Over the past two decades the quantity and scope of research drawing on the system of APPRAISAL in SFL has massively expanded.It is reasonable to claim that the majority of these studies have foregrounded the subsystems of ATTITUDE and ENGAGEMENT.Our aim in contributing to this special issue celebrating two decades of APPRAISAL research is to focus on the subsystem of GRADUATION.We do so in descriptive accounts of three studies exploring the role of GRADUATION in the enactment of social relations and the building of affiliative communities.The intended contribution is two-fold.Together the studies provide an indication of the progressive development and application of this dimension of SFL theory.Specifically they range from analyses of written academic discourse to the semiosis of body language,and studies of English to Khorchin Mongolian.While each study foregrounds the interpersonal function of GRADUATION we do not suggest that one can attend to this in isolation.The thread that unites the studies is an emphasis on the ways in which expressions of GRADUATION always co-instantiate or couple with choices in other systems in the enactment of social relations,with different kinds of coupling differently supporting bonds for affiliation.