Historical Discourse: The Language of Time, Cause and Evaluation

Description

Historical Discourse analyses the importance of the language of time, cause and evaluation in both texts which students at secondary school are required to read, and their own writing for assessment. In contrast to studies which have denied that history has a specialised language, Caroline Coffin demonstrates through a detailed study of historical texts, that writing about the past requires different genres, lexical and grammatical structures. In this analysis, language emerges as a powerful tool for making meaning in historical writing. Presupposing no prior knowledge of systemic functional linguistics, this insightful book will be of interest to researchers in applied linguistics and discourse analysis, as well as history educators.

Dr Caroline Coffin is Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication at the Open University, UK.

"Coffin's volume is a worthy addition to the Continuum Discourse series, seeking, as it does, to explore the nature of historical discourse, its purposes, its distinctive features and its pleasures." -- Frances Christie, Journal of English for Academic Purposes "Coffin's functional linguistics perspective provides a rigorous and comprehensive analysis of the texts of secondary school history, both those that students read and those they need to learn to write. This is an original and welcome contribution to debates about how to develop students' historical understanding." - Mary Schleppegrell, University of Michigan -- Professor Mary Schleppegrell, University of Michigan "This book makes a major contribution to the study of historical discourse and while it will be of interest to teachers of history, it will in addition be of considerable interest to those who work in discourse studies generally- linguists, applied linguists and educational linguists." - Frances Christie, Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor, University of Sydney -- Frances Christie, Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor, University of Sydney "Coffin's Historical Discourse provides a systematic, informative and insightful description of the nature of historical discourse, it's function and role, and of its pedagogic potential in the context of secondary schools ... Historical Discourse is an exceptionally well-written book that expounds on the role of language in learning and teaching history. It offers a systematic and comprehensive account of a rich array of language resources that are critical to success in history and provides valuable insights into the nature of, and the teaching and learning of historical discourse."- Honglin Chen, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia -- Honglin Chen, Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia "Coffin's book ... discusses a host of fascinating language issues ... that have important ramifications for the analysis of academic language and discourse iteself, particularly when viewed in terms of the requirements of historical education and as a basis for literacy educational practice ... Coffin's book successfully shows the importance of collaboration between educational linguists, literacy consultants and history teachers. Language emerges as a powerful tool for making meaning in historical writing, as well as a key element in the teaching-learning cycle ... Its appeal is wide: it will be of interest to history educators and educational linguists, as well as researchers in applied linguistics and discourse analysis in general" - Marina Bondi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy -- Marina Bondi, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy "This work succeeds in communicating the inherent complexity of historical texts and in analyzing and labeling features that render them complex...However, Coffin does not address the difficulties of reading and writing about history within a culture that approaches the past warily and requires that historical accounts evince relevance to the present." - Margaret Thomas, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, September 2008 -- Margaret Thomas