Writing and speaking in the history class

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the language used by CLIL secondary school students of history and that of students following the same syllabus in their first language (Spanish). The data consists of spoken and written production: a whole-class end-of-topic summary session and short compositions by the same students on the same topic. Using a Systemic-Functional approach (Halliday 2004), we analyse a selection of features of the students’ language in the two contexts. We focus on their expression of content: processes, participants, circumstances and clause complexes (Halliday’s ideational function of language) and their use of modality (the interpersonal function). The results report differences between the two groups in the realization of the two functions.