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Different authorial voices in upper secondary school history essays

Authors

• Hilkka Paldanius

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33350/ka.84069

Keywords:

history, essay, appraisal theory, genre

Abstract

The study examines how students’ discussions of the initiator of the Cold war are linguistically realized in expository history essays. The data consist of 52 source-based essays that were written as a part of a course exam in a Finnish upper secondary school. Methodologically, the study uses text analysis, and theoretically it is based on the appraisal theory. The analysis focuses on the authorial voices that can be found in the end stages of the essays. The results show that the students’ discussions are realized with different authorial voices that combine the resources of engagement and attitude: the adjudicator’s voice resembles the voice of persuasive genres whereas the interpreter’s voice is closer to expository and academic genres. In addition, both voices can be realized differently, depending on how certain or uncertain they are, and the speculative realizations of voice in particular can be seen as representing a reflective approach to the topic. The study suggests that in history teaching, as well as in writing tasks, it is important to pay attention to the genre features of different texts.