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Applied Linguistics 28/4: 621634 Oxford University Press 2007

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Caroline Coffin: HISTORICAL DISCOURSE: THE LANGUAGE OF TIME,

CAUSE, AND EVALUATION. Continuum, 2006.

Historical Discourse is a rich addition to the growing number of descriptive

studies through systemic functional linguistics (SFL) on the language of

schooling, in this case, of the subject history (cf. Coffin 2006; Schleppegrell

and Oliveira 2006; Schleppegrell et al . 2004; Schleppegrell and Achugar

2003). The preface introduces Caroline Coffins research into the language of

history in Australia and the UK, and describes her corpus of secondary schoolhistory writing, which she draws on to provide findings and illustrations

throughout the book. It also clearly delineates her purposes in writing

Historical Discourse: to make explicit the linguistic resources drawn on in

meaning making in history, and relate those to the requirements of

secondary school history curricula, in order to provide a basis for literacy

development.

Chapter 1 highlights the need for understanding historical discourse, not

only to enhance students chances of success in the school subject, but also to

raise awareness of how historical knowledge is variously constructed throughlanguage. This awareness can help clarify notions of objectivity/subjectivity

and lead to an understanding that the past is contested ground in which

numerous interpretations compete (p. 9). For primary and secondary

sources, as well as for student writing, Coffin argues for increased

understanding of the genres of history writing, of the implications of history

construed as story-telling or as argument, of grasping the role of linguistic

resources for expressing time and causeeffect, and of knowing how

evaluative positions are established and maintained through language

choices.Chapter 2 justifies the use of SFL as an analytical and pedagogical tool,

highlighting its focus on explaining language through contextualized use.

It explains important aspects of SFL theory, such as the complementary

perspectives of system and instance. The notion of language as a system of

options serves to clarify for both educators and students the significance of

different choices in making meaning across learning areas. Once the typical

features of the discourse within a domain are described, specific instances of

language can be compared, allowing for discussion of the implications of

similarities and differences. Using genre theory, Coffin explains the typicalstructured, staged text types which result from the common goals and

purposes of a type of cultural event, foregrounding the discussion of the

genres of history in Chapters 34. Coffin then moves to an explanation of the

register variables of field (the social activity enacted), tenor (the relationships

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established between participants) and mode (the channel of communication),

which can facilitate an understanding of how changing register variables

result in language variation as students move through the school

curriculum (p. 29).Coffin finishes this key chapter by relating register to a key principle

underlying SFL, that of the three metafunctions of language: the ideational

(the representation/construal of experience), the interpersonal (the construal

of relationships and opinions) and the textual (the construal of the first two

metafunctions into a cohesive whole) to lead to the point that the

relationship between language and context is dialectical: the social context

in terms of its field (e.g. war), tenor (e.g. teacher to student) and mode

(e.g. written as opposed to spoken) will affect language choices. But equally,

by making certain language choices, writers and speakers can influence theiraudience as well as shaping the degree to which their text sounds written or

spoken (pp. 3940). Thus, an understanding of how the context of

secondary school history exerts certain pressures on the nature of texts can

help students make more effective choices in writing their own texts.

Chapters 3 and 4 describe the genres of secondary school history, moving

from the recording genres, associated in secondary school with the

earlier years, to the explaining and arguing genres, which come into play

in subsequent years. Chapter 3 focuses on the recording genres of

autobiographical, biographical, and historical recount, and historical account.

A focus on these genres allows one to build up the notion of historical use of

time, time lines, and chronological sequencing of events. Chapter 4 moves on

to explain the genres of factorial and consequential explanation, and the

arguing genres of exposition, discussion, and challenge. The conclusion

provides a summary of the increasing abstraction and move away from

reliance on time as the main organizing factor of text, as students move

through the genres. Coffin suggests: if teachers have precise labels for

distinguishing genres, as well as a way of talking about the kinds of meanings

that different genres foreground and the lexical and grammatical resources

for expressing those meanings, then they are in a strong position to provideexplicit guidance to students in their reading and writing of historical

discourse (p. 92).

Chapters 5 and 6 focus on two key representations in history writing: time

and causeeffect. In Chapter 5, Coffin discusses notions of time in Western

thinking: macro-concepts such as linear and cyclical time, and macro-

constructs, such as the calendar, chronology, and narrative. Chapter 6 uses

SFL in order to distinguish between two overall types of causation: the

billiard-ball model, a relatively simple and mechanistic causeeffect

chaining of events in the external world, and the more complex causeeffect reasoning which relates events across social, political, and economic

arenas. In both of these chapters, lexical and grammatical categories are

described, and related to main semantic categories or functions of time

and cause respectively. Their distribution throughout the genres is provided

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nature of effective rhetorical strategies in history writing. Thus, this book will

prove an invaluable resource to anyone involved in literacy development,

and indeed it is a very timely resource in the European Union for those

involved in content-based language instruction through history.

Final version received June 2007

Reviewed by Anne McCabe

Saint Louis University, Madrid

doi:10.1093/applin/amm045

Douglas Biber: UNIVERSITY LANGUAGE: A CORPUS-BASED STUDY

OF SPOKEN AND WRITTEN REGISTERS. John Benjamins, 2006.

This ambitious work provides the most comprehensive linguistic analysis to

date of university language. Drawing on the TOEFL 2000 Spoken and

Written Academic Language corpus [T2K-SWAL] (Biber et al. 2004b), Biber

describes and compares language use patterns across a broad range of spoken

and written university registers, including educational as well as advising/management registers. This investigation aims to be of particular use to

educators concerned with improving the match of English for specific/

academic purposes instruction [ESP/EAP] to the actual language tasks

required in university courses, but is also a must-read for anybody interested

in the study of academic discourse. To ethnographers, however, the social

dimension may seem underemphasized. Following the introductory chapter,

Chapters 2 through 6 present detailed accounts of the distributions and

functions of particular linguistic features. These are complemented in

Chapter 7 by a multi-dimensional analysis of the overall patterns ofuniversity register variation. A summary of the principal findings along with

directions for future research concludes this work, and two appendices

describe the analytical procedures for the linguistic analyses and methodo-

logical issues in quantitative vocabulary analyses.

REFERENCES

Coffin, C. 2006. Learning the language of school

history: The role of linguistics in mapping the

writing demands of the secondary school curri-

culum, Journal of Curriculum Studies 38/4:

41329.

Schleppegrell, M.J. and M. Achugar. 2003.

Learning language and learning history: A

functional linguistics approach, TESOL Journal

12/2: 217.

Schleppegrell, M. J. and L.C. Oliveira. 2006.

An integrated language and content approach

for history teachers, Journal of English for

Academic Purposes 5/4: 25468.

Schleppegrell, M.J., M. Achugar, and T. Oteza.

2004. The grammar of history: Enhancing

content-based instruction through a func-

tional focus on language, TESOL Quarterly

38/1: 6793.

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