Chapter 10. Epistemic modals in academic English
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María Luisa Carrió-Pastor
Abstract
The hypothesis of this paper is that writers who belong to different specific fields of knowledge use dissimilar epistemic modals in academic English. The first specific objective is to identify and contrast the epistemic modals used in engineering, medicine and linguistics research papers and the second is to classify the phraseological patterns associated with epistemic modals in these specific settings. The method was based on a corpus-based approach and, for this purpose, fifty academic papers in English belonging to the field of engineering, fifty more from the domain of linguistics and another fifty from medical academic journals were compiled. The results showed that there were differences in the epistemic modals used and in the phraseological units composed in engineering, medicine and linguistics research papers. Finally, conclusions were drawn.
Abstract
The hypothesis of this paper is that writers who belong to different specific fields of knowledge use dissimilar epistemic modals in academic English. The first specific objective is to identify and contrast the epistemic modals used in engineering, medicine and linguistics research papers and the second is to classify the phraseological patterns associated with epistemic modals in these specific settings. The method was based on a corpus-based approach and, for this purpose, fifty academic papers in English belonging to the field of engineering, fifty more from the domain of linguistics and another fifty from medical academic journals were compiled. The results showed that there were differences in the epistemic modals used and in the phraseological units composed in engineering, medicine and linguistics research papers. Finally, conclusions were drawn.
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
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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
-
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
