Resumen

AVILA, Diana; BARLETTA, Norma  y  CHAMORRO, Diana. The representation of revolution in the school textbook: Being and becoming in history. Rev. signos [online]. 2017, vol.50, n.94, pp.150-173. ISSN 0718-0934.  http://dx.doi.org/10.4067/S0718-09342017000200150.

This paper analyzes how the grammar of school textbooks, more specifically the choice of the verbs ‘be’ and ‘have’ - known as relational processes in the systemic-functional framework - may make it more difficult for learners to understand historical events and presents a biased view of these events. We present an analysis of relational processes and their use based on a chapter on the Industrial Revolution from an eighth-grade Social Science textbook and discuss their implications for the teaching and learning of history. The analysis shows that the recurrent use of relational processes promotes a view of history in which most things simply ‘are’ or ‘become’ without human intervention. Pedagogical practices which disregard this feature of textbooks play a part in maintaining inequalities between students with respect to dealing with the non-everyday discourses which provide access to scientific knowledge and the contexts in which it is used.

Palabras clave : Systemic-functional linguistics; relational processes; views of history; teaching and learning; textbooks..

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