a larger scale than direct violence, albeit it can also be interpreted as the use of administrative power, such as laws. This is especially true for rhetoric, where in order to achieve a persuasive effect not only what is written or spoken about is important but also how it is being communicated. Typically this is achieved by using a variety of figures of speech and other effective language forms. Mostly it is used by politicians in their speeches and voting campaigns in order to win approval from the general population. Slogans like “Yes we can”, “Power to the people", "Make America Great Again" and others give a sense of unity, address the nation as a whole and conveying a message of hope. For my thesis, I chose to research the language used by authors on unschooling. Unschooling caught my attention, as I believe that there should be more ways of schooling rather than a single “one size fits all” type. In order to do that, I had to conduct an extensive search on the internet to find discussions about schooling and unschooling in general. In the theoretical part of this thesis I will firstly briefly introduce the term unschooling, followed by aims and hypotheses, description of the appraisal framework by Martin and White (2005) and description of text types I analysed. In the empirical part I will analyse the language