Chapter 12. “The future elected government should fully represent the interests of Hongkong people”
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Carolin Biewer
Abstract
The modal system of English in its development provides an ideal perspective on language variation and change. Since the sociocultural and socio-historical situation in specific postcolonial communities promotes diversity among New Englishes, it is likely to also affect their modal systems. In this paper, we seek to identify patterns in the use of modalising expressions in Hong Kong English in relation to topic, genre and the larger socio-historical context. Our diachronic study of the frequency and function of selected modal verbs in press news reports from the DC-HKE reveals a peak in the use of back-shifted will and deontic should between 1988–1992 that seems to be closely linked to developments of the genre and socio-political changes in Hong Kong.
Abstract
The modal system of English in its development provides an ideal perspective on language variation and change. Since the sociocultural and socio-historical situation in specific postcolonial communities promotes diversity among New Englishes, it is likely to also affect their modal systems. In this paper, we seek to identify patterns in the use of modalising expressions in Hong Kong English in relation to topic, genre and the larger socio-historical context. Our diachronic study of the frequency and function of selected modal verbs in press news reports from the DC-HKE reveals a peak in the use of back-shifted will and deontic should between 1988–1992 that seems to be closely linked to developments of the genre and socio-political changes in Hong Kong.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Modalising expressions and modality 1
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Section I. Moving to modal categories
- Chapter 2. Revisiting global and intra-categorial frequency shifts in the English modals 19
- Chapter 3. The scope of modal categories 47
- Chapter 4. Not just frequency, not just modality 79
- Chapter 5. How and why seem became an evidential 109
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Section II. Moving to modal co-text
- Chapter 6. Conditionals, modality, and Schrödinger’s cat 143
- Chapter 7. Modal marking in conditionals. Grammar, usage and discourse 173
- Chapter 8. Present-day English constructions with chance ( s ) in Talmy’s greater modal system and beyond 195
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Section III. Moving to modal context
- Chapter 9. A genre-based analysis of evaluative modality in multi-verb sequences in English 225
- Chapter 10. Epistemic modals in academic English 253
- Chapter 11. On the (con)textual properties of must , have to and shall 281
- Chapter 12. “The future elected government should fully represent the interests of Hongkong people” 311
- Subject Index 343
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Modalising expressions and modality 1
-
Section I. Moving to modal categories
- Chapter 2. Revisiting global and intra-categorial frequency shifts in the English modals 19
- Chapter 3. The scope of modal categories 47
- Chapter 4. Not just frequency, not just modality 79
- Chapter 5. How and why seem became an evidential 109
-
Section II. Moving to modal co-text
- Chapter 6. Conditionals, modality, and Schrödinger’s cat 143
- Chapter 7. Modal marking in conditionals. Grammar, usage and discourse 173
- Chapter 8. Present-day English constructions with chance ( s ) in Talmy’s greater modal system and beyond 195
-
Section III. Moving to modal context
- Chapter 9. A genre-based analysis of evaluative modality in multi-verb sequences in English 225
- Chapter 10. Epistemic modals in academic English 253
- Chapter 11. On the (con)textual properties of must , have to and shall 281
- Chapter 12. “The future elected government should fully represent the interests of Hongkong people” 311
- Subject Index 343
