Journal of English for Academic Purposes 14 (2014) 6071

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Journal of English for Academic Purposes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jeap

Tracking movement toward academic language

in multilingual classrooms
Mariana Achugar a, *, Brian D. Carpenter b
a
b

Carnegie Mellon University, Department of Modern Languages, Baker Hall 160, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Department of English, Leonard Hall, Room 110, 421 NorthWalk, Indiana, PA 15705-1094, USA

a b s t r a c t
Keywords:
Disciplinary literacy
History
Functional grammar
English for academic purposes
Secondary school
Multilingual classrooms

Learning history depends heavily on language and cultural references that students supposedly already know. Understanding how young people from multilingual backgrounds
develop language in content area classrooms can help us better assist students to achieve
higher levels of literacy needed to understand discipline-specic knowledge. Using the
conceptual framework and analytic tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday,
1994) we analyze the changes in lexico-grammatical and discourse-semantic choices in
learners responses to two primary source history texts as indexes of academic language
development. The data comes from a larger study that explored the integration of text
analysis to history lessons focusing on primary sources and documenting the impact of the
intervention on students disciplinary literacy development. In this paper, we focus on the
conguration of linguistic indices that serve to track academic language development. The
analysis shows changes in students linguistic choices that realize ways of reasoning and
arguing typical of history. The ndings show that it is important to document academic
language development in qualitative ways that capture the complexity of development
considering constellations of linguistic features and how they function to serve disciplinespecic ways of making meaning.
2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Learning history depends heavily on language and cultural references that students supposedly already know to build
more academic understandings of society, citizenship, and change. Understanding how young people from multilingual
backgrounds develop language in content area classrooms can help us better assist teachers and students to achieve higher
levels of literacy needed to understand discipline-specic knowledge. The transition from learning to read to reading to learn
in adolescence incorporates challenges that have to do with the discipline-specic ways of reasoning, constructing arguments, and evaluating knowledge. These ways of knowing are realized through particular ways of using language that are not
those typically encountered in every day situations.
Using the conceptual framework and analytic tools of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) we analyze the changes in lexicogrammatical and discourse-semantic choices of multilingual learners production of academic discourse in history. This type of
analysis can help us identify specic congurations of language resources functional in constructing disciplinary content. This
type of functional analysis, that identies and tracks changes in the linguistic choices that encode discipline-specic ways of
reasoning can help in assessment and instruction. The implications of this study are important for supporting academic literacy
development of the growing number of linguistically and culturally diverse learners in U.S. high schools.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 412 268 1895; fax: 1 412 268 1328.
E-mail addresses: machugar@andrew.cmu.edu (M. Achugar), brian.carpenter@iup.edu (B.D. Carpenter).
1475-1585/$ see front matter 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.12.002

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2. Academic language in the disciplines and language minorities

The linguistic minority population has increased signicantly in the past few years. These students tend to lag behind in
academic achievement and grade level content norms. There is an achievement gap in schools between Hispanics, African
Americans, and White students (Adger, Christian, & Taylor, 1999). Students of different language, racial and economic groups
tend to be the ones that suffer the consequences of differential opportunity environments.1
According to Batalova, Fix, and Murray (2006), between 1996 and 2006 the nations K-12 English Language Learner (ELL)
population rose by over 60 percent while the size of the overall student population essentially did not change. Of these
students, 56% (in 2005) were also poor or low income. The drop out rate for these students was also higher than that of their
peers. On the other hand, scholarship on dialect diversity in U.S. classrooms has shown that vernacular and stigmatized
dialect speakers are also underperforming in academic measures. These students seem to be particularly affected by language
ideologies that attribute less value to their ways of speaking and do not integrate them into the curriculum (Godley,
Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006).
Cultural, linguistic and economic differences provide learners with different language experiences that result in differentiated linguistic resources. Thus, at school these learners are confronted with different cultural practices, literacy experiences and knowledge from those of their primary socialization. Developing academic language associated with different
disciplines constitutes a secondary socialization that is part of secondary level schooling.
The multilingual linguistic characteristics of many U.S. public schools present both a need and an opportunity to explore
the role of academic language development in learning. Academic language development is an umbrella term used to refer to
the particular ways in which language is used in school contexts (e.g. Hyland, 2002; Schleppegrell, 2004). But at the secondary
school level, students begin to encounter an academic language that displays some variation from one subject-matter to the
next. This type of language variation, according to area of knowledge and professional practice, is referred to as disciplinary
literacy (e.g. Hyland, 2004; Lee, 2004; Moje et al., 2004). Disciplinary literacy is a recontextualization of professional practice
that provides access to specialized knowledge and ways of producing it.
In our work, we focus on this specialized academic language in subject-matter history courses: disciplinary literacy in history.
For those who come from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds than the mainstream students in U.S. schools, learning
disciplinary literacy poses fundamental challenges. Some of the students already have knowledge of content that may transfer to
the new language, while others do not have experience with academic contexts in their home language. These multilingual
classrooms include minority language learners who are also being socialized into standard American English varieties and
second language learners who are developing English as another language in their repertoire. All of these learners with very
different linguistic backgrounds run into many of the same problems when faced with disciplinary literacy. They all have a quasiforeign relationship to the language they are trying to write and read (Green, 2002; Shaughnessy, 1977; Siegel, 2010). For them,
the development of disciplinary literacy entails learning a new way of making meanings, which together with the expansion of
their linguistic repertoire incorporates a new way of using the resources to understand a eld of knowledge (i.e. history).
In this paper, we report on part of a larger project that investigated the role of language in history classes to better understand how the development of language awareness can support the development of a disciplinary gaze (Martin, Maton, &
Matruglio, 2010). By disciplinary gaze we refer to the values and ways of understanding that are unique to the discipline. We
operationalize disciplinary literacy as the representation and orientation choices that characterize meaning making practices
within the eld. In this paper, we explore the development of linguistic resources that index ways in which learners of
disciplinary literacy in history construct logical relations and an academic voice. First, we present how logico-semantic relations and interdependency relations function to construct sense and subjectivity between clauses in a text (Thibault, 1991, p.
58). The exploration of these logical structures can contribute to tracking the semantic construction of historical reasoning.
Secondly, we explore the construction of a disciplinary voice.
We approach the development of disciplinary literacy through a functional linguistics perspective (Schleppegrell, Achugar,
& Oteza, 2004; Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Cofn, 2006; Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Martin, 2002; Martin et al., 2010;
Schleppegrell & de Oliveira, 2006). This means we look at how language functions in texts and how historical meanings
are constructed through linguistic choices. We focus on the meaning making process as a socio-cultural practice through
which students are socialized into content, language and activities. The linguistic resources used to construct historical
understanding and the meaning making practices used to engage with texts represent evidence of language development as a
form of participatory appropriation (Rogoff, 1995).
Our focus in this part of the project2 was to document the linguistic resources that learners deployed when trying to make
sense of disciplinary content texts. In particular, we looked at the ways in which learners recontextualized historical knowledge

1
According to Californias 2009 Base Annual Performance Index (API), race and class are linked to educational opportunity and systemic inequity is
pervasive in California schools. Low income students and students of color are concentrated in the lowest-achieving schools.
2
This design experiment explored three questions: one dealing with how students understanding of history and disciplinary literacy developed through
their involvement in the intervention; the second dealt with the main features that characterized the disciplinary literacy lessons developed and nally we
investigated how the teachers understanding of the role of language in the discipline changed throughout the experience. The focus of the intervention
was on reading comprehension of primary source documents and the development of critical language awareness based on research and integrating them
to the regular curriculum. The impact of this intervention on students learning was assessed through a reading comprehension task designed by the
researchers which required students to produce written responses that are analyzed here as evidence of their appropriation of academic discourse.

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by writing a summary of an authors position on an issue. The analysis identied what was picked up from the source texts and
how it was logically related, and how that information was evaluated and sourced. Our claim is that looking at how learners
deploy logical organization of information, as well as evaluative meaning making resources, can provide linguistic evidence of
academic development and content understanding. This means understanding reading comprehension and writing responses
to texts as interrelated and dynamic meaning making processes realized through language. The following section provides
some background information on previous studies exploring academic language development using a functional approach.
3. Disciplinary literacy development: lexico-grammatical and discourse-semantic resources
The meaning making practices of specialized communities are realized through particular discursive choices. The
development of these meaning making practices involves participation in activities that provide contextualized opportunities
to use language in discipline-valued ways to meet the goal of constructing specialized knowledge.
Doing history is about constructing a narrative of what happened in the past and how we evaluate it (Leinhardt, Stainton, &
Virji, 1994; Martin et al., 2010). Previous research has shown there are distinctive ways of using language to represent,
organize, and give value to the past (Achugar & Schleppegrell, 2005; Cofn, 2006; Martin, 2002; Martin et al., 2010). The
discourse of history is characterized by abstracting periods of time, causal relations, evaluations, and arguments to construct a
historical gaze (Martin et al., 2010). The linguistic resources through which this abstraction is realized include: nominalizations, reasoning within the clause (use of verbs instead of conjunctions to establish logical relations), and ambiguous use of
conjunctions (conation of time and cause). Evaluation is also deployed for disciplinary purposes to construct varied voices
that entail different degrees of involvement and explicitness in marking the authors orientation toward the past (Cofn,
2006). Most evaluations in history tend to be in judgments of social sanction (i.e. veracity, propriety) and social esteem
(i.e. normality, capacity, tenacity) (Martin & White, 2005)3 using lexis, modication, comparison, and adverbs of manner and
frequency to construct particular stances. These studies on history disciplinary literacy from an SFL perspective have identied linguistic features that distinguish this eld and demonstrate the uniqueness of history in comparison to other elds.
How do we document this learning to do history and how do we document using language in these discipline-specic ways?
The tracking of semiotic development in SFL has been conceptualized as a shift from commonsense ways of knowing to new
forms of knowledge that are distinct and distinctive for educational knowledge (Byrnes, 2006, p. 4). It is a movement from
congruent language as action, toward incongruent language that is outward centered (Halliday, 1999). In this language-based
theory of learning, this movement can be tracked by documenting the lexico-grammatical and discourse semantic features that
learners produce over time (e.g. Christie & Derewianka, 2008). Among the resources that have been identied as indexes of
development in semiotic meaning potential are: lexical density, grammatical intricacy, clause combining resources,4 and metadiscourse choices (i.e. attitude, engagement, graduation5). What constitutes evidence of development is not just counting the
features, but how these bundles of linguistic choices function in a text. For example, evidence of an academic voice would not be
only the use of technical lexis, but the conguration of technical lexis, evaluation and reference operating together.
Our main focus in this paper is on those congurations of linguistic features that serve to construct an argument and conceptual
understanding. By looking at logical relations between clauses, we can show how learners establish connections between ideas
and go beyond mere reporting (projection) to interpretation and evaluation (expansion). This is important in history because
historians work within the explanation space (Wineburg, 1991), where they know what happened, but need to reconstruct the
goals and the context in which it happened to explain it. So tracking the linguistic features associated with the logical organization
of ideas (i.e. parataxis, hypotaxis, embedding, projection and expansion) can also serve to understand how students make sense of
historical evidence and come to a reasoned conclusion. The other linguistic features we foreground are those utilized to construct a
particular disciplinary gaze realized by congurations of interpersonal meanings such as technical lexis, deixis, reporting verbs,
modals, intensication, and evaluation. In the following section, we present details about the particular study and its results.
4. The study: participants, method, and ndings
This paper reports on data from a larger longitudinal study on learning and teaching history in multilingual classrooms
conducted during a seven-month period in 20082009. It was a design experiment (Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph, & Bielaczyc,

3
In Martin & Whites (2005) model there are three types of attitudes that represent institutionalized ways of expressing our evaluations of reality:
judgment that deals with the evaluation of behavior in terms of moral or personal values; appreciation that deals with the evaluation of products as
esthetic or physical attributes; and affect that evaluates reactions in emotional terms.
4
According to Halliday (1994, p. 215218) to account for the functional organization of clauses we can interpret the relations between clauses in terms of
logical component of the linguistic system. There are two systematic dimensions in this interpretation: interdependency (tactic system: parataxis and
hypotaxis) and the logico-semantic system (expansion and projection). Beyond describing the relationship between clauses as modication this linguistic
interpretation allows us to enrich the description to account for the two dimensions of interdependency distinguishing the status of the modifying elements (equal parataxis; unequal hypotaxis); and the logico-semantic relation that describes the modication as a relationship of expansion (secondary
clause expands the primary by elaborating, extending or enhancing it) or of projection (secondary clause is reported as an idea or locution).
5
According to Martin and White (2005) interpersonal meanings are construed through semantic resources (negotiation, appraisal and involvement). The
appraisal system represents one of the ways in which power and solidarity are realized at the discourse semantic level. Appraisal includes three areas:
attitude concerned with institutionalized feelings (affect, judgment, appreciation), engagements which deals with sources of attitudes (heterogloss or
monogloss) and graduation through which attitudes are graded (focus and force).

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2004), where we collaboratively designed a disciplinary literacy intervention to integrate a language focus on history classes
and then documented the implementation and effects of it on student learning and the teachers concept of disciplinary
literacy. As part of the design experiment, students were given an assessment specically created to address the features
targeted in the intervention: aspects related to text production such as genre, audience, representations (i.e. verb, participant
choices) and interpersonal positionings (i.e. evaluative lexis, modality, sourcing) as well as those related to the reception of
texts (e.g. intertextual links and inferences). This paper focuses on data from the responses to the reading comprehension of
primary sources assessment given at the beginning and at the end of the semester in ve high school academic track American
history classes taught by the same teacher.
4.1. Participants
Participants came from one high school in an urban school district in South Texas. The district serves a population of
students designated as 63% economically disadvantaged and 27% Limited English Prociency. The district is rated as
academically acceptable and the high school is one of those meeting adequate yearly progress.
The teacher volunteered to participate in the study and integrate three text analysis focused lessons into the regular
American history curriculum.6 He had 4 years of teaching experience and a major in history with no previous linguistics
training, nor special ESL credentials. The students were enrolled in the academic track American history course, and the
grades the students were in ranged from 9 to 12th. The students had been placed in this academic track for their lower academic achievement in the standardized state history test (TAKS). Their ages ranged from 15 to 18 years old. The district
collected data that differentiated them by their English language abilities and ethnic background. The English Language
Learners (ELLs) were assessed with a Home Language Survey, an oral language prociency assessment, and the language arts
and reading section of a norm-referenced tests (scores below 40th percentile were considered English limited procient).
Some of the students were still receiving ESL support while other participating students had already exited the program.
Students were not identied by their language background history once they had been reclassied as English procient. Other
students in the group included speakers of African American English and social dialects. The ethnic background of students
was diverse including: Hispanic, White, Black, Asian and Native American (as labeled by the district). There were 94 students
in total, 15% designated ELLs, 15% as African American and 70% as Other.
4.2. Method
The design experiment included several phases that integrated the careful documentation of the intervention and its
context as well as documentation of the effects of the intervention. During the preliminary phase the teacher participated in a
summer intensive workshop on the functional approach to disciplinary literacy (Achugar & Stainton, 2010, 2012) and then
developed in collaboration with the rst author three focal lessons to be implemented throughout the semester (for a detailed
description of the lessons see Carpenter, Earhardt, & Achugar, in press). In the next phase, observations, collection of artifacts,
and interviews were done. The teacher was interviewed before and after the implementation of each of the lessons. These
were semi-structured interviews that also functioned as guided participation (Rogoff, 1995) in the apprenticeship into the
disciplinary literacy model. Observations were conducted throughout the semester to document class structure, lesson
implementation, classroom discourse, and students response. A pre and post assessment of students reading comprehension
and language awareness of primary sources was given at the beginning and at the end of the semester.7
4.3. Intervention
The intervention involved the teaching of three disciplinary literacy based lessons during the semester (one at the
beginning, one in the middle and one in the end). Each lesson included detailed analysis of language in an extract from a
primary source document. These lessons were part of an arc of lessons about a particular historical event set by the
curriculum.
The language focused lessons had the following dening features: 1) worked with excerpts of primary source documents;
2) looked closely at wordings at the sentence level to explore the representation of events and participants and the authors
orientation to them; 3) the teacher used metalanguage to describe linguistic and historical meanings; 4) included guided
practice and group practice of text analysis; 5) connected language analysis to historical issues. The lessons were organized
around a primary source text and focused on making students aware of how linguistic choices construct particular historical
meanings. The basic pedagogical move was to make explicit the range of choices available to the authors and how meaningful
the choices made were in historical terms. For example, in the conversations around the Declaration of Independence, the
teacher asked students to look closely at the wording of the text to be able to understand the historical signicance of these
choices. He asked them about the phrase we hold these truths to be self evident, by rst directing them to identify the verb

6
See Achugar (2009) for a more detailed description of the work done with teachers and the type of language focused literacy lessons developed in this
project.
7
See Achugar and Carpenter (2012) for a more detailed description of the study and the lessons.

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and then the participant associated with it. Students nominated several options to retrieve the referent for we: the government, people of the US, and those who wrote the document. Then the teacher guided them to explore the meaning of self
evident and asked for other alternative options to that choice. The main focus in this discussion was on showing how
meanings are made through particular choices and trying to unpack the text by retrieving the information that is assumed
and can be inferred by a knowledgeable reader. The goal was to help students make inferences about the implicit information
and show how we can make a historical reading by making certain connections. By highlighting certain word choices (e.g. we
hold these truths) and requesting an inference from students (e.g. the writers, government) the teacher made students
reect about the deeper historical meaning of the document. Who are the historical actors involved in this event? What
interests and ideology do they represent? The meaning of one choice emerges from the contrast of it to all the other possible
choices in that particular context.
The following example illustrates a typical interaction around text where large group lesson led to pair work, which asked
the students to pair with a peer and to compare Section 13 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights to the state ratied version of
the Second Amendment in the US Constitution. The texts were followed by a set of four questions. The sheet was as follows:
Section 13 of VA Declaration of Rights (June 12th, 1776)
That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe
defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all
cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and be governed by, the civil power.
2nd Amendment (December 15th, 1791)
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms,
shall not be infringed.
1. What differences do you see between these two passages?
2. What does Section 13 include that the 2nd Amendment leaves out?
3. What the 2nd Amendment includes that Section 13 leaves out?
4. How do you think our country would be different if Section 13 was actually the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution?
The teacher passed out the sheet and asked that the students think how the language choices in the texts help to make
meaning for the text. These instructions were building off the textual deconstruction on the Declaration of Independence that
they had done earlier as a whole class. The teacher walked around the room answering specic questions and monitoring
progress for about 8 min, after which the teacher projected both texts on the screen. The teacher asked the students to present
their answers. To the question that asked about differences, one student suggested Section 13 to mean, that the military
should be governed by the people and that the document says there should be no military in times of peace. The teacher
asked the class, What specically in the text says no military in time of peace? A student responded by pointing out how
the texts differ around the mention of peace. The teacher then asked about the meaning of standing armies and the talk was
about how the term standing armies was dened. The follow up question to this was how would our country be different if
we had Section 13 in the Constitution and not the 2nd Amendment? A student responded, I think the military and gun
owners would be more tightly controlled, it would be more difcult to own guns. And the lesson ended with questions and
statements about whether the draft would be necessary if no standing army were allowed.
It is important to highlight the brevity of the intervention to assess the ndings presented below.
4.4. Analysis
The data analyzed in the paper is only one section of the assessment completed by students. For information about the rest
of the study please see Author (2012). The assessment was administered in two separate sessions, once at the beginning,
before the intervention, and once at the end of the semester, after the intervention. The reading comprehension tasks
involved getting information from a primary source, interpreting it, and making inferences (see Appendix A). The analysis
presented below focuses only on the interpretation question where students had to explain the position of the author about
one of the two topics (slavery and immigration). This section was selected because it is the one where students were asked to
make sense of the primary source text. The questions given to students were the following:
Start of the semester
Task 1.Based on the information you located in the text, what can you conclude about the authors position regarding
equality among people? Write a short summary of the authors opinion about equality among people.
End of the semester
Task 2 Based on the information you located in the document, what can you conclude about the authors position
regarding the possible reasons for deporting immigrants? What did they want to do with anarchists and radical immigrants? Write a short summary of the authors opinions about anarchists and the actions they took to deal with them.

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65

The students had about 30 min to complete the whole reading comprehension task, which was done as part of regular
class work, and observed by the second author. The texts were not edited or revised by students. The analysis methods are
described below.
Students longhand written texts were typed by the researchers to form a corpus of 184 texts. The mean number of words
of these written responses were 32 for the Pre-test and 38 for the Post-test.8 All texts were divided into clauses manually. We
calculated the lexical density (number of content words per total number of clauses), grammatical intricacy (number of clause
complexes per total number of clauses), and coded for use of technical vocabulary, colloquial vocabulary, and features that
construct a presentation of self-as authority (i.e. mental or saying verbs [projection], modality, use of personal pronouns,
attitudes [appreciation and judgment, no affect]). We also coded for the interdependency between clauses (parataxis, hypotaxis and embedding9) and logico-semantic relations (projection and expansion). We had a 91% rate of inter-coder reliability. After all students answers were coded, we calculated averages per group and frequencies of occurrence for the logical
system. We also run a matched t-test and checked the strength of association using eta2 to see how important that difference
was (Hatch & Lazaraton, 1991). In addition, we searched for patterns within and across groups and tried to track movement
from more common sense to more disciplinary ways of making meaning (see description above). Then we did a textual
analysis of each text to identify how these resources functioned in each particular text. In the next section, we present the
general ndings for the groups according to language background and ethnicity (as designated by the district10), and then
present a few examples of change within individuals from each of the groups to have a more detailed text analysis to illustrate
what development of disciplinary literacy looks like in a multilingual classroom.11
4.5. Findings
Across all groups (English Language Learners [ELLs], African Americans [AA], and Other learners [OL]) there were increases
from Task 1 to Task 2 in number of words produced, lexical density, and grammatical intricacy. All students used more
language (number of words increased by 31%), changed their grammatical intricacy (14% difference), and used a wider range
of clause types (i.e. parataxis, hypotaxis, embedding [32% increase]). Fig. 1 shows these results. The change in number of
words was statistically signicant (t 4.06, p < .001, h2 0.18); as well as the increase in the type of clauses used or tactic
system resource expansion (t 3.42, p < .001, h2 0.14).
This chart shows how there is a movement toward more academic discourse because the number of words increased and
the lexical density tends to go up (even though it is not statistically signicant). However, this increase in the number of
content words and total number of words in the texts comes without a change in the types of structural or logical relations
between ideas as expressed through grammatical intricacy. Based on previous studies (e.g. Christie & Derewianka, 2008) we
expected to nd less subordination and more grammatical metaphor12 producing more abstract and compact texts. But even
though this was not observed in our data, there was some indication that students were producing more complex texts (as
seen in the increase in length and in the tactic system choices).
A closer look at clause relations showed that at the clause interdependency system all learners expanded their range of
clause complex choices. This means they not only used more paratactic clauses (clauses of equal status, [50% increase]), but
also increased their use of hypotaxis (clauses of unequal status, [16% increase]) across tasks. Single slanted lines mark hypotaxis (/), double slanted lines (//) mark parataxis and straight brackets ([ ]) mark embedding. For example,
1) Student ID# 1019
It seems like/ he believes /that the King of Great Britain is using his power in a wrong way./ (Task 1, pre-test)
The author of this document obviously believes /that aliens (immigrants) came here [[to over throw the US government,// kill government ofcials //and teach things [[that are not organized by the government]].]/ (Task 2, post-test)

8
Even though these texts are very short they provide evidence for how students made meaning from the reading and display their meaning making
resources in terms of how they represented the information they got from the source text they responded to as well as how they oriented toward this
information.
9
Embedding is a rank shift by which a clause or phrase comes to function within the structure of a group, like who came to dinner in the man who came
to dinner. [.] The characteristic function of an embedded element is as Post modier in a nominal group. (Halliday, 1994, p. 242).
10
We know it is problematic to analyze the groups based on ethno-linguistic labels assigned by the district. However, we present the data distinguishing
these groups to make the point that in disciplinary literacy development the differences across ethno-linguistic groups are not really useful. Academic
language development in subject matter contexts at the secondary school level is a process of second socialization for all. This register specic ways of using
language require the development of new linguistic resources or the deployment of already existing resources in new ways. From a socio-cultural historical
perspective informed by a Vygotskyan theoretical framework, the learning trajectory of individuals is directly related to the social experience they have
participated in. So, an ELL who has been schooled in his native language and has already had experiences with disciplinary literacy in his/her L1 may make
meanings in more discipline-specic ways than someone who has never had experience with language used in that situation. Because there are more
similarities within register across languages, than across registers within the same language (Biber, 1995); it would be possible to expect disciplinary
literacy learning trajectories that do not correspond to learners ethno-linguistic identity.
11
The examples presented are the entire responses given by the students and have not been edited or redacted.
12
Grammatical metaphor is a cross-coupling [.] between grammatical classes (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. xvi). For example, meanings are
typically made through words and structures such as processes through verbs; but in grammatical metaphor the meanings of processes can be represented
through nouns (E.g. We walked for two miles > the walk was two miles long).

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M. Achugar, B.D. Carpenter / Journal of English for Academic Purposes 14 (2014) 6071

Fig. 1. Overall results by group.

Learners were attempting to combine ideas and had more ways of doing it. Fig. 2 below shows the change in the type of
clause combining resources.
In Fig. 2, the changes in clause combining resources show more use of subordination (hypotaxis, [16% increase]) and
embedding (30% increase), which index a move toward more academic like language. Information was organized in terms of
ideas and reasons instead of actors, which required the students to use more inter-clausal activity (subordination) and more
intra-clausal compression of information (embedding).
We then looked at the logical function of these clauses to have a better sense of what the learners were trying to do by
using more clause complexes: reporting (projection) or developing the meaning (expansion). The analysis of logico-semantic
relations showed change to a higher use of expansion (64% increase). They were going beyond restating what the author had
said (using projection), to expanding the information through their own interpretation of others discourse (using expansion).
In example 2, we can observe changes in the type of logical relations among clauses in the production of one student across
the semester.
2) Student ID# 1069
The author think [sic] /that slavery is violating sacred human rights. (Task 1, pre-test)
Projection
They dont like anarchists/// they believe/ that they are messing up the organization of everything.//So in order to keep
everything in order/ they have to get rid of them. (Task 2, post-test)
Projection and expansion (adding information)
This learner moves from reporting what the author has said in the pre-test, to being able to establish a causal relationship
between the events by expanding the information including the consequences of the authors position about immigration.
Fig. 3 shows the changes in logico-semantic relations across groups.
In Fig. 3, we can observe that there is an increase in the use of expansion indexing a more incongruent way of elaborating
on the meaning of another clause by further specifying, adding, or qualifying it. This linguistic change reveals meaning
making with a critical approach toward information that moves beyond mere reporting. Since they are not only giving back
what the text says, but also establishing connections among the information that are not directly stated in the source text they
read.

Fig. 2. Changes in clause combining resources.

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67

Fig. 3. Changes in logico-semantic relations.

The analysis of how students positioned themselves as authorities in the subject-matter constructing an authoritative
voice was also examined. The most interesting ndings revealed a general move toward more endophoric reference (terms
that point to inside the text constructing a shared context instead of assuming it) and different use of attitudes and graduation
(Martin & White, 2005). The use of modality (verbs, adjectives, adverbs that express degrees of probability, usuality, obligation and inclination) also changed across tasks. These congurations of resources demonstrate an awareness of audience
and adoption of a stance that reveals an understanding that doing history is not just about the ideas, but also about the
orientation to those ideas.
The following examples show changes in how students moved to constructing a more authoritative voice. We selected
examples from each group (ELLs, AA, OL) that would show the range of choices made within the group to give a sense of their
overall meaning potential.
Example 3 is from an English language learner that displays an incipient control of academic language resources.
3) Student ID#1065
He declare/ that slave [sic] must have equality //and refute George III unworthy way.///. (Task 1, pre-test)
Everything have to [sic] be legal,// and government must eliminate communists./// (Task 2, post-test)
Example 3 shows the use of exophoric reference pointing to a shared context outside the text (he), which assumes the
reader has the same information as the writer and has also read the source text. Then in the post-test there is no mention of
the source. The other interesting feature is the use of modality, must and have to, in both pre and post-test indicating a
high degree of obligation to construct a tone of moral evaluation. Graduation is also used to raise the level of the evaluation
through quantication, everything, as well as through attitudinal lexis like refute and eliminate pointing to a more
academic voice. Even though there is no striking change in the resources used to construct an academic voice we can see the
variety of linguistic resources the student is deploying to position himself as an authority on the subject matter. Through
these linguistic choices we can see the students deployment of evaluation resources in ways that are more congruent with
the discipline. He understands that the historical debate on these issues revolves around the extent of the rights and the focus
of those limitations. By using graduation (e.g. everything) and modality (e.g. have to) the student highlights the importance of
obligations and applications of rights and laws in these two cases. There is also a clear identication of participants to whom
these obligations and rights benet or are applied to which again demonstrates an understanding of who the key historical
actors involved were. In the post-test, this is further rened by naming the actor and not assuming it is shared knowledge for
the audience.
Example 4 shows what a more advanced ELL can do with more developed use of academic language resources.
4) Student ID#1052
He sees /that there is not equality //& that it should be equality among men //but because of the government & the sold
of slaves & the injustices commited [sic] /it should came [sic] equality./// (Task 1, pre-test)
They related the anarchists & the immigrant in a same group /by putting some too stricts [sic] measures to deal with
anarchists //but at the same time including the immigrants./// The author only talks about [[what would [sic] happened
if they found out that they where [sic] anarchists ]]/but they dont explain [[what measures are they gonna take for
Americans [that want communism]]]. (Task 2, post-test)
The second ELL example shows a more evident change in terms of constructing an academic voice. The student moves
from using exophoric reference (he) in the pre-test, to a combined use of external and internal reference (They and The
author) that points to a change in process in the development toward more academic like voice. The instability and coexistence of exophoric and endophoric reference highlight a certain awareness of the need to construct the context for the

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audience instead of assuming it is shared. The use of modality indicates a medium degree of moral obligation should in both
tasks. But in the second task this use of modality is also combined with graduation (too) and comparisons to construct an
evaluative stance critiquing the authors position. This conguration of linguistic choices reveals the variety of resources that
contribute to the construction of a more authoritative voice. In addition, we see that in the post test the student is also
pointing to a loop hole in the argument, since anarchists and communists are conated with immigrants the legislators have
not contemplated another case: the citizens who want to spouse communism. This subtle understanding of the roles and
positioning is displayed through sourcing and mentioning of what is not there through use of negation (they dont say).
In example 5, we observe the change in academic voice of an African American students text with less developed academic language choices.
5) Student ID #1067
The author is for equality of all people./// He feels /that the kind is not giving the people [what they need]. ///He doesnt
treat the people [the way they should be]./// The slaves dont get the rights [they desearve [sic]]. (Task 1, pre-test)
It seems like/ the author didnt really want other people here. ///He seems [to like lay out a bunch of laws on [what they
cant do]]],// and if they break them/ then he they can be deported// or put in jail. (Task 2, post-test)
The student in example 5 uses endophoric reference (the author) in both tests showing he has awareness of the need to
construct the context for his audience, which clearly situates his discourse in an academic context. In both pre and post-tests,
there is a reliance on mental processes and affective attitude to construct evaluation (treat, deserve). There is also some
use of modality to point to the moral critique of the position presented by the author. The second task shows a clear
distinction between the author and the writers position. The voice of the student is integrated by commenting on the others
intentions through and impersonal construction it seems. There is also more hedging of evaluation (seems). In this case,
there is a clear expansion of linguistic resources to construct the more academic voice, while there are still some uses that
index less appropriate choices like colloquial vocabulary (a bunch of, he seems to like lay).
Example 6 shows the texts of an African American student who shows more change toward more academic like language
choices.
6) Student ID# 1146
He thought /everyone should and could be equal. /That every man is free. (Task1, pre-test)
He has good reasons[[ to deport them]]./// The act says/ they have a felony //then get deported back. //So if I was a
terrorist //and I got kicked out of America //then I came back// I would have to pay //and get kicked out. (Task 2, posttest)
Example 6 shows exophoric reference (he) in both tests and a reliance on mental and saying verbs (thought and
says), modality (should and could and would have to), and graduation (everyone and good reasons), to construct an
evaluation of the position of the author. The second task shows also the integration of mood and analogy as lexicogrammatical and rhetorical resources to construct an evaluation. The construction of a scenario where the author puts
himself in the position of the actors depicted in the text demonstrates the ability to use a complex tense and mood system (if
I was then I would have) as well as an understanding of the consequences of the actions taken by the legislators who wrote
the text. There is an expansion of interpersonal meaning making resources which results in an elaboration of the writers
position building on what the text says and evaluating it. Here we observe that the student is able to go from reporting of the
others opinion, which is part of what is valued in history, to evaluating it and considering what it would mean in terms of
consequences for individuals. The post-test shows the student going into more explanatory modes that highlight the value of
the position being presented and also the meaning in terms of what it implied for those affected by it. This double-layered
understanding of what is in the text, together with its social effects reects a movement toward more historical
understanding.
In example 7, we can observe the production of Other learner (non-designated) where there is some development of
academic language between tasks.
7) Student ID# 1097
He is against slavery./// He thinks that/ it is cruel, //but he knows [[he cant do anything about it.]]/// He blamed the King.
(Task 1, pre-test)
The authors opinions about immigrants and anarchists was [[that he didnt like them]]./// He thought /that the anarchists were people [[who wrongly inuenced migrants to do bad things.]] (Task 2, post-test)
This example shows in the pre-test a reliance on exophoric reference (he) that is changed in the post-test to explicit
identication of the source (the authors opinions). In the pre-test, there is use of mental processes (thinks) and projection
to introduce the others views in a congruent way. However, in the post-test we can observe more incongruent forms to bring
in the others view by using the nominalization the authors opinions, which makes his ideas a thing that can be elaborated
on and evaluated more indirectly. There is also a movement from the direct encoding of evaluation through interplay modality (cant) and graduation (anything) to more indirect encodings in the post-test where modication is used to

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69

introduce the writers evaluation (who wrongly inuenced). In the pre-test, there is also use of attitudinal lexis to inscribe
affective and moral evaluations through word choices like cruel and blamed. In the post-test, the choices are similar and
with high frequency vocabulary, bad and didnt like them. These resources point to a developmental point that moves in
between congruent and incongruent constructions and shows an incipient academic voice. The change in language choices
incorporates a change in the thinking process whereby the student is able to understand the importance of sourcing by
identifying historical actors and also move from more affective reactions to more social judgments favored in the discipline.
Example 8 displays a different type of language development in a student from the OL group, and the example highlights
the different types of academic resources deployed in constructing an academic voice.
8) Student ID # 1081)
The authors view of slavery & equality was important./// He wanted [[to have equality & get the King out of the way and
out of power.]] (Task 1, pre-test)
The authors [sic] views towards immigrants is extreamly [sic] racist & narrow minded. ///Also toward anarchist he
shows a very short leash [[givin [sic]to them about being exported and punished.]]/// The author (being the U.S.) at this
time was //and still is [[very messed up with immigration and religious views]]./// The actions they took were
intimidation, deportation. (Task 2, post-test)
In example 8, the author is identied explicitly (the authors view) through a nominalization that allows the position to
be fore-grounded and evaluated impersonally in terms of moral qualities (important). The post-test reveals a higher
degree of evaluation using graduation (very) and attitudinal lexis (narrow minded). However, the attitudinal lexis comes
mainly from colloquial language (short leash and messed up), which gives the piece a marked voice in academic terms.
This learner has began to use some of the typical linguistic choices to construct an academic voice, such as the use of
endophoric reference and relational processes with embedding to evaluate presenting her position through graduation and
modication instead of interpersonal comments. This student shows awareness of sourcing and evaluation as distinct requirements of disciplinary discourse. In addition, there is a change from the pre to the post-test by which the student is able
to incorporate the consequences of the authors position in terms of legislation and social actions that derive from the
authors position. This exploration of social consequences in relation to historical actors actions is a valued way of reasoning
in history.
These examples from students of all groups demonstrate how they deploy a variety of similar linguistic resources to
encode their subjectivity in texts and construct a historical understanding of events. These texts, although brief, give us a
picture of the complexity of academic language and how a wide range of lexico-grammatical and discourse-semantic features
contribute to the construction of academic voice.
The analysis tried to show development across all groups as participatory appropriations (Rogoff, 1995). We captured a
snapshot of development where learners were experimenting with the explanation space through the use of a variety of
clause combining resources using clause complexing (parataxis and hypotaxis) and compression of information (embedding).
As other studies have shown, the increase in the use of coordination (parataxis) serves as a steppingstone to try subordination
(hypotaxis). This indicates development of clause combining resources and an expansion of meaning making resources toward the packaging of more information within a clause. This structural change together with the changes in the logical
relations between clauses reveals that students were able to combine ideas in different ways to elaborate on the meanings
presented in the text, not just reproduce them. These new deployments of linguistic resources enabled students to make new
meanings and express new ways of reasoning which are valued in the discipline.
There was also an increase in amount of language produced, showing how words were used to evaluate what occurred in a
historical moment. The increase in evaluation and expansion shows an attempt to reach a reasoned conclusion. Learners
moved along a continuum of development toward the construction of more abstract and incongruent ways of encoding
subjectivity that showed awareness of sourcing and perspective. Their interaction with the text became more critical with
time and opened up a space to work on a wider range of linguistic resources that could be used to comment while summarizing the source text.
5. Conclusions
This study shows the dynamic and non-linear nature of academic language development and highlights the commonalities across learners from different linguistic backgrounds grouped in the same content class. Linguistic differences show a
continuous rather than discrete correlation with social traits (Wolfram, 2004, p. 61). The linguistic differences across groups
are few in comparison to the similarities. In contrast, there is a lot of variation within groups that results from the different
experiences and language trajectories learners have had with this particular disciplinary context. So instead of designing
different types of interventions to socialize language minority students into disciplinary literacy, we may nd benets in
incorporating explicit language focus in content area classrooms. In multilingual classrooms there are opportunities to work
on language and content simultaneously that can benet all students and not only ELLs or vernacular dialect speakers.
Engaging in meaningful analysis of primary source texts and focusing on how language is used to construct concepts can
make the academic language visible to all students to help them recognize and realize the valued and context-specic ways of
using language in the discipline (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010; Hyland, 2002; Shanahan & Shanahan, 2008).

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Understanding writing development requires us to explore language and content as co-constitutive to see how the linguistic choices function to construct discipline-specic meanings. As we tried to show in our analysis, the deployment of a
variety of clause combining resources enables learners to establish relationships between ideas by expanding meanings and
connecting them logically to construct an explanatory space. In addition, the use of a conguration of resources to evaluate
and position writers in relation to ideas and sources enables them to become aware of sourcing and contextualizing which are
key elements of historical discourse (Leinhardt & Young, 1996).
Functional approaches to language have the potential to foreground the interconnectedness between language and
content specic meanings. By making explicit the links between wordings and meanings functional approaches reveal the
ways in which knowledge is constructed through and in language. Interventions that have used this approach have yielded
interesting results (Gebhard, Harman, & Seger, 2007; Schleppegrell et al., 2006) encouraging the continued investigation and
design of ways to make explicit discussions about language part of disciplinary literacy practices.
The changes in language use shown here cannot be directly attributed to the intervention because this was not a controlled
experiment. However, what we present here, the development of more discipline-specic ways of using language together
with reasoning and evaluation, offer us some incentive to continue looking into the potential this type of approach has. Future
studies should explore, using an experimental design and classroom discourse, the relationship between language development, content understanding, and a functional approach to disciplinary literacy.
It is important to highlight that our ndings show diversity within subgroups (i.e. ELLs, AA, OL) to understand the
importance of doing discourse analysis together with large quantitative corpus descriptions. English language learners or
language minority learners are not all the same even though they may be placed in the same grade level or classroom. All
students needs and paths of development differ according to the experiences they have had with academic language. As
Bernstein has pointed out, the repertoire of each member of the community will have both a common nucleus but there will
be differences between the repertoires. There will be differences between the repertoires because of the differences between
members arising out of differences in members context and activities and their associated issues. (2000, p. 158)
This difference in experience is revealed in the differences in writing development revealed in this corpus. However, the
learning of disciplinary literacy is something all students are facing when learning to use language to understand subject
matter content. This secondary socialization is a shared experience and something that can be scaffolded to ensure access to
new ways of knowing and new ways of using language.
In this study, the teachers work with text analysis of primary sources in the history class focused on developing recognition rules (Bernstein, 2000) to identify the ways in which language was used to construct historical knowledge. But there
was no explicit instruction related to realization rules (Bernstein, 2000). The focus on critical language awareness does not
necessarily transfer to writing production. Explicit focus and feedback on rules of realization in discipline-specic practices
seems to be necessary to enhance writing development (Hyland, 2002). The qualitative reorganization within individuals
repertoire and between individuals in the group is connected to changes in the system of interaction (Vygotsky, 1978).
Engaging in conversations around texts in discipline-specic ways can support academic development. The minimal intervention reported here created a space to think and talk about the role of language in historical understanding.
Our recommendation to content-area teachers working in multilingual classrooms is to use linguistic diversity as an
instructional resource. Integrating an explicit discussion about language and meaning in textual choices allows for a discussion of
language that centers on content and puts language analysis at the service of it. Engaging in contrastive analysis to explore what
other choices may mean can explain the importance and social signicance of saying the text explains what slavery is instead of
it talks about slavery. In addition, making the reading process public and shared can slow it down and help all students understand it. By making discussions about language relevant to the content area, language minority learners are given a chance to
ask questions about language without being singled out as individual problems, and these discussions thus become reections
about language valuable to all. This type of reexive critical language awareness (Hasan, 1996) can empower all students.
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by a Spencer Small Research Grant #200800158, Teaching and learning history in a multilingual
classroom, given to the rst author. We would like to thank the teachers and students for their collaboration in this project. In
addition, Gaea Leinhardt, Kate Stainton, Joan Mohr and Anita Ravi were instrumental in the design of the project and assisting
with the connections at the site. We are also thankful to Mary Schleppegrell and Amy Crosson for their comments. Naoko
Taguchi offered us her help with the statistical analyses, we are greatly indebted to her. We are also appreciative of the
anonymous reviewers suggestions. The problems and mistakes left are our sole responsibility.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2013.12.002.
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Mariana Achugar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Modern Language at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research focuses on academic language development, disciplinary literacy, bilingual professional identity and political discourse analysis. Her work integrates Systemic Functional Linguistics
and Critical discourse analysis with ethnographic methods.
Brian Carpenter is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the role of language in
concept development within content area classrooms and on academic language development of language minority students. His work incorporates
Vygotsky, Halliday and Bernsteins theories to explore the sociocognitive, semiotic and social aspects of advanced literacy.