Appraisal framework and critical discourse studies: A joint approach to the study of historical memories from an intermodal perspective

This article deals with the pedagogical discourse of human rights violations in primary and secondary History textbooks. Our aim is to explore the intermodal construction (visual-verbal) of the unit composed by ʹimage + captionʹ as a way of building evidentiality in the historical discourse. The theoretical and methodological approach is based on the sociosemiotic and critical perspective of intersubjectivity informed by Kress and van Leeuwen (2006), Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013), Martin and White (2005) and Oteiza and Pinuer (2012). Preliminary findings show that visual modes, particularly photographs, as primary sources, constructed in an intermodal manner with the verbal mode in Chilean History textbooks, privilege a vision in which human rights violations are especially treated from a discourse of denunciation, commemoration and of victimization that is based on the evidence collected in the official reports of human rights violations committed during Pinochetʹs dictatorship (Rettig Report, 1991; Valech Reports 2004).