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Applied Linguistics Perspectives on CLIL
Edited by Ana Llinares and Tom Morton
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 47] 2017
► pp. 105–124

Genre and appraisal in CLIL history texts

Developing the voice of the historian

| Saint Louis University
| Autonomous University of Madrid

This chapter offers a perspective on texts written in a CLIL class, highlighting the role of the interpersonal meanings covered by the appraisal framework (Martin & White 2005) in constructing the different genres of history, which are not only factual, but also include assigning value and indicating point of view. An analysis of appraisal in an 11,000-word longitudinal corpus of CLIL secondary student writing shows how texts are more or less successful in their selection of features from the Appraisal systems as they respond to prompts, the higher-rated texts creating a more appropriate voice for the genre (Coffin 2006). Awareness of the categories of interpersonal meanings can allow teachers to make genre expectations explicit, helping improve student writing.

Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The framework applied: Genre, appraisal and the voice of the historian
    • School genres
    • Appraisal
    • The voices of the historian
  • The texts, their evaluation and analysis
    • The texts
    • Expert holistic rating of the texts
    • Appraisal analysis
  • Learning to deploy appraisal resources and create different voices: Some evidence
    • Attitude
    • Engagement
  • Conclusion and implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 16 March 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.47.07mcc
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