As recent research has highlighted (Traugott 2002, Langacker 2003), modality plays a key role in expressing (inter)subjectivity. By conveying the speaker/writer’s attitude towards what is being expressed, modality may also be exploited in face-saving situations; this is particularly evident in verb phrases of the type “MODAL VERB + MENTAL VERB”, as in “You will understand that the future research programme will depend on further funding”. On the one hand sentences such as “You can see that I’m an open-minded person” assign to the addressee an opinion which actually belongs to the speaker/writer; on the other hand, utterances like “You will surely know that I am raising funds” present as given and shared knowledge what is actually new information. In both cases modals, though formally expressing the semantic values of dynamic ability or epistemic possibility, conceal the pragmatic illocutionary force of suggestion, invitation, or even order. Analysing data retrieved from the seven ICE components and from some of the synchronic corpora of the ICAME collection, a research project in progress is currently investigating this peculiar (inter)subjective use of modal verbs. Its main goal consists in identifying recurring patterns in terms of distribution, pragmatic effects, and possible geographical variation. Within this framework, the present paper aims at investigating the same phenomenon on the two largest extant corpora of English, the British National Corpus and the American National Corpus. Working with corpora being 100 times bigger than the ones mentioned above will help us verify the trends identified in the project. Specifically, with regards to the distribution and relative frequency of modal verbs, data will be compared along several dimensions of variation, i.e. across media (spoken vs. written), regional varieties of English (British vs. American), and genres/text types. Finally, by means of this comparison, the paper is also meant to test the reliability of pilot surveys led on relatively small corpora.

The use of modal verbs in interpersonal contexts: From semantics to pragmatics

ADAMI, Elisabetta;
2009-01-01

Abstract

As recent research has highlighted (Traugott 2002, Langacker 2003), modality plays a key role in expressing (inter)subjectivity. By conveying the speaker/writer’s attitude towards what is being expressed, modality may also be exploited in face-saving situations; this is particularly evident in verb phrases of the type “MODAL VERB + MENTAL VERB”, as in “You will understand that the future research programme will depend on further funding”. On the one hand sentences such as “You can see that I’m an open-minded person” assign to the addressee an opinion which actually belongs to the speaker/writer; on the other hand, utterances like “You will surely know that I am raising funds” present as given and shared knowledge what is actually new information. In both cases modals, though formally expressing the semantic values of dynamic ability or epistemic possibility, conceal the pragmatic illocutionary force of suggestion, invitation, or even order. Analysing data retrieved from the seven ICE components and from some of the synchronic corpora of the ICAME collection, a research project in progress is currently investigating this peculiar (inter)subjective use of modal verbs. Its main goal consists in identifying recurring patterns in terms of distribution, pragmatic effects, and possible geographical variation. Within this framework, the present paper aims at investigating the same phenomenon on the two largest extant corpora of English, the British National Corpus and the American National Corpus. Working with corpora being 100 times bigger than the ones mentioned above will help us verify the trends identified in the project. Specifically, with regards to the distribution and relative frequency of modal verbs, data will be compared along several dimensions of variation, i.e. across media (spoken vs. written), regional varieties of English (British vs. American), and genres/text types. Finally, by means of this comparison, the paper is also meant to test the reliability of pilot surveys led on relatively small corpora.
2009
9783034303101
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11564/270743
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