Abstract:Following Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal theory on verbal-visual semiotics and in reference to Martin and Rose’s (2007) model on text-image relationship, the paper proposes a theoretical framework on multimodal appraisal and explore the influence of text-image relationship on holistic appraisal construction in the case study of multimodal historical textbooks. Based on statistical analysis, it is found that the text-image relations make inter-modal links and connect them as a comprehensive whole. The proper text-image relations may create synchrony rather than the reverse between verbal appraisal and image appraisal. In the discourse of multimodal historical textbooks, it is shown that expansion outnumbers projection in holistic appraisal construction and multimodal appraisal under different types of text-image relationship is probabilistically related to certain historical genres during the instantiation of evaluation.