Making Hidden Evaluation Visible
What is it about?
This article offers a new method for analysing how institutions express evaluation in their official reports. Many studies focus only on clear, positive words, but institutions often rely on subtle cues—like metaphors, attribution, or factual statements—to shape how readers interpret their actions. The article redesigns the existing “attitude spectrum” into a more detailed, workable tool that shows how different evaluative strategies can be identified, distinguished, and measured along a continuum. By making implicit evaluation easier to analyse systematically, the study provides researchers with a timely and practical framework for examining how institutional identity is constructed through language.
Why is it important?
This article introduces a new methodological framework for analysing how institutions express evaluation, especially in subtle or indirect ways that traditional tools often overlook. By redesigning the attitude spectrum into a more detailed and operational system, it clarifies how different evaluative cues—from explicit positive words to metaphors, signalling devices, attributed voices, and even factual statements—can be identified and measured along a continuum. Its unique contribution lies in making implicit evaluation analysable at a time when institutions increasingly rely on cautious, indirect communication. This framework enables more accurate research on institutional identity and offers a timely tool for discourse analysts.