This past Sunday (June 8, 2014) at church, I began teaching my portion of a class on 1 Corinthians. I spent the first part of the class talking about reading the text for values and describing the model of appraisal we’ll use to do that. This is the same model I used for my dissertation on 1 Cor 1–4 though yesterday I described it in much broader brushstrokes than I did there! Here’s the basic description I gave. The model is very useful for analyzing text (written or spoken) to see what stance(s) people take toward different value positions and ideologies.

In brief, the appraisal model (based on the work of Martin and White) has three major sections: ATTITUDE, ENGAGEMENT, and GRADUATION. Each of these sections has subsections. The way people use these linguistic resources reveals (often quite clearly) where they stand in relation to the value position(s) at risk, as well as the ideology or ideologies those values construe and reconstrue. In this post, I will discuss ATTITUDE. In subsequent posts, I will cover ENGAGEMENT and GRADUATION.

ATTITUDE, is divided into three subparts: AFFECT, JUDGMENT, and APPRECIATION. AFFECT describes both positive and negative emotions that get encoded in text. The most straightforward way these get encoded are as affective lexical items (e.g., nouns, adjectives, verbs). For example:

**Matt 6:24ab**

Οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶ κυρίοις δουλεύειν · ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα **μισήσει** καὶ τὸν ἕτερον **ἀγαπήσει** . . .*

*No one is able to serve two masters. For either s/he will **hate** the one and will **love** the other . . .*

Often, however, some actions are described that *betoken* (denote) emotion(s). For example:

**Matt 6:24c**

ἢ ἑνὸς **ἀνθέξεται** καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου **καταφρονήσει**.

*… or s/he will **be loyal** to one and **show no regard** for the other*

Both *being loyal* and *showing content* are behavioral processes and not affective/mental processes, yet they betoken the emotions of *love* and *hate* already mentioned in the verse.

The second subpart of ATTITUDE, namely JUDGMENT, has to do with the linguistic resources used to appraise positively or negatively people’s behavior or character. Judgments have to do either with social esteem or social sanction. Generally, judgments of esteem have to do with "normality" (how special?), "capacity" (how capable?), or "tenacity" (how dependable?). Judgments of sanction are concerned with "veracity" (how honest?) and "propriety" (above reproach?). Again, in either case, esteem or sanction, the judgments can be positive or negative. Here are a couple of examples, one of esteem and one of sanction. Also, judgments, like affect, may be betokened by more experiential descriptions.

**1 Cor 5:6**

**Οὐ καλὸν** τὸ καύχημα ὑμῶν.

*Your boast/pride is **not good**.* (a negative judgment of sanction with regard to propriety).

Here’s a betokened judgment:

**1 Cor 4:14**

Οὐκ ἐντρέπων ὑμᾶς γράφω ταῦτα ἀλλ᾽ ὡς τέκνα μου ἀγαπητὰ **νουθετῶν**.

*I am not writing these things to shame you, but **as correcting/instructing/chastising** my beloved children.*

In this latter instance, that Paul says he’s writing to correct/instruct/chastise the readers denotes that their behavior is wrong/bad/improper (a negative judgment of sanction with regard to propriety).

The final subpart of ATTITUDE is APPRECIATION. This has to do with the linguistic resources for evaluating things, ideas, and the like. Encompassed here are those things that traditionally have fallen under "aesthetics." These meanings may be positive or negative, and they may be betokened by experiential descriptions.

**1 Cor 1:26**

Βλέπετε γὰρ τὴν κλῆσιν ὑμῶν, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι οὐ πολλοὶ σοφοὶ κατὰ σάρκα, οὐ πολλοὶ δυνατοί, οὐ πολλοὶ εὐγενεῖς ·

*For look at your calling, brothers and sisters: many of you were not **wise** according to the flesh, many were not **influential**, many were not of **noble birth**.*

In the three paratactic dependent clauses (many were not…, many were not…, many were not…), the adjectives (in bold) are appreciations, not of behavior or character, but of the implied readers’ *social status* when they were called. The appreciations are negative ("were *not*) from the point of view of the world (the flesh), but this gets flipped on its head (reversal theme alert!!) to become positive because it is precisely these kinds of people whom God chooses to put the worldly system of measuring to shame and to bring it to nothing.