This poster presents one part of the current PhD project entitled “Policy, Purpose, Practice: Defining English-medium Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in the Swedish Upper Secondary School.” The project includes an investigation of the development of CLIL in the Swedish context in light of language policy and the role of the English language, as well as an investigation of classroom discourse in relation to the implicit and explicit goals expressed by the stakeholders. Additionally, the reasons why English is being offered as the medium of instruction as well as how the option is being presented by and to the stakeholders are of interest. In an open market for upper secondary education, Swedish schools, including those offering CLIL, tend to “sell” their programs in a persuasive manner, using websites, brochures, and advertising in the local media to attract pupils. These marketing texts may be used to create a certain identity of a CLIL pupil as well as to establish a position as a stakeholder in the CLIL community.
The current study investigates several websites presenting Swedish schools offering CLIL, with an analysis exploring what is being offered and to whom as well as how written text is used together with images. In this study, Appraisal Analysis, with a focus on how the three systems of Attitude, Engagement and Graduation express meaning, is the main tool for analysing the websites. Appraisal Analysis, stemming from the interpersonal metafunction in the systemic functional linguistics approach, is useful for exploring how evaluative language is used in the texts presented online to potential and intended stakeholders. In this poster presentation, some of the early results of this study will be presented, although the analysis is still a work in progress. With a focus on Attitude, the preliminary analysis indicates that number of instances of positive judgement and appreciation is high, while instances of affect are mostly absent. These results may not be surprising, but the preliminary analysis has raised several questions about the use of Appraisal Analysis for this investigation of school marketing texts, including the following:
- What can Appraisal Analysis of school websites actually tell us?
- Is there an evaluation pattern in marketing texts for Swedish schools offering CLIL?
- What can this analysis say about the sociocultural context of schools offering CLIL in Sweden?
More results, as well as consideration of the questions raised from the analysis, will be presented in the poster session. Discussion and feedback from summer school participants will be welcome.
2012.
The 2nd LinC Summer school and Workshop in Systemic Functional Linguistics, Cardiff University, Wales, 3 - 5 September 2012