THE CATEGORY OF MODALITY IN ACADEMIC WRITING
Journal Title: Науковий вісник Херсонського державного університету. Серія: “Лінгвістика” - Year 2018, Vol 32, Issue
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the role of modality in English academic writing. The research is based on the discourse analysis of 20 articles in physics, biology, chemistry, and psychology taken from the Public Library of Science (PLOS). Understanding modality as a subjective outlook on objective reality, we depart from the classification of modality expression means suggested by Frank Palmer, who divides modality into epistemic, deontic, and dynamic. Epistemic modality represents probability, deontic – obligation and permission, and dynamic – physical ability and volition. Epistemic modality contradicts scientific principles, since scientific writing is considered to be purely evidential and free from subjectivism. The main focus of our research is on modal verbs and their role in scientific texts. A modal verb is a verb of a subgroup of auxiliary verbs that express modality: can/could, shall/should, may/might, will/would, must. To efficiently analyse these modal verbs, we divide them into high (must, will), medium (should, can), and low (may, would, might, could) modality verbs. The findings of the study reveal the function of modality in academic writing, which targets the controversy of the presence of this subjective category in scientific writing striving for objectivity. There are all kinds of modality found in scientific texts, which is proven by the examples taken from the articles examined. Medium modality verbs predominate in scientific writing, while high modality verbs are used the least. The most commonly used verb is the verb can, which expresses epistemic and dynamic modality, whereas shall is not used at all. We conclude that modality plays a significant role in scientific writing, expressing researchers’ assumptions rather than strong beliefs.
Authors and Affiliations
Veronica Ivanova, Natalia Kudriavtseva
Keywords
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