A framework for examining evaluative language in history texts
What is it about?
The ways history texts evaluate the past is complex. They include various discourse participants putting forward a range of views toward the subject-matter. To untangle this complex web of voices, the paper proposes the following four levels of evaluation in history texts: 1) Inter-evaluation: (i.e., reports of the thoughts and feelings of historical participants) 2) Super-evaluation (i.e., the views of the authorial voice 3) Extra-evaluation (i.e., Disciplinary interaction with the views of other historians) 4) Meta-evaluation (how the discourse itself is evaluated in terms of meeting disciplinary goals of the history profession such as objectivity, neutrality etc.). Evaluations at each level can resonate at others.
Why is it important?
Much of the research in evaluative language has been firmly focused on classifying different types of evaluative acts. This framework also categorizes the sources and targets of evaluative acts. This categorization scheme is grounded in historiography and reflects key disciplinary activities of historians.