AN INVESTIGATION INTO GRADUATION IN ONLINE FILM REVIEWS

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN MỘNG KỲ DUYÊN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO
GRADUATION IN ONLINE FILM
REVIEWS

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Binh Dinh - 2019


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
QUY NHON UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN MỘNG KỲ DUYÊN

AN INVESTIGATION INTO
GRADUATION IN ONLINE FILM
REVIEWS

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 8.22.02.01

Supervisor: NGŨ THIỆN HÙNG, Ph.D.


BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO
TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN

NGUYỄN MỘNG KỲ DUYÊN

PHÂN TÍCH PHẠM TRÙ
THANG ĐỘ TRONG ĐÁNH
GIÁ PHIM TRỰC TRUYẾN

Chuyên ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh
Mã số: 8.22.02.01

Người hướng dẫn: TS. NGŨ THIỆN HÙNG


i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I hereby declare that this thesis “An Investigation into Graduation in
Online Film Reviews” has been composed solely by myself and that it has not
been submitted, in whole or in part, to any previous degree or professional
qualification. Besides, the experimental work is almost entirely my own work.
Furthermore, collaborative contributions have been indicated clearly and
acknowledged.
Binh Dinh, 2019

Nguyễn Mộng Kỳ Duyên


ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Throughout the writing of this thesis, I have received a great deal of
support and assistance. Firstly, I would like to acknowledge my deep
indebtedness to my supervisor, Dr. Ngu Thien Hung, whose expertise was
invaluable in the formulating of the research topic and methodology in
particular. Without his enthusiastic guidance, helpful advice, and enormous
encouragement, this thesis would never have been completed.
I would like to thank all of my teachers for their valuable and interesting
lectures, which helped me to lay the solid foundation for this thesis.
In addition, I would like to thank my classmates, M.A students of
English course 20th at Quy Nhon University with their helping during the time
I studied and carried out my thesis.
With my heart, finally, I want to thank my parents, my husband, and my
little son, with their wise counsel and sympathetic ear which is extremely
significant for me to overcome a lot of troubles from the beginning of the
thesis.


iii

ABSTRACT
This research examined Graduation used in online film reviews in the
perspectives of Appraisal Theory. The research aims at finding out Graduation
resources in online film reviews in terms of syntactic and semantic features.
The study was conducted based on the theoretical background of Appraisal
Theory by Martin & White (2005) and grammatical model of structural units
by Quirk et al (1985). This descriptive study was conducted with the
application of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The samples of
the study consist of 20 film reviews in English collected from online websites.
The findings reveal that the reviewers tend to use Graduation resources in
form of adjective phrases in online film reviews in English to strengthen their

assessment of the films to draw the readers’ attention with different tones of
evaluation. Also, there is the overall tendency of Graduation resources under
force category, especially expressions of number category to make the writers’
evaluation more believable. Hopefully, the results of the study will offer the
readers knowledge of evaluative language related to teaching and learning
English as well as daily communication.


1

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the rationale, the aim and objectives of the study, the
research question, the significance of the study, and the scope of the study.

1.1. Rationale
It is apparent that the films provoke all kinds of emotions. It can make
you laugh, cry, suffer, and even find the strength you need to face your
problems. Film Industry is one of the largest and fastest-growing industries in
the world. The reason is not sophisticated. People fond of entertainment, and
the film is one of the entertainment fields. Movies are like books, only they
are visual. In the Age of the Internet, people can save their time finding out a
good film for themselves. The simple way is surfing the film review websites.
Today, film review writing has become quite popular. With the development
of the Internet, many people are giving genuine and useful film reviews on
movie review websites. It is a real station that many content writing firms are
paying for talented writers to write high qualified film reviews and then post
them on movie websites to earn a profit. Besides, individual movie critics are
also writing film reviews. It can be seen that writing film review implies a
work of journalistic film criticism rather than of academic criticism. However,

the problem here is the authors’ style in writing film reviews. It has an initial
and essential impact on people’s feelings when they read the overall
information about a film and decide to watch that film or not. These online
reviews explore writers’ evaluation of the films, and even the desire to get the
attention of the audiences to these films. However, giving effective writing as
their initial purposes is a challenging issue. Hence, it is necessary to pay more
attention to the writing style.


2

It is obvious that language is an important communicative tool for
achieving various purposes. Language is a means for people to communicate
with each other, to make requirements, to ask for permission, to express ideas
or to evaluate, etc. Actually, in film reviews, the authors use language to
express their evaluation of the films and may engage the audiences’ attention.
Hence, Appraisal Theory with three subtypes of Attitude, Engagement, and
Graduation, which was developed by Martin & White (2005), can be a useful
tool to analyze the use of the language of the copywriters in writing film
reviews.
Besides the use of Attitude and Engagement resources to express the
attitude and the desire to engage the audiences to the films, to express an
overall and real viewpoint, the reviewers also use the words of Graduation
resource. This domain deals with “grading phenomena whereby feelings are
amplified and categories blurred” (Martin & White, p.35). In terms of
semantic perspective, Graduation can be seen as the center of the Appraisal
system. It can be stated that both Attitude and Engagement are two areas of
Graduation for “the nature of the meanings being scaled”.
Example:
The movie is fun with lots of great comedic moments and a few new

Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) duos that we never knew we
needed.
Is it my top favorite film in the MCU? No. Is it in my top ten?
Absolutely! The soundtrack is impeccable and deserving of multiple
listens.
I adored Danvers and Fury together, but I also found myself wanting
more screen-time for Danvers and the Rambeaus. Not only does
Maria show that she is a Black woman force who can handle her own


3

in every situation, but her daughter Monica is really the future
Captain Marvel in training that we need.

[B15] It can be seen

from these examples above that Graduation resources are used by the writers
to express their evaluation of the film. It is about the content of the film, the
movie song, and the main characters. Moreover, the writers want to draw the
readers’ attention to that film. For instance, the use of “great”, “absolutely”,
“adored”, “more”, “really”, is for showing off the film reviewer’s overall
evaluation of the mentioned film. Thanks to Graduation resources, the
writers’ feeling about the film is revealed clearly. If the writers do not use
these words, they may be not able to achieve their purpose of attracting the
attention of the readers to the film. Moreover, the
readers can save time but still understand the main content of that movie.

However, although there have been several pieces of research of
film analysis through the linguistic base, a close study on Graduation in

film reviews based on Appraisal Theory has not received much attention
from linguistic researchers. It is the reason that inspires me to conduct a
study to investigate the system of Graduation in film reviews with the topic:
“An Investigation into Graduation in Online Film Reviews”. Our research
will identify the use of the syntactic and semantic features of Graduation in
online film reviews.
1.2. Aim and objectives of the study
1.2.1. Aim of the study
The study aims to investigate how Graduation resources were used in
online film reviews in English in terms of semantic and syntactic features in
the light of Appraisal Theory.


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1.2.2. Objectives of the study
To achieve the aim of the current study, the research is conducted with a
focus on the following objectives:
+

To identify the syntactic features of the linguistic resources utilized

to realize the evaluative functions of Graduation used in online film reviews.
+

To examine the semantic features of different sub-categories of

Graduation used in online film reviews in the perspectives of Appraisal
Theory.
+

To put forward some implications for teaching and learning in

practical language skills.
1.3. Research questions
To achieve the aim and objectives of the study, I concentrate on seeking
the answers to the following research questions:
1)

What are the syntactic and semantic features of Graduation

resources used in online film reviews?
2)

What is the frequency of occurrence of these resources?

1.4. Significance of the study
This present research is a significant contribution to the literature review
of study both theoretically and practically. Up to now, many studies have dealt
with Appraisal Theory as a tool for evaluating language in written and spoken
language in terms of attitudinal meaning. However, little has been discussed
concerning Graduation resources used in online texts. For this reason, this
study is expected to provide practical knowledge concerning the linguistic
resources of Graduation used in online film reviews. Additionally, the thesis is
a worthwhile reference for readers who are attentive to applying Graduation
resources in film reviews. Furthermore, it also offers some implications for
teachers and learners to realize the linguistic functions of


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Graduation resources for getting the best benefits in critical writing the film
reviews.
1.5. Scope of the study
The focus of the study is on Graduation resources used in online film
reviews in English. Besides, the data of the research consists of 20 samples of
online film reviews downloaded from the two reliable websites: The Guardian
and Rotten Tomatoes.
Besides, the thesis is conducted mainly on the syntactic and semantic
features of Graduation resources used in online film reviews in English. In
regard to syntax, the study is aimed to investigate the structural features of
phrases: noun, verb, adjective and adverb phrases. In terms of semantics, we
examined Force and Focus, the two subtypes of Graduation, found in online
film reviews.
1.6. Organization of the study
The thesis is organized in five chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 Introduction
This chapter covers the rationale of Graduation used in online film reviews
in English, the aim and objectives, the research questions, the significance of the
study, the scope of the study and the organization of the study.

Chapter 2 Literature review
This chapter presents a brief introduction about the previous studies
based on Appraisal Theory and the prior researches online movie reviews.
Additionally, the overview of the theoretical background of syntactic and
semantic features of Graduation is mentioned to serve as the descriptive
framework of the study.
Chapter 3 Methodology and procedure

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This chapter describes research methods, description of samples and
population, data collection, data analysis, and the procedures of the study.
Chapter 4 Findings and discussions
This part presents the results of the data analysis of the syntactic and
semantic features of Graduation used in online film reviews in English and
the discussions.
Chapter 5 Conclusions and implications
This chapter summarizes the result of the data analysis and the major
findings. It also provides some implications for teachers and learners, presents
the limitations and as well as puts forward suggestions for further research.


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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Previous studies
This study has been conducted within the framework of Appraisal theory
which offers means of evaluating the language resources in the semantic
category of Graduation. Studies in recent years dealing with different genres
of texts have seen the trendy approach in making use of the evaluative tools
for the researchers to identify the appraisal resources of the linguistic
expressions used by writers in different roles. Among these semantic
categories of Appraisal Theory, emotion and attitude is the one that has
attracted a great deal of attention of linguists and researchers.
Based on Appraisal Theory, Munday (2015) examined the application of
Appraisal Theory to the analysis of translation. He grew the findings in
Munday (2012) as a means of determining translator/interpreter positioning.

In this article, the linguist explored the potential of the resources of
‘Engagement’ and ‘Graduation’ through a variety of examples of reporting
verbs and intensification from texts written in the interpersonal organization.
He concluded that the introduction of the translator/interpreter into the
situation causes the sharpening or blurring of the general rhetorical effect.
However, his article did not discuss the engagement resources in translation
with a view toward a distancing from the deictic center and the intensification
of Graduation resources of both attitudinal and engagement resources.
Appraisal Theory of emotion is the theory that states emotions result
from people’s interpretation and explanations of their circumstances even in
the absence of physiological arousal (Aroson, 2005). The emotion of listeners
or readers is in different ways affected after interpreting and explaining the
phenomena.


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There have been many studies of linguists and researchers about book
and film reviews. On their website, Lake Sumter State College shared how to
write a research paper or book review. They wrote about the form of a
research paper or book reviews and the standard procedures for writing book
reviews. The University of Calgary also gave their viewpoint about films and
film reviews on the own page of Writing Support Services, Students Success
Centre. They presented the purposes of film reviews which focused on the
surface story and provided a lengthy description of the plot.
A significant study concerning the emotional issue in film review was
made by Turkish researchers titled “Assessment of feature selection metrics
for sentiment analyses: Turkish movie reviews”. Their study intended to
represent each movie review by the use of a small number of feature selection
methods. They conducted their research independence on the SA (sentiment

analysis) film reviews which might include a huge amount of three kinds of
emotions namely positive, negative and neutral. The experimental result
indicated that support vector machine (SVM) found 83.9% for two categories
(positive and negative) and 63.3% for three (positive, negative and neutral)
categories. According to them, it should pay attention to the use of feature
selection methods to lessen costs sourced from complexity with keeping
success rates. Another important point is that the proposed method is feasible
for film reviews in other languages.
In cross-linguistic studies, the Chinese linguist Xin (2013) conducted on
the contrastive analysis of Graduation resources in China and US press
briefings. He claimed that the language used in the press conference has great
potential to be analyzed and studied. With quantitative and qualitative
analysis, the researcher concluded that Graduation resources used in Chinese
and US press briefings are dominated by Force resources. Also,


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Intensification expressions have applied more than Quantification ones. In
detail, he stated that Intensification resources are found in six modes.
Moreover, based on Appraisal Theory, Quantification resources are about the
imprecise reckonings. While there is no instance of softness, furthermore, the
resources of Graduation are all sharpness.
Swear (2015) used Appraisal Theory in her dissertation entitled
“Graduation resources in medical case reports written by native and nonnative medical writers”. In the research, she explored the Force which is used
by writers. This is Graduation of the heteroglossic resources in 20 Medical
Case Reports in English by Native and Non-native medical writers
(Malaysian). The result indicated two major findings. The first outcome
demonstrates a slightly more frequent occurrence in the NS medical writers’
MCRs gradable heteroglossia expressions in comparison with those of NNS

medical writers. The second conclusion is that these resources in the
discussion sections of both groups were used higher than the other sections
for both writers.
In Vietnamese studies, Phan Thi Thanh Hoa (2017) conducted a
contrastive study of the attitudinal meaning of film reviews written in English
and Vietnamese. She found that in spite of the difference in the use of Attitude
values in English and Vietnamese, which help the reviewers fulfill the
interpersonal function of film reviews. This showed that the film reviewers
wanted to make a good impression on the readers and explore love, desire,
praise, admiration or dissatisfaction through expressing people’s feelings,
evaluating people’s character and behaviour and evaluating all the aspects
relating to the films they want to review. Besides, the researcher stated that
the reviewers of both languages namely concern with evaluating


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various aspects and judging characters and behaviour of characters in the
films rather than expressing their feelings or emotions of the film reviewers.
Kieu Thi Bich Hao (2018) analysed Graduation used in literature review
on applied linguistic studies in English. She found that Graduation used in the
literature review of theses on applied linguistic studies in English in the form
of verb phrases was divided into two types: transitive and intransitive verbs.
Also, she concluded that the form of the transitive verb occurred more
frequently than that used in the form of intransitive ones. Besides, adjective
phrases were found commonly in the structural realization of Graduation in
the literature review of theses on applied linguistic studies in English. In terms
of Appraisal Theory and Speech Acts, she found that the rate of isolating is six
times as high as infusing. Moreover, the frequency of occurrence of
quantification number took up the highest rank while the lowest was mass.

She also realized that sharpened focus was used higher than softened focus.
The most recent significant study that should be mentioned here is the
MA Thesis by Cai Thi Kim Nhung (2015) which drew on cross-cultural
similarities and differences in Advertising of Cosmetics in English and
Vietnamese in terms of Graduation based on Appraisal Theory. In her thesis,
she found that Graduation in cosmetic advertisements was expressed through
structure phrases such as nominal phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases,
and adverb phrases. Graduation used in form of verb phrases in advertising of
cosmetics in English and Vietnamese showed the same structures and
positions of structural elements. Besides, both in English and Vietnamese,
Graduation in form of transitive verbs was found to occur much more
popularly than that in intransitive ones. Moreover, Graduation used in
advertising in English and Vietnamese cosmetic advertisements in form of


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adjective phrases had a wide distribution. In addition, the form of adverb
phrases was also sometimes found in English and Vietnamese cosmetic
advertisements.
Many studies above were carried out basing on the Appraisal Theory in
different aspects, but there are still few works dealing closely with Graduation
used in online film reviews in English. For this reason, this research is
concerned specifically with Appraisal resources, particularly Graduation used
in online film reviews in English to find out a specific kind of evaluative
language.
2.2. Theoretical background
2.2.1. Syntactic Theory
As the study aims to find out information about the linguistic realizations
of Graduation in film reviews, knowledge about the syntactic units that

realize resources of Graduation should be presented here.
Not merely in studying a language, but also in real-life communication,
according to (Yule, 2016), syntax soundness in a sentence makes the
sentences easier to understand for the readers and the listener and the message
is passed on to the readers without any confusion. Additionally, writing online
film reviews is the verbal mean of communication between the writers and the
readers. Furthermore, syntax, in linguistics, concerns on the ways in which
words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Thus, our research
focuses on analyzing Graduation resources in the structure of phrases which
the reviewers use in expressing their personal evaluation about the written
films. This study uses Quirk et al (1985) as reference material, particularly the
summary of the phrase structure, to investigate syntactically into the structural
features of phrases.


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Nominal Phrases
The noun phrase in English is considered a word or a group of words
which can function as a noun in a sentence. A noun phrase can syntactically
function as subject, object, complement, direct object, object complement,
indirect object, preposition complement, noun phrase modifier, determinative,
appositive and adverbial. The noun phrases can be separated into the basic
noun phrase and the complex noun phrases. The former has only the head or
the head with the determiner. Meanwhile, the latter is composed of the head,
pre-modification (ie. determiners and pre-modifiers) and post-modification
(post-modifier(s)).
In online film reviews, the used noun phrases can be summarized as
follows.
Structure

Example

Verb Phrases
Verb phrases are considered a syntactic unit composed of a verb head
and all the modifiers that cluster around it. In online film reviews, verb
phrases are about the elements of the films which affected the writers’
thinking. There are two subtypes of verbs: transitive and intransitive verb.
Transitive verbs which were used in online film reviews in English here
are always followed by objects. In contrast, an intransitive verb, in a sentence,
does not have a direct object.
The verb phrases used in online film reviews in English can be
illustrated as follows:


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Structure

Example

Structure

Example

Adjective phrases
An adjective phrase is considered as a phrase that modifies a noun. Also,
an adjective phrase is built upon an adjective which have a function as the
headword of the phrase.
When reading online film reviews in English, we can recognize the
writers’ concerns about the qualitative evaluation, or even the exaggeratio n of

the judgement. This leads to the use of adjectives in forms of single,
comparative and superlative with their gradable meanings semantically.
Moreover, adjectives can be used as attributive (pre-modifier) ones which
modify the head noun in advance and as predicative (post-modifier) ones
which play a role as a function of object complements or subject
complements.
Thus, in this study, we concentrate on analyzing the meanings of
different forms of adjectives, single, comparative and superlative, to make
clear the reviewers’ purposes.
The syntactic features of adjectives used in online film reviews in
English can be presented in the following.


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Structure
Example

Structures

Example

Structure
Example

Structure

Example

Structure

Example

Adverb phrases
Adverb phrases refer to phrases which often play the role of telling us the
circumstance of things. They are the answers of when, where, why, or how an


event takes place. They add new bits of meaning without changing the basic
meaning. Adverb phrases can function as modifiers of verbs, adjectives,


15

and adverbs. In this study, they are mostly operated as modifiers of adjectives
and verbs with their gradable meanings in online film reviews in English.
The syntactic features of adverb phrases can be shown as follows.
Structure
Example

Structure
Example

Structures
Example

2.2.2. Overview of Appraisal Theory
Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics
which focuses on language in use, was devised by Michael Halliday. The
Appraisal Theory was first developed based on the framework of SFL by
Martin and White and their colleagues in the 1990s and 2000s (see, for

example, Iedema, Feez, & White, 1993; Martin & White, 2005).
Appraisal is defined as “a particular approach to exploring, describing
and explaining the way language is used to evaluate, to adopt stances, to
construct textual personas and to manage interpersonal positioning and
relationships” (White, 2001, as cited in Vo Duy Duc, 2011). It is used to
analyze interpersonal meaning. In other words, it is applied to analyze how
writers or speakers express their attitudes about people, things, places, and


16

events to readers or hearers. Moreover, it is used to investigate how the
expression of such attitudes is managed to establish particular authorial
identities (Martin & While, 2005). Also, according to Martin & While (2005,
p.34-35), Appraisal is one of three major discourse semantic resources
construing interpersonal meaning (negotiation, appraisal, involvement). They
suggested that Appraisal framework is regionalized as three interacting
domains: Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation.
Monogloss
ENGAGEMENT
Heterogloss
Affect
ATTITUDE

Judgement

APPRAISAL
Appreciation
Raise
Force

GRADUATION

Lower
Focus
Sharpen
Soften

An overview of Appraisal resource
(Source: Martin & While, 2005, p.38)


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2.2.2.1. Attitude
According to Martin & While (2005), Attitude is concerned with human
feelings, including emotional reactions, judgements of behavior and
evaluation of things. This means that writers or speakers express their positive
and negative feelings about the participants and evaluated things. Attitude is
classified into three categories: Affect, Judgement, and Appreciation. Affect is
concerned with resources for expressing human feelings, while Judgement
deals with resources for judging behavior according to various normative
principles, and Appreciation refers to resources for construing the worth of
things.
2.2.2.1.1. Affect
Affect refers to resources which express people’s positive and negative
feelings about people, things, events or phenomenon. This combines not only
the writers’ emotions but also the emotions of the participants in the text. The
resources are realized through adjectives (happy, sad, satisfies…), adverbs
(sadly, happily, emotionally…), adjuncts (happily, we sing together.), verbs
(hate, love, like, dislike …). According to Martin & While (2005), Affect is

divided into four sets of meanings such as Un/happiness, In/security,
Dis/security, and Dis/inclination.
Moreover, Affect is not only concerned about the feelings of speakers or
writers, but also the emotions of the participants in the text. From this point,
Affect is classified into Authorial affect and Observed affect. While authorial
affect is concerned with the author’s own emotions or feelings, observed
affect is the speakers or writers’ feeling of the characters in the text.
2.2.2.1.2. Judgement
According to Martin & White (2005, p.42), Judgement refers to “attitude
towards behavior, which we admire or criticize, praise or condemn”. This


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means that Judgement is concerned with positive or negative of human
behavior. This value is divided into Social Esteem and Social Sanction. The
former deals with the evaluations in which a person is judged to be normal or
unusual based on the esteem of the others. Accordingly, Social Esteem is
categorized into ‘Normality’ (how unusual someone is), ‘Capacity’ (how
capable they are), and ‘Tenacity’ (how resolute they are). (White, 2001) Social
Sanction subtypes include ‘Veracity’ (how honest someone is) and ‘Propriety’
(how ethnical someone is).
2.2.2.1.3. Appreciation
Appreciation is the evaluation of things (concrete or abstract), and
aesthetic evaluation of humans. This means that evaluations of things and the
aesthetics of human are construed. Martin & White (2005) divide
appreciation into three subtypes: reaction, composition, and valuation. The
first subtype is the description of the emotional impact of something on the
readers or listeners (answering the questions Do they catch our attention; do
they please us?). Composition is describing the texture of something (balance

and complexity). About evaluation, it is the description of the social value of
something. This means that it refers to our considered opinions.
2.2.2.2. Engagement
Engagement, according to Martin & White (2005, p.94), is considered
as “the linguistic resources whereby the authorial voice positions itself with
respect to other textual voices and alternative positions at stake in a given
communicative context”. It has two subtypes: Monoglossia and Heteroglossia.
The former refers to no other voice and viewpoint, but simply declarative
sentences. Hence, monoglossia utterances are intersubjectively neutral,
objective or even actual (Martin & White, 2005). In the other hands,
heteroglossic utterances involve other points of view.