Linguistics and the Human Sciences, Vol 5, No 3 (2009)

Legitimating tenor relationships: Affiliation and

alignment in written interaction
Alexanne Cecilie Don

Background

In any group, recognised members or participants contribute to the development of

group norms or legitimate practices of the group through negotiation and interaction
(e.g. Goffman 1981, Locher 2004, Fairclough 1992, 2003, Eckert & McGonnel-Ginet
1998, Bucholtz & Hall 2005). In the context of an electronic mailing list, overt
responses by subscribers who post messages to the list also contribute to the
construction of their own and others identity through legitimated practice. Active
posters can ratify or question any contribution, and in so doing may also act to shame or
applaud other participants at the same time (e.g. Williams 2001). Persons behind the
posting behaviour feel shame or hurt in front of other list-members, even when they
have never met face to face, and hence many responses on mailing lists as well as in
other interactive contexts appear to be inspired by a need to maintain 'face'1 - of self,
other individual members, or the group with whom one affiliates or with whom one
wishes to claim solidarity. Thus, it becomes a matter of associations as to how one is
defined, i.e. as a means of defining ones identity, and as a means of evaluating and
hence de/legitimating ones membership of any community.
This paper is therefore concerned with the broader perspective of how power relations
may be enacted through strategies of positioning in which alignment and affiliation are
signalled and put at risk - especially as a function of the institutionalised processes of
discourse communities and communities of practice in general. Within both smaller
communities and wider social institutions such as academia, business, law and medicine
in which norms or legitimate practices have developed, language use is paramount in
enacting identity, solidarity and intimating group membership (e. g. Iedema 1998;
Iedema & Wodak 1999; MacDonald 2002; Johnstone 2007). Such practices can be
investigated from either a macro, collective perspective, or a micro, interaction-andresponse perspective. Each perspective represents the two ends of a given social
spectrum. This is akin to what Martin (2010: 24) likens to Bernsteins (1996) concepts
of (social) reservoir and (individual) repertoire, and which Martin explains as two
trajectories for investigating the notion of identity, what he terms individuation:
we can think of individuation along two trajectories, basically
asking whether we are classifying identities or negotiating
them. Along the reservoir to repertoire trajectory, we can
conceive of a culture dividing into smaller and smaller
communities as we move from the community as whole,
through master identities (generation, gender, class, ethnicity,

dis/ability) and sub-cultures to the personas that compose

individual members. What we are concerned with here is
power, classification and recognition rules with boundaries
between identities. Reversing direction, we can conceive of
persona aligning themselves into sub-cultures, configuring
master identities and constituting a culture. Along this
trajectory we are concerned with realisation rules, framing and
control with negotiation among and across identities.
It is this negotiation among and across identities, and how such realisation rules may
be identified (and classified) which forms the focus of the following discussion.

Theoretical issues and research aims

In this paper, in order to demonstrate the ways in which relationships and identities may
be negotiated, I focus on one instance of interaction - a series of events from a written
conversation between long-time members of a discourse community engendered by an
email discussion list - from the perspective of the dynamic negotiation end of the
spectrum. At the same time, the positioning enacted in these interactive responsive
contexts are crucially dependent on the wider network of social norms that have been
negotiated within these institutions and communities over time: one needs to have been
recognised as a legitimate member of a community by interacting appropriately or
legitimately in order to be heard, that is, in order to have acquired the necessary
realisation rules cited above. With respect to the extracts used as illustration below, at
the time the interaction occurred, the textual personas concerned had been negotiating
(for at least three years) both the boundaries of their individual identities (what Eggins
& Slade (1997: 12) term exploration of differences), as well as what Bernstein (1996:
11-14) calls the framing rules which constituted their legitimated behaviour within
the group - the boundaries of the interaction itself (c.f. Don 2001).
In order to discuss and track the positioning enacted in such an interactive context, this
paper proposes an amended set of parameters of tenor (Table 1 below) for tracking the
ways that interactants construe relationships of affiliation, alignment, and degree of
Status reciprocity in their contributions to group conversation. Tenor is one of three
aspects of register or context of situation under Systemic Functional Linguistics (see
for example, Halliday & Hasan 1985, Halliday 1994), in which resources in the
grammar function at a higher stratum to construe elements of the context of situation.
In addition to Tenor, Systemic Functional Linguistics (henceforth SFL) recognises that
the grammatical resources of Field and Mode are co-articulated in any text to construe a
particular contextual configuration.
The dimensions of tenor on which my classification is based were first outlined by
Poynton (1985), and further elaborated by Martin (1992: 526ff), and the categories I
propose below are based on this previous work. The purpose of this paper is to describe
this set of tenor dimensions and argue for their applicability to all areas of
argumentative discourse through an illustration of one instance of written interaction. A
further aim of this paper is to argue that the terms alignment and affiliation be
theoretically distinguished as relations dynamically realised in interaction, but which

are also usefully considered as distinct processes relating to different sets of positioning
strategies. In turn, such potential positioning strategies are proposed to rely on reference
to a number of interpersonal sub-dimensions outlined in the table below and in more
detail in the remainder of the paper.
Table 1 below outlines this set of tenor dimensions or variables for construing
interactant/writer-reader alignment and affiliation and which will be used to describe
the effects of evaluative acts in the discussion which follows.
Table 1: Tenor variables for construing writer - reader alignment and affiliation
I.

CONTACT /FAMILIARITY:
varies along a cline between:
close (affiliated) and distant (unaffiliated)
via a contraction proliferation of explicit and implicit
meanings

II.

STATUS /POWER:
varies along a cline between:
equal and unequal
via reciprocity of:
i. status: tenor (social hierarchy)
ii. prominence: mode (publicity)
iii. authority: field (expertise, classification, knowledge)
iv. control: genre (skill, manipulation)*
v. power: ideology (access)

III.

AXIOLOGY /VALUE SYSTEM:

varies along a cline between:
aligned and disaligned [ affiliation]
via reference to:
i. logic (true/false)
ii. ethics (good/bad)
iii. morals (right/wrong)
iv. norms (appropriate/inappropriate)
v. sense (like/dislike)

Under the Status dimension, for example, an interactant may intimate in/equality by
reference to socially available positions relating to social status, prominence, authority,
control, or power. When, for example, a control sub-dimension (*asterisked Table 1
above) is activated, the interactant may intimate that s/he has better control or skill in
manipulating the genre in play. Such a genre need not be restricted to the written or
spoken mode: it may refer to abilities in controlling physical prowess in playing games,
or individual sporting competitions, or in aesthetic manipulation such as painting or
dance. In the illustrative discussion below, this sub-dimension is particularly salient as
it is tied up in the challenge which one participant issues to another. Importantly, it can
be observed that whereas the Status dimension is not theorised as involved directly in

activating affiliation, the potential construal of affiliation via implication of equal Status
is not denied. Theoretical delicacy demands that these dimensions be kept separate,
since interactants may be construed as both unequal in Status and yet closely affiliated
(under Contact) by membership of an institution, family, workgroup, etc.
Similarly, under the Axiology dimension, dis/alignments may be set up which are
temporary and which make reference to sub-dimensions or clines related to notions of
logic, ethics, morals, norms, or sense (Table 1 above). For each of the sub-dimensions
of Axiology (or Value system) brought into play, an argument is implied. These
arguments rely on an assumed value system where, for example, logic and the cline
between true and false is assumed to be at stake. As another example, an argument
may make reference to normative positions along a cline between appropriate and
inappropriate as a warrant for that argument. Interactants may claim or construe
dis/alignment with other interactants by reference such assumed values. Together with
other indicators in the co-text, such dis/alignment(s) may also construe concurrent
(latent), or emerging affiliation(s): there is no suggestion that these dimensions preclude
each other, but that a number of different reference strategies operate in distinguishing
them.
It should be noted that the categories are presented as labels to refer to types of
orientations in interaction only, and do not have any content of their own as such. So
that, as an example, although the sub-dimensions of Status include an orientation to
ideology, the nature of ideology itself is left undefined for the purposes of the
framework: this label is meant to allow identification of the way that interactants make
reference to access to influence and social power of whatever type to imply relations of
un/equal reciprocity in terms of Status.
Originally, in Poyntons (1985) framework, this set included another variable, Affect2:
Table 1a: Affect as part of original set of tenor variables
IV.

AFFECT:
varies along a cline between:
marked (positive or negative: involved) and unmarked
(uninvolved)
via amplification or intensification of affectual values

However, although affectual response can colour any utterance, be intensified or

downplayed, or be realised via vocatives, interjections or verbal representations of such
responses (e.g. UGH, Wow!, Mmm, <sigh>, :-), etc), such instances were for the same
reason considered to require being kept theoretically distinct, and as acting at a different
functional stratum than that of categories of tenor which classify positioning. Affect is
better considered part of Appraisal (outlined further below) and as part of the language
resources used for construing tenor relationships at the level of the discourse semantic,
rather than representing a distinct set of functions of its own. Similarly, under
Appraisal, verbal features for construing alignment of Axiology may often be realised

by Judgement values. Thus, while Affect may be a resource for construing tenor, it is
not a tenor function of itself.

2.1

Emerging versus Latent social networks

What appears in Table 1 above provides a summary framework which makes reference
to potential ways in which interpersonal relationships may be described and interpreted.
Such dimensions for the potential construal of relationship can be related to what Watts
(1991 in Locher 2004: 27ff) refers to as the latent social network. The latent social
network is a general label used to refer to all aspects of the norms and assumed values
held by any group or wider culture in which interaction takes place and to which
interactants orient. The framework in Table 1 above provides a means of accounting for
the ways writers/interactants can act to position themselves during the unfolding of their
discourse by reference to assumed norms or conventions in the community addressed,
and in so doing contribute at the same time to an emerging social network (Locher
2002). This also relates somewhat grossly to the tension obtaining between recognition
rules related to the classification and framing operating in any group (latent network)
and realisation rules which may contest those rules (c.f. Bernstein 1996: 15).
In contrast to the latent social network, an emerging social network is that which is
being negotiated during interaction. More formal contexts of interaction (i.e. those with
strong classification and strong framing, c.f. Bernstein 1996: Ch 1) provide little
opportunity for social networks to change or evolve, and thus for these contexts
emerging social networks may not occur. However, an emerging social network is the
default condition in many contexts of interaction, especially where both classification
and framing are weak in Bernsteins (1996) sense. Whereas positioning is enacted by
claiming sometimes temporary alignment with other positions and participants, repeated
instances (or versions) of such claims to alignment may imply longer term culturally
available positions or social roles (what Knight 2010 has referred to as bonds), and
affiliations with other group members may be negotiated and maintained thereby thus
contributing to the latent social network, a network where membership of a group
entails unstated assumptions regarding all aspects of the interpersonal relationships
obtaining amongst affiliates. In other cases, where Contact is actual, presumed, or
construed it is the enactment of affiliation that may be referenced or brought into play: a
performance of the latent social network, a celebration of bonds. In this sense, actual
Contact is considered to be a part of the material context of situation (Halliday & Hasan
1985: 99) even if it is not referenced explicitly in the local co-text - such as where
interactants are long-time group-members, family members, classmates and so on whereas presumed Contact occurs in those cases where an interactant behaves as
though Contact were actual, i.e. as if the addressee were an old friend or family
member. Instances of presumed Contact are common in advertisements for example,
and such types of construed Contact need to be kept theoretically distinct to allow for
delicacy in analysis where the interactants, or the readers and writers in a given context
of situation are already known to be distantly affiliated, e.g. strangers.
With respect to affiliation then, it is the latent social network which is called on usually through reference to past shared experiences, or through the intimation of
shared knowledge based on familiarity. Continued (actual) contact with members of a
group of people contributes to an emerging social network in which affiliation becomes

more salutary. Similarly, but with respect to the Status dimension, when positions
referencing Status are activated, it is the latent social network (in which interactants are
assumed to hold positions of power or authority with respect to other interlocutors or
other groups) which is at stake. In these instances, the emergent social network is then
dependent on whether status positions are reciprocated or complementary e.g. whether
positions of deference are contested or adopted in response to speakers positioning
themselves as higher in status (see Bateson 1972/2000: 67-69) .
The discussion which follows uses a set of extracts from an electronically-mediated
written conversation in order to illustrate how negotiation over identity may be
performed and interpreted as tenor functions. The analysis highlights how positioning is
enacted - through reference to the tenor parameters of Table 1 above - and how
positioning may contribute to the perception of group norms in activating an emerging
social network.
In the sense of the term used here, positioning acts by evaluating a target which is
associated in some way with one of the interactants, and it is this association which
allows for indirect evaluation or positioning of other interactants without naming them.
Association may be consciously applied if affiliation is being negotiated or
strengthened, and in these cases reference to assumed knowledge or intertextuality is
key. On the other hand, persons may be inadvertently positioned by such association
and in this case may react defensively. The effecting of positioning moves also depends
on the association (or coupling c.f. Martin 2000: 161; 2010) of attitude + target in an
evaluative act.
Further implications relating to the set of tenor dimensions outlined here will be
demonstrated in the course of the paper.

Data and Approach

Table 1 below summarises the nature and extent of the data set which formed the basis
of an extended analysis using texts derived from an email discussion list active for over
ten years. The extended study (c.f. Don 2007) examined the generic conventions of
contributions to these kinds of written conversations, and so representative sets of posts
for analysis were compiled based on their membership of a thread or written
conversation with maintained topic (labelled SFT, WVN, and TVS: Table 1 below), and
were also chosen to reflect the interactive and argumentative nature of this type of
discussion list. In order to provide some indication of convention drift, the threads
were selected from different periods of the list interaction: SFT from early 1996, WVN
from late 1997, and TVS from mid 1999. At the same time, three sets of posts derived
from three different poster identities were also compiled (Simon, Stan, Sally: Table 1
below) in order to examine textual identities as functions of list conventions. These
were taken both from the threads themselves and from other periods of list activity.

Table 1: Comparison of main subcorpora used in the study

words

posts

mean words per

post

ALL 3

53,742

162

330

SFT

4,610

24

192

WVN

4,880

23

212

TVS

25,350

81

313

SIMON

8,694

25

347

STAN

10,830

38

285

SALLY

12,895

22

586

An Appraisal analysis of the texts was first performed which highlighted the types and
targets of the evaluative moves made by the participants, by classifying these evaluative
moves into Attitude types. Under the Appraisal framework (e.g. Martin & White 2005,
Martin & Rose 2003) Attitude can be sub-classified into three groups of evaluative
resources in English. Resources of Judgement are used to make evaluations of human
behaviour on grounds of either morality (social sanction) or admiration (social esteem).
In contrast, resources of Appreciation evaluate products of human behaviour, while
those of Affect pertain to emotional reactions3. The ways in which these evaluative
moves activate tenor dimensions, or position other interactants is explored in the
following discussion.
List-members on this and other lists develop conventions, or local discourse practices
over time, and part of the goal of this study was to provide a framework against which
stylistic conventions of these discourse communities of practice could be recognised.
Thus the long-term purposes of this research are not limited to the study of the
conventions of mailing list interaction, but to develop a set of parameters of tenor based
on the deployment of evaluative moves in discourse - moves that position other
interactants as equal in Status, aligned over Axiology, and/or affiliated through Contact
through the deployment of various linguistic strategies. This perspective on identity has
something in common with the study of textual style in communities of practice (e. g.
Eckert & McGonnel-Ginet 1998) or discourse communities in general (e. g. Bucholtz &
Hall 2005; Auer (ed) 2007; Englebretson (ed) 2007), but it also incorporates a notion of
legitimating response as being a key to identity being ratified 4 within such
communities.
In Don (2007) the term rhetorical organisation potential was used to describe what is
common or typical to the set(s) of texts. This potential may or may not be realised in
further instances in the discourse community, since these processes of legitimation
operate dynamically through social actors negotiating their own practices via

interaction. As with any corpus, the wider the set of instances, the closer the set can
become to representing the norm. While the study operated on a relatively small corpus
of texts so that the results cannot be said to be definitive, each new instance provides for
a new representation of what is commonly or typically the case. Commonality or
typicality does not cover every legitimate instance, and thus each individual text and the
moves it entails represents either a variation on a theme or a marked case of meaningmaking in context. Any legitimation is then bound up in responses to an instance. For
this reason, the series of posts around which the present discussion is based, has been
selected to demonstrate how response acts to ratify or censure previous instances of
positioning.

A highly evaluative post and its implications for affiliation

The discussion of positioning begins with an excerpt from a post taken from a thread
which continued for over 8 weeks of list interaction. In this post an inscribed attitudinal
peak in the thread appeared. An inscribed Attitude is one which is not hedged so to
speak; the target is explicitly evaluated using lexical items of high attitudinal
saturation5. It is in this contribution that the writer, Stan, explicitly negatively evaluates
another list-member using upscaled lexis of negative attitude. This was the 38th
contribution of the 56 in the thread, and it was at this point the writer explicitly
negatively evaluates his interlocutor (Ter), by name, using for the first time the device
of a limerick (Example 1 below).
Example 1: extract from [tvs172.38/stan28]
There once was a whiner named Ter
Who claimed to have nary a care
At feelings he'd balk
Despite "playful" talk
None more humorless lived anywhere
Your turn, ol' pal.

This type of move which is highly evaluative of the target and interlocutor Ter is also
likely to enact new relationships with the writers (Stan) audience. Until this post in the
thread, the two protagonists had been arguing past each other in a rather defensive
manner. My concern is to examine how others respond to this positioning by either
censuring or ratifying the positioning which the move enacts, and in so doing, illustrate
more fully the ways in which positioning moves may be classified as enacting the
varieties of tenor relationships outlined above.
In this post, poster identity Stan changes his previous approach to the interaction and
explicitly evaluates6 his interlocutor, using three types of negative Judgement:

[judgement: tenacity: negative](a whiner, at feelings he'd balk);

[judgement: veracity: negative: provoked] (who claimed to have nary a care, Despite
playful talk); and
[judgement: capacity: negative] (none more humorless).
In terms of tenor relationships realised by these strategies and outlined in Table 1
above, this move claims a relationship of disalignment of values or Axiology - by
negatively evaluating the activities he imputes to the target Terry:
- whining (complaining+ irritation+ repetition),
- balking at feelings (not expressing himself clearly and accurately, not knowing his
own emotions),
- claiming not to have a care (lying about his true feelings),
- the pretense of play (hiding anger and pretending play) and
- being humourless;
All of these implied traits represent Terry as someone with values with whom no-one
could align. The fact that Stan here is not talking to Terry as much as to an audience of
onlookers who are familiar with both parties - and the fact that he has made these
evaluative acts in the context of a limerick referring to Terry in the third person, using
the generic convention of past tense to assert the description as knowledge beyond
contest (was, named, claimed, would, lived) - points to a slight difference in the tenor
dimensions which can be described: those of alignment and those of affiliation.

3.1

Affiliation and Alignment in interaction

My claim is that whereas alignment can be seen as the product of discrete associations
(or couplings) between a target and an attitude engendering an evaluative
(positioning) act, affiliation calls on broader sometimes unstated assumptions and
practices within a group or culture. So that alignment occurs in the contexts of the
emerging social network of a group of interlocutors, whereas affiliation occurs in the
context of the latent social network - which may be called into being, highlighted,
and/or put at risk in evaluative or positioning acts. Thus, acts of alignment may or may
not work as affiliation: they are merely associations which can be detected in the
lexico-grammar and logogenetic unfolding of the text as a whole. Knight (2010)
describes the affiliation set up by friendship as a constellation of bonds occasioned by
the coupling of attitude + entities, and that these bonds may be put at risk in contexts
where a wrinkle occurs in those bond(s), and that furthermore, such bonds are
highlighted in conversation when participants laugh over these threats to affiliation.
My proposal here is that affiliation be distinguished as one aspect of tenor relations and
that whereas affiliation may be based on shared values, or put at risk by disalignment
over values, affiliation should be viewed as mainly a function of shared experience and
knowledge - that is, it is based on development over time of communal activities of
some sort. Relationships which may be evident in texts potentially point to co-variation
in Contact/familiarity or degree of affiliation, as well as Axiology/value system or
degree of alignment between interlocutors. This is because one can be affiliated through

association within an institution or community of practice yet be disaligned in terms of

Axiology. Similarly, equal relationships of Status, such as in terms of skills, expertise,
or social position may in fact lead to similar experiences which may be construed in
terms of affiliation, but this may not necessarily be the case. So that, while actual
material contact or familiarity may be required for realisation rules (Bernstein 1996;
Martin 2010) to be successfully deployed in any social situation, it is the construal of
these relationships in texts that is the only basis on which these positioning acts may be
analysed and interpreted.
The examples from the limerick extracted above have been chosen for their obvious
construal of disalignment in any context with the target of the attitudes: Ter, he. It
remains, however, for the audience to whom the limerick is addressed to ratify or
recognise the terms of the affiliation so enacted, and to determine of what kind.
At the same time, the very fact that Stan has called into play his own and the audiences
assumed and shared knowledge regarding Terrys past behaviour onlist makes the
content of the limerick a claim to close Contact - of familiarity with Terry to the extent
that he can make these statements about him - while simultaneously putting any latent
affiliation at risk. In this sense, then, Stan does not disaffiliate with Terry, quite the
opposite: he uses a claim of close Contact - i.e. asserted familiarity - as the basis for his
right to position Terry in this manner, and challenge him to a duel - thereby also
implying unequal Status in terms of genre control. However, he does appear to reject
any friendship that may be based on such shared experience, by naming Terry and
directly making fun of his onlist behaviour in the past. Thus, Stan simultaneously
implies intimate and long-term shared experiences which allow him to describe Terry in
such forthright terms, but uses this to disalign with him regarding shared Values. This
in turn causes the ruffling of the sense of communal bonds that other members of the
list, the actual addressees, obviously feel - as indicated by the posts that follow. These
responding posts (three examples are discussed below in detail) demonstrate that other
list-members feel anxiety, despair and a need to comment on the severity of the
content of the limerick and mainly due to their recognition that the stability of the
affiliative bonds they value are at stake.
Thus, in Table 1 above, two citings of affiliation appear. In the first instance,
affiliation is a product of - or more precisely an implication of - Contact or familiarity.
What this means is that, in the case of close or long-time contact, apparent disalignment of values in the form of insults, arguments, disagreements, etc, may be
absorbed as positive or high degree of affiliation. Without close Contact, however, disalignment over any reference to Axiology or value system is tantamount to a position of
dis-affiliation at the same time. Hence the double-binding and irony occasioned by the
content of the limerick is related to a dissonance between implications of affiliation and
extreme disalignment at the same time.
In the excerpt above, rejection of affiliation is underlined by being ironically betokened
with the use of a directive, Your turn, ol' pal. This offer might superficially construe a
relationship of close Contact (which is how Simon later legitimates it c.f. Example 4
below), however, in this instance, it appears to position Terry as anything but an old
pal, as it functions as an ironic reference to Stan and Terrys previous disagreements
over friendly interaction. Proposals of this type - i.e. demands for either information

10

or services, whether congruent in mood or not - construe unequal Status by means of

the non-reciprocity of the demands and the expectation of compliance (i.e. Status:
social role to demand these services without markers of politeness or deference) On the
other hand, such moves usually construe close Contact/familiarity or high degree of
affiliation when Contact is assumed: one makes such demands overtly, and without the
benefit of so-called 'politeness markers' only with close associates, friends and family
members - long-term list-members included.

3.1.1 An emergent social network deployed

In terms of a latent network of presumed social relationships, the Status dimension of
Table 1 is thus also activated by this directive - both that of social roles, and (in the
demanding that his interlocutor play the game), of genre manipulation. This means
that in challenging Terry to a verbal duel, Stan has activated these latent social
dimensions. At the same time, he demands reciprocity in ability to manipulate the genre
conventions of limerick-writing - by both the negatively evaluative coupling of attitude
and target in the limerick, and the invitation to respond in kind. In terms of Bernsteins
(1996) notion of framing, Stan is here attempting to control the emerging social
network by deploying the realisation rules of poetry slam7 in challenging Terry.
The emergent network is thus presented as one in which Stan possesses unequal
(higher) ability in controlling/manipulating this genre, and unequal (higher) social
Status in his right to demand action. In addition, the social network referenced by Stan
via this limerick is also one in which Stan disaligns with Terry in terms of Values, by
reference to both the social esteem (negative tenacity, negative capacity) and social
sanction (negative veracity) categories of Judgement under Appraisal.

Response the key to legitimation of contributions

Whether, however, the emergent network or the positioning set up by any contribution
is allowed to stand is a matter of response. To become part of the latent or potentially
accepted norms of a group of interactants, every response needs to be legitimated in
some way. The actual social network therefore, arises in response - for example, any
power or status latent or implied in any text in any interaction needs to be ratified or
legitimated for this power to be realised. Responses to status-referencing acts in which
alignment/disalignment, or in/equality is claimed or implied, will generally only serve
to legitimate the power of the participant if their concerns are addressed.
Thus, disagreement, for example, serves to accord the move as worthy of contest, and
may merely act to increase the latent power of the participant so-engaged. This is
because disagreement - or posts expressing disalignment, disaffiliation (or lack of
familiarity) - may indeed support the Status (power, authority, control, etc) of the
respondant, while not necessarily aligning with their value system (Axiology) nor
necessarily claiming close Contact/familiarity (c.f. Table 1).
Responses then, contribute to the formation of group norms, or what is considered
OK to do or say, and who is allowed to say what. Fairclough (2003: 41) describes "the
'norms' of interaction as a moral order [which] are oriented to and interpreted differently

11

by different social actors, and these differences are negotiated". Bernstein (1996: 18)
summarises the dynamic nature of these norms by stating that recognition rules
regulate what meanings are relevant and realisation rules regulate how the meanings are
to be put together to create the legitimate text. Hence, the post from which Example 1
was excerpted engendered the rest of the responses in the thread, as list-members
reacted by either censuring the severity of the attitudes inscribed, or by attempting to
legitimise the attitude in some way.

Responses to the negatively evaluative contribution

5.1

Censuring reactions

Two posts in reaction to the negatively evaluative contribution cited above (Example 1),
will serve here to demonstrate that the explicit negative evaluation of one list-member
(Terry) by another (Stan) was not accepted without question by other list-members. The
strategies they each use for commenting on the negative positioning evident in Stans
original post (Example 1 above) represent attempts to engage with the content, rather
than the writer. In other words, the three examples of responses presented below
address what Stan has written, rather than Stan himself. Thus we find instances of
(negative) Appreciation of the post as target, which in turn act as tokens of (negative)
Judgement of the writer. In contrast, participants might have reacted by employing
instances of inscribed Judgement to more directly target the writer Stan and his
behaviour. It is salutary to observe too, that Stans original limerick did just that
levelled negative explicit Judgement (attitude) at a named group-member (target)
directly.
The first response, Example 2 below, uses the strategy of a short anecdote to report on
her own reactions. Through this means, she attributes an affectual response to herself in
the past, and in this way she avoids directly addressing the writer of what she terms the
incredibly aggressive post. In effect, this post changes the topic in order to evaluate
the target contribution:
Example 2: extract from [tvs175.40/san]
My brother-out-of-law John is staying with us and
was in the room when I read this post. I laughed
out loud, not from finding this amusing but in an
amazed, 'whoa' kind of way. He asked what had made
me have that reaction...how could I explain...I
said, "you know that email list I'm in that's
about net dynamics, well there are two men who
have been in it for years. One is a psychiatrist
and one is a sociology lecturer, one is in San
Francisco, I think the other one is too. I don't
know if they've ever met in real life. Well,
they've been having a conflict on the list for a
while now, and the psychiatrist one has just sent
an incredibly aggressive post to the list about
the other one, I can hardly believe how aggressive
it is. Shit, I wonder what will happen now....."

12

Several lexical items betoken negative Affect towards the post, and are italicised in the
passage above: I laughed out loud ; an amazed, 'whoa' kind of way; and a type of
reported inner speech: Shit, I wonder what will happen now....
These three instances of what I term surge-descriptors (descriptions of affect-related
behaviour which betoken inner emotional states rather than labelling of those states)
amplify the affectual response while also signalling high involvement without the
Affect being specifically labelled. The writer also distances herself from the other
participants and the interaction itself by identifying the two protagonists - who are in
her audience - by means of 3rd person epithets: One is a psychiatrist and one is a
sociology lecturer; the psychiatrist one; the other one. Her comments do not therefore
directly address the main participants and protagonists of her narrative, and she also
avoids interacting with them herself.
Thus, on the one hand, she recognises an emergent social network in which Stan claims
unequal and higher Status, disaligned Value system, and in which he enacts a rejection
of affiliation with Terry. On the other hand, she wishes to disalign with Stan in this
instance, while refraining from activating the Status dimension with respect to herself
and Stan. In terms of degree of affiliation, she refers to her long time association with
the group as a whole indirectly through the anecdote (that email list Im on, for years),
but not in terms of her personal contact with either Stan or Terry, except by using
tokens of Affect. Instead, this writer, Sandra, expresses dismay regarding an emergent
social network in which the argument between two prominent members of the group is
becoming heated, and which threatens the affiliation of the latent social network in
which one of the protagonists has created an incredibly aggressive post.
Thus, Sandras shit I wonder what will happen next is at one level an expression of
negative security through use of such resources as exclamative or affect-surge (shit),
an expression of conjecture via mental process (I wonder), and the interrogative leading
out of the text and interaction frame to future possibilities (what will happen next).
These all function as indicators or tokens of this insecurity. But the relationships of
tenor involved are more complicated. That is to say, while tenor may be construed by
tokens of Affect, the Affect by itself is not a tenor relationship.
In Sandras contribution, the target or affector of these comments is the incredibly
aggressive post, but it is cast against the backdrop of the insecurity raised by the risk to
the latent social network in which bonds of affiliation - long time membership of the
group - are being ruffled. The reported anecdote says as much by referring to two men
who have been in it [the list Im on] for years and their conflict.. for a while now.
She knows the general area where they live, but not whether theyve met each other.
She also knows what professions they each pursue, but she does not know what will
happen next. Thus, the contrast between what is known through extended Contact, and
what is unknown due to the receipt of the incredibly aggressive post points to
anticipated fissure of the affiliative bonds engendered by long-time membership of the
list.
In terms of the positioning effected here, the participants are positioned in the anecdote
as long time list-members (affiliated), both professionals (equal Status), but their
behaviour is not directly valuated (as ethically, morally, logically good, correct, true or
anything else). Instead, Sandra appreciates the post as incredibly aggressive: in western

13

cultures this is likely to be associated with negative value, where an epithet of

incredibly aggressive construes what in Appraisal is labelled negative Judgement:
propriety. In this way her own disalignment with Stan along axiological lines is made as
indirectly as possible.
In the following extract on the other hand (Example 3) the writer addresses Stan
directly, but again carefully evaluates the post itself (this post of yours; it), rather than
its writer by negatively appreciating its content. Once more, response is negative
towards the content, realised through the use of (what Appraisal terms Engagement)
values of deny and entertain8 (doesnt seem loaded with good will), as well as the use
of scare quotes for the word loaded. The Appreciation is also betokened through the
use of graduation: intensification and amplification (awful lot of; NEGATIVELY
LOADED (caps)).
Example 3: extract from [tvs179.42/nan]
Stan, This post of yours certainly doesn't seem
'loaded' with good will. It uses an awful lot of
NEGATIVELY LOADED words. The ones that stand out
particularly are: "self-pitying" and "whiner".
I hadn't noticed anything in
warrant such 'insulting' terms.

Terry's

post

to

Nan describes the post by commenting on its discourse, (uses an awful lot of
NEGATIVELY LOADED words; the ones that stand out are..; such insulting terms)
adopting a position of unequal (higher) Status in terms of her right to refer to his
writing, citing two of the offensive words themselves in inverted commas, a strategy
which activates sub-dimensions of both authority and control at once. At the same time,
she does not enter into positioning others in terms of affiliation. Instead, she refers only
to Terrys post, rather than the latent social network/assumed Contact represented by
Stan and Terrys protracted disagreement over the previous two months, or to their
association via list discussions over the previous three years.
On the other hand, it is also possible to posit Nans assumed close Contact with Stan via
her use of assumed meanings and direct address (Stan, this post of yours). There is also
a suggestion of unequal (higher) Status: social role via her self-positioning as able to
assess both Terrys post and the wording of Stans post, and to draw Stans attention to
a discrepancy in his own behaviour towards Terry recalling the role relationships of
teacher to student. Note that this is claimed to be a factor pertaining to the emergent
social network - i.e. dynamic Status roles negotiated via positioning - rather than
anything latent in the social network as accepted Status. In addition, positioning that
references Status dimensions does so in a variety of ways, and that despite construing
an un/equal Status in terms of social role for example, other elements in the same text
may reference un/equal prominence, authority, control, etc. As far as Value system in
concerned, the fact that Stan has used such unwarranted insulting terms points to a
disaligned Axiology via tokens of negative Judgement: propriety (norms, ethics,
sensibility), but one which apparently operates in the context of this post only.

14

In Examples 2 and 3 above, both writers contest the positioning (of Terry by Stan) by
referring to their own negative personal reaction to these text objects. Their own disalignment with posterID Stan, in respect to his target, Terry, is implied rather than
stated. At the same time, their very responses - either through reference to group
membership and Affect, or direct address imply relationships of high affiliation. In
contrast, in the next post discussed ([tvs188.50/simon19b] as Examples 4 and 5) below,
after the affectual responses of other list-members are ratified by alignment and
recognition of latent affiliation, the positioning in the original post is legitimated as
play.
It is worth noting once more that the targets of Appraisal in the three examples of
response to the original negatively evaluative post (excerpted in Example 1 above), are
actually text objects, not the putative writer of these text objects. The Judgements then,
in Appraisal terms, are not explicit/inscribed, since their real targets are not part of the
local co-text, but are invoked, mainly by tokens of Appreciation. While it is obvious to
readers that the real target of Judgement in the previous two excerpts is the posterID
Stans behaviour, and thus the Attitude is one of Judgement [propriety: negative], my
concern is also to provide some means of tracing the development of norms over time
by looking at these types of response more closely. This means that analysis needs to
attend to the resources that are typically employed for invoking Attitude as distinct from
inscribing Attitude. This is because invocations often highlight both latent and
emergent social networks (or positioning) within a group, as well as the ways in which
moral order or norms are played out.

5.2

Ratifying response

After the previous posts appeared, the listowner (posterID Simon) reacted by sending a
limerick of his own (Example 5 below), claiming that he had responded to the playful
intent of the message.
In this post Simon uses several such strategies as a means of integrating the negative
evaluation in the earlier contribution by overtly interpreting it as legitimate list activity such as play. The very use of the term play references for long-time list-members
several discussions regarding appropriate list behaviour conducted in the past - most
notably the championing of play by the protagonist Terry. In Example 4 below, we note
that Simons reactive post also employs the resources of Affect in order to evaluate
Stans contribution, but in contrast to the previous examples, his response uses repeated
instances of positive Affect towards the limerick. Repetition is a device which acts to
amplify an Attitude, and thus the positive Affect reported in response to the original
post is intensified. In addition, both a specific lexical referent (really wanted it to be my
turn) as well as the use of the limerick form itself has been reciprocated in this post.
These serve to signal an alignment in terms of equal Status through an equal ability to
control or manipulate the genre under the framework outlined in Table 1 above.
Staging and development of an argument also figures in the positioning enacted through
this response. In the first part of Simon's post (Example 4 below), he characterises the
anxiety [affect: insecurity] raised by the heated nature of the discussion as likely to
cause a backlash and claims affiliation with other list-members by attributing to them
the same response as his own:

15

Example 4: extract from [tvs188.50/simon19b]

My first response was like everyone elses: "oh,
that's harsh." I considered the post very much
likely to cause a backlash, which it did.
Within an hour or so the sense of despair I got
because a couple old timers seemed locked in
unresolvable battle, was replaced with a bit of
jealousy. Stan, you see, had ended his post with,
>Your turn, ol' pal.
It was an invitation not meant for me. I love
limericks -- don't much mind a San Francisco style
poetry slam -- and really wanted it to be my turn.

The claim of Contact/familiarity is effected through first labelling Stans post (that, the
post, it) with the attribute harsh, at the same time claiming affiliation with everyone
else regarding the coupling of this attitude with the target post. Simon then
acknowledges the grounds for the backlash caused by the negative evaluation contained
within that post. The reasons for this backlash are implicitly linked to his own despair
[Affect: happiness: negative: high] regarding the threat to the assumed affiliations of the
group: a couple oldtimers locked in unresolvable battle.
In Example 5 below, the latter part of Simons same post reciprocates Stans earlier
limerick with one of his own:
Example 5: extract from [tvs188.50/simon19b]
There once was a psych, analytic,
A Freudian internet critic,
His cold common sense,
And a sly arrogance,
For some was far too acidic.
Our Stan who likes object relations,
And long Harley biker vacations,
Says to us, Netdynam,
"Yo group, here I am,
But I'm not here to fill expectations."
You see, I actually did get the invitation for
playfulness contained in Stan's post. But I only
got it after the shock of the rough play had worn
off.

Thus, Simon uses the same device, limerick, to evaluate the actions of 'aggressor' Stan
by referring to the invitation for playfulness in the previous post. This use of presuming

16

reference is another strategy for positioning audience members. Presuming reference

implies that readers know what is being referred to, and in this instance it actually labels
the previous contribution as uncontentiously an 'invitation for playfulness', since by
nominalising the behaviour as the invitation for playfulness contained in Stans post, the
clause is unarguable and presumed. In the same way, Simon concludes the post with a
reference to the shock of the rough play. It thus positions audience members as sharing
this view of the target post.

5.2.1 Strategies for ratifying censure

Simon reprises the two earlier reactive posts by judging Stans behaviour through a
token of negative Appreciation (harsh), and targeting it, i.e. Stans post, rather than
Stan himself, and by also referencing the negative Affect: unhappiness (despair) raised
by the post. He thus manages to also align with others in terms of Axiology regarding
the content of Stan's post, as well as affiliating with them by claims of sharing their
feelings and by colloquial reference to couple old-timers (sic). Table 2 below illustrates
how identity chaining9 of lexical items referring to Stans post in this short extract
(italicised in the extract above (Example 4)) shift slightly from one text-unit to the next
- along with the coupling of targets and Attitude - from negative to positive.
Table 2: Identity Chaining of items related to Stans post in Simons
stanza

target:
Stans post

attitude

that
the post

harsh
likely to cause
a backlash
did [cause a
backlash]

it

his post

it
an invitation

4
5
6

Stans post

target:
limericks

attitude

[jealousy]

not meant for

me

[your turn]
limericks
a San
Franciscostyle poetry
slam
my turn

love
don't much
mind

wanted

the invitation
for playfulness
the rough play

In addition, through directly quoting the challenge of the final line (Your turn, ol pal),
Simon recasts the face-threatening directive as invitation, and uses the resources of
marked Affect to do so. That is, he uses the word jealousy, normally a token of negative
Judgement10, and changes it to invoke positive Affect. It is also at this point that the

17

referents in the post shiftfrom directly referring to the post as target, to that part of
the post (underlined above) which he wishes to highlight and recast as positive.
Simon thus manages to legitimate posterID Stan's explicitly negative positioning of
another list-member by claiming a different set of affective responses to the interaction
itself as target. Firstly, through use of the term jealousy of the target invitation - in
which the usual saturation of inscribed negative Affect for jealousy (and its tendency
to provoke negative Judgement as well) is reversed by context to one of positive
Affect for the target invitation. Secondly, the affective response is characterised by use
of the item love (positive Affect) of the target limericks, and of wanted (positive Affect)
of the target it to be [his] turn. Reference to a representative set of Simons posts (c.f.
Don 2007, 2008) shows that on average, this posterID uses just under 5 tokens of Affect
per 500 words per post, but that in this specific post, the frequency of Affect tokens has
increased to just under 15/500 words. This individuated marked use of Affect for this
text indicates that these list events did appear to threaten the latent affiliative bonds
assumed by the group.
In summary, the response by posterID Simon in this passage can be seen as an attempt
to accommodate its earlier negativity and the negative responses to it, by re-casting the
content in terms of expression rather than content - with the content as secondary to the
claim to play. This content is thereby ratified by its recognition as legitimate and even
desirable behaviour in terms of the latent social network, or norms of the group. Both
the original negative evaluation of the addressee, and the addressees subordination in
the final demand of Stan's original post, is cast as secondary to the recognised call for
play within the bounds of a recognised conventional core-genre. In this way, Stans
original seemingly aggressive contribution which threatened the cohesion of the group,
has been legitimated and accommodated by re-framing its meanings in terms of this
other response it engendered. Subsequent interaction on the list in this thread involved
further discussion over Stans transgressions by other members, and another long
limerick posted by Stan in response to Simon - and notably no more contributions from
Terry for some time.

Conclusion

These types of strategies for either censuring (de-legitimating) or ratifying

(legitimating) the behaviour of other participants in the discussion are made through
reference to relationship dimensions latent in the social networks of the group. Through
an analysis of the deployment of language resources (such as Appraisal) in responses, a
partial description can be made of the nature of emergent social networks being
enacted.
The discussion described finer distinctions between categories for the analysis and
tracking of interpersonal positioning in interaction, and used the SFL notion of tenor
relationships as a basis for such distinctions. In addition, it was proposed that resources
which intimate alignment and affiliation need to be carefully distinguished in order to
be clearer about what positions are being potentially activated in any text, and these
notions were related to three main orientations or dimensions of tenor: Contact, Status,
and Axiology.

18

6.1

Implications

In order to provide a means for investigating textual identity, this paper has outlined a
proposal for using the tenor variables or dimensions in play in any text which enact copositioning in interaction, and which takes into account the positioning ratification by
other interactants in response. Both initial and response moves contribute to the
institutional or group conventions or norms over time. This type of tracking of
positioning and legitimating behaviour in response is part of a broader project
concerned with an approach to identity analysis identifying two main types of textual
identity: Stylistic and Negotiated. These were first outlined in Don (2007). Briefly,
whereas Stylistic identity is a flat analysis of elements of writer style against the
background of institutional or group style/conventions, Negotiated identity in turn is
dependent on an investigation of what I have termed accumulated positioning and
positioning ratification. To once again cite Martin (2010: 24) this approach asks
whether we are classifying identities or negotiating them. These two perspectives
involve firstly, tracking the development of identity via an accumulation of positioning
moves in which a target persona or an entity associated with this persona is coupled
with attitudes of various types. Secondly, it involves determining whether such moves
or evaluative acts are legitimated, ratified or challenged in response, and in what ways.
Thus, tracking of moves by tagging positioning by type and degree, plus investigation
of the combinations of these positions in response, allow analysts to describe strategies
or manoeuvres which are typically or markedly used in interaction. Because such
analysis assumes that typicality or markedness can only be read against a context of
continued interaction and shared experience, such analyses requires both phylo-genetic
(i.e. the development of group conventions over time) and logo-genetic (i.e. the
development of meanings during the course of a texts unfolding)11 perspectives on the
text(s) involved.

Endnotes
1 The concept of face has a long history, recent notions perhaps borrowed from Japan
and China where group affiliation is paramount and the concept of shame is particularly
relevant in social activity. The most well-worked, and subsequently critically re-worked
frameworks involving the notion of face originate with Brown & Levinsons (1987)
work on politeness.
2 The term Affect is used in the literature in a wide range of linguistic as well as
psychological frameworks. In some cases the term is applied generally to encompass all
evaluative meanings, and in others it is used to refer specifically to instances of
emotional language. When Poynton first applied this term to aspects of the tenor in her
texts, the Appraisal framework in which the label Affect has been used to categorise
instances of evaluative language (developed under SFL and in particular by Martin &
White 2005) had not been published.
3 It is assumed the reader is familiar with the Appraisal framework for the purposes of
this paper. While space prevents a more detailed discussion here,
http://www.grammatics.com/appraisal presents an outline of the Appraisal framework

19

4 See Don 2007 (Ch 5)

5 Attitudinal saturation (or stability) refers to lexical items which are commonly
perceived to be either negative or positive. A highly saturated attitudinal lexical item
would normally be read as either negative or positive in isolation, and would require
local co-textual work in order to reverse this conventional reading. Of course, large
corpus studies are the only way to ratify an individual analysts claim that any item is
commonly either negative or positive. The terms saturation and stability are both
credited to Peter R. R. White.
6 Not necessarily using inscribed Attitude: it is possible that evaluative acts do not
entail inscribed (versus invoked) Attitude, but that the evaluative remarks are explicit
(as opposed to implicit) to the extent that no reader would miss the negative or positive
valeur of the act.
7 A poetry slam is similar in context to theatre sports, and involves contestants
reciting lines of poetry in front of an audience according to various themes and rules
dependent on the nature of the competition.
8 Although statistics have not been compiled, it was observed in the corpus as a whole
that instances of deny coupled with entertain were common. Some of these instances
dealing with [disclaim: deny] are detailed in Don forthcoming.
9 Identity chaining refers to referents which are in some way related to each other
semantically, and which appear in a text in a sequence. It can be used to examine
notions of cohesion in texts. See for example, Martin 1992: 428ff; Cloran 1999:189.
Also termed tracking system by Martin & Rose (1993: 162)
10 A quick Google search of the term jealousy returns hits which define the term by
reference to negative emotions, and controlling, overcoming, or dealing with
jealousy. A reference to a study in the Monitor on Psychology (February 2005, Vol 36,
No. 2) links jealousy with aggression, low self-esteem.
11 See for example, Halliday and Matthiessen 1999: 17-18

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