Comparing the negotiation of attitudes in audience-sensitive art exhibition labels: how they engage visitors of different age groups

Abstract This article examines how audience-sensitive art exhibition labels engage visitors of different age groups – children and adults – from an appraisal perspective. The potential of evaluative language and emotionally charged expressions in enhancing visitor engagement is increasingly recognized by museum professionals, while it has received limited in-depth exploration in the research literature. A corpus of 56 audience-sensitive labels from an exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia was compiled for a comparative analysis of how they negotiate affect, judgement, and appreciation meanings. The findings reveal that both sets of labels frequently employ positive and inscribed appreciations to evaluate the qualities of the artworks. However, there are notable differentiations regarding the realizations of attitude types, subtypes, polarity, mode, appraisers, and the appraised triggers/targets. This article contributes to our understanding about the use of evaluative language in art exhibition labels for children and adults, offering insights into audience-sensitive label writing practice in the art museum context.