In Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), appraisal refers to the ways that writers or speakers express approval or disapproval for things, people, behaviour or ideas.
[1] Language users build relationships with their interlocutors by expressing such positions.
White's approach to appraisal regionalised the concept into three interacting domains: 'attitude', 'engagement' and 'graduation'.
[1] In the case of 'affect', for instance, these more delicate choices relate to different types of emotion.
[1][6] However, there is debate about the different sub-systems that should be recognised, and various researchers have since suggested modifications of the initial description.