The APPRAISAL system as a theoretical-methodological tool for the social and ideological study of discourse

The main purpose of this article is to present a theoretical-methodological model of discourse studies from a social and ideological perspective and to specify the role of interpersonal resources of language to account for the explanation of social phenomena. In particular, it describes and explains the analytical potential offered by the APPRAISAL system (Martin & White, 2005; Oteiza & Pinuer, 2012; Oteiza, 2017a) for doing discourse studies. In order to give a comprehensive account of this system, each of the proposed sub-systems and categories is illustrated with examples from an oral and written corpus on the discursive practices of pedagogical transmission of the historical memories of a recent past of human rights violations committed during the civil-military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in Chile (1973-1990).