This study examines how a key discourse function in the construction of specialist knowledge - CATEGORIZE - is realized in the writing of CLIL history learners whose L1 is Spanish. This is a longitudinal study with data from grades 6, 8 and 10. Initial findings reveal a low presence of classifications and a high incidence of comparisons and show that abstraction appears in the learners' historical writing only towards the end of secondary education.
A main concern in CLIL contexts relates to the quality of learning academic content through the L2 and the likely interactions with students' academic language competence. To address this issue, the study adopts Dalton-Puffer's (2013) construct of cognitive discourse functions (CDFs) to examine how one key CDF (Categorization) in the construction of specialist knowledge is realised in the work of ten secondary level CLIL history students who are followed through grades 6, 8 and 10. Categorization involves acts of classifying, categorizing, comparing and contrasting facts, objects, phenomena, abstract ideas and concepts. Despite the fact that CDFs are essential for academic knowledge construction at school, empirical research on how they are realized in CLIL classrooms is still in its beginnings. To operationalize this CDF, we draw on Trimble's (1985) taxonomy of classifications in academic writing and develop a conceptual-analytical model through a data-driven analysis of a corpus of oral and written work completed in CLIL history lessons in one secondary bilingual school in Madrid, Spain (Evnitskaya & Dalton-Puffer 2020). We also use Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014) tools to examine particular grammatical and lexical choices which students employ to realize the CDF Categorization in written tasks. The preliminary qualitative analysis reveals a low presence of classifications and a high incidence of comparisons. The findings also show that students seem to encounter difficulties, both conceptual and linguistic, when forming complete and appropriate classifications. The study contributes to a better understanding of how these CLIL-students language cognitive operations that are linked to Categorization and shows effects of the cognitive maturation happening between grades 6 and 10. Suggestions are made as to how subject teachers can scaffold students through the academic language in order to produce classifications which are acceptable both in terms of the language and subject-specific content.
