An analysis of modality in some speeches of the president obama = phân tích tính hình thái trong một số bài phát biểu của tổng thống obama luận văn tốt nghiệp đại học

And we are sure that many learners have not known that besides modal verbs, English modality is realized by a quite broad system including nouns chance, possibility, likelihood…, adjecti

Vinh university Foreign languages depaterment

**********

Phan thÞ thuËn

An analysis of Modality in some speeches of the president Obama

(Ph©n tÝch tÝnh t×nh th¸i trong mét sè bµi ph¸t biÓu

cña tæng thèng Obama )

graduation thesis field: linguistics

Vinh 2011– 2011

Vinh university Foreign languages depaterment

**********

An analysis of Modality in some speeches of the president Obama

(Ph©n tÝch tÝnh t×nh th¸i trong mét sè bµi ph¸t biÓu

cña tæng thèng Obama )

graduation thesis field: linguistics

Student : Phan ThÞ ThuËn Supervisor: TrÇn Ngäc Tëng, M.A

Vinh 2011– 2011

I also give my deepest thanks to the teacher Nguyen Thanh Xuan, who help

me to overcome the difficulties in choosing topic and finding out the way to write a successful research.

Nextly , I would like to give my thanks to all teachers of English in Foreign Language Department Of Vinh University for their support and encouragement What is more ,I would also like to express my deep gratitude to my parents for encouragement and financial support during the time I do the research.

Last but not least, I am all too aware that despite all the advice and assistance,

I feel that the project is far from perfect; it is, therefore, my sole responsibility for any inadequacies and shortcomings that the thesis may be considered to have Vinh, May 5 , 2011

Phan Thi Thuan

In this thesis, we explore how modality is manifested in two speeches of

Obama : "The Inaugural Address" and "the Nobel" The author discusses about text and discourse, text analysis and discourse analysis And then, the author mentions

to the notion "modality" with the definition, types of modality, modal meanings andexpressions of modality They are basic theoretical background for analyzing thedata in chapter 2 of the second part " DEVELOPMENT" Next, we analyse the waymodality is manifested in two speeches of Obama Finally, we point out someproblems facing the learners when they learn modality From that, we offer somesuggestions for teaching and learning modality

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

ABBREVIATIONS v

PART I : INTRODUCTION 1

1.Justification of the Study 1

2.Aims of the Study 2

3.Scope of the Study 3

4.Methods of the Study 3

5.Design of the Study 3

Part II : DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 5

1.1 An Introduction about the Speeches of Obama : The Inaugural Address and The Nobel 5

1 2 Theoretical Preliminaries : 6

1.2.1 Text and Discourse 6

1.2.2 Discourse Analysis and Text Analysis 6

1.2.3 Spoken Discourse and Written Discourse 7

1.2.4 Discourse Context 7

1.3 Concept of Modality 8

1.3.1 Some Points of View of Researchers about Modality 8

1.3.2 Definition of Modality 10

1.3.3 Types of Modality 11

1.3.3.1 Epistemic Modality 12

1.3.3.2 Deontic Modality 18

1.3.4 Modal Meanings 24

1.3.5 Classifications of Means of Expressing Modality 24

1.3.6 Expressions of Modality 27

1.3.6.1 Modal Auxiliary Verbs 27

1.3.6.2 Lexical Words Carrying Modal Meanings 32

CHAPTER 2 : MODALITY MANIFESTED IN SOME SPEECHES OF OBAMA 35

2.1 Deontic Modality 35

2.1.1 Marked by Modal Auxiliary Verbs 35

2.1.2 Marked by Lexical Words Carrying Deontic Meanings 39

2.2 Epistemic Modality 39

2.2.1 Marked by Modal Auxiliary Verbs 39

2.2.2 Marked Lexical Words Carrying Epistemic Meanings 43

2.3 General Remark 46

CHAPTER 3 : IMPLICATION 48

3.1 The Problems 48

3.2 Suggestions for Teaching and Learning Modality 51

3.2 1 Suggestions for Teaching Modality 51

3.2.2 Suggestions for Learning Modals 52

3.2.3 Suggestion for Practise 52

PART III: CONCLUSION 55

1 Recapitulation 55

2 Limitations of the Study 56

3 Suggestions for Further Studying 56

REFERRENCES I APPENDIX III

PART I : INTRODUCTION

1.Justification of the Study

Angela Carter (1940-1992) - an English jounalist woman said that "Language

is power" How can we understand this statement? It mentions to the role oflanguage to people's life It is true that language has its big role in developinghuman being Language itself is a tool for communication Thank to language,people can interact and communicate with each other and from that the peopledevelop Therefore, studying language helps us understand the nature as well ascharacteristics of it

Language conveys meaning One of the dominant meaning of language ismodal meaning Modality is one of basic meaning type of language considered asmeans of communication Behind a word, a sentece or an utterance is the differenttones of emotion, attitude of the speaker to the proposition and the hearer Inanother way, the speaker’s emotion and attitude are decoded according to differentways under the signals of language And in English, the term used to convey

attitude and opinions of the speaker is called modality So far, there are many ways

of understanding the concept “ modality” and classification of it However,modality is a large and complicate area and there are many disagreements oflinguists about the modality Therefore, studying on modality plays an importantrole in linguistics in general and in teaching foreign language in particular

Besides that, there is a difference in using modality in vietnamese and in

English In Vietnamese, modality is mostly conveyed by modal particles ( à, ừ, nhỉ,

nhé, thế, chăng, and so on) and they often appear in the end of a sentence In

contrast, in English, modality is investigated by many ways : It is conveyed via modal verbs such as can, could, may, might ,etc And we are sure that many learners have not known that besides modal verbs, English modality is realized by a quite

broad system including nouns (chance, possibility, likelihood…), adjectives( certain, sure, likely, possible…), adverbs ( possibly, certainly, probably…) and inconditional sentence This differences may cause a lot of difficulties for vietnamese

learners in learning English Studying modality, we hope to help the learnersunderstand more about the way modality is used in English.

What is more, in English a number of modal verbs convey modal meaning.These modal verbs are learned by students at high school and at university.They arevery important in learning English Nevertheless, many students do not knowclearly about the differences in the use of them From that, they use modal verbsnot exactly in communication Doing reseach on modality will help us understandmore about meaning and the usage of the modal verbs This is also an importantreason why we decided to do the research on modality

Last but not least , modality comprises two broad types : Deontic and

epistemic modality And I am sure that, many learners can not distinguish the

differences between them And with this thesis, we hope that the learners and thereaders can distinguish the differences between them

Modality is used in various material such as in literature, news, speechesand so on Up to now, many researchers have studied on modality and choosestudying material in literature, news However, we find that modality is also used somuch in speeches And Obama- the first black man to hold the highest position of arich country- America He is considered as talent speaker through his speeches Inhis speeches, he uses a lot of means of expressing modality to persude the hearers.Therefore, we decide to do research on modality in some speeches of Obama to findthe similarities between modality in speeches and in the other materials

For the reasons above, we decided to choose the topic “ An analysis ofModality in some speeches of Obama” as the theme for our thesis

2.Aims of the Study

* The thesis has been done with the following aims:

- To explore how Obama use modality to convey modal meanings in hisspeeches

- To make the learner acknowledge the importance of using modality incommunication

- To give some suggestions for teaching and learning English

* To obtain these aims, our research will answer these following questions :

- How is modality conveyed in speeches?

- What kinds of modal meanings are there ?

- What are suggestions for teaching and learning modality?

3.Scope of the Study

Modaliy is a large concept and it is expressed by many means : Lexicalisation,grammaticalisation, intonation, etc However, in this thesis, we only focus onlexicalisation ( modal auxiliary verbs, lexical words carrying modal meanings) Besides, president Barack Obama has made many speeches Nevertheless, we onlychoose some famous speeches of him recently to study: The Inaugural Adress andthe Nobel

4.Methods of the Study

-Analyticaly: The author uses this method to analyse the data in two speeches

of Obama to explore the means of conveying modality and modal meaningsexpressed in two speeches

-Synthetic : After analyzing the data, the author uses “synthetic” to find out theproportion of each kind of word-class conveying modality in the speeches ofObama

5.Design of the Study

Our thesis consists of 3 main parts The first part is “INTRODUCTION ”,through this part we can find out the “Justification of the Study” which gives thereasons for choosing topic ; the “Aims and Objectives of the Study” saying thepurposes that the thesis gets and the tendency for the thesis And what methods theauthor uses in this thesis “Methods of the Study” Lastly, what objects are tendedand what areas are used in this thesis, all expressed through “Scope of the Study”.The second part is “DEVELOPMENT ” In this part, we present three chapters

Chapter 1 with the title “ theoretical background” give an overview about text and

discourse analysis, concept of modality The reason why we consider text and discourse in this chapter is that they have close relationship in studying on modality

and we are doing research on modality base on text “ speech report” Therefore wemust analyze text and discourse Chapter 2 entitled by “ Modality manifested insome speeches of Obama” analyses the way of using lexical modal verbs, modalauxiliary verbs, modal adverbs, modal adjectives, modal nouns and particles toconvey modality Chapter 3 has title “ Implication” pointing out some problemsthat the learners often encounter in studying modality and giving some usefulsuggestions for teaching and learning modality The last part is “CONCLUSION ”,the author sums up the main points in “Recapitulation and Limitations of the Study”and makes “Suggestions for the Futher Studies” The part “REFERENCES”consists of all of the materials that the author has used in the thesis The thesis endswith the part " APPENDIX".

Part II : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 : THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1.1 An Introduction about the Speeches of Obama : The Inaugural Address and The Nobel

the first African American to hold the office

On thursday, February 28, 2008, something unusual has happened A blackman has been elected President against all Odds He won the nomination of hisparty largely through the efforts of a media that was disposed to his candidary Itwas believed that the

Repubicians would have a much easier time defeating him and so the spincyclewas set on full to make the percentages appear that candidate Obama would have aneasier time defeating Candidate Mc Cain No effort or expense was spared

The Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United Statestook place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 The Inauguration, which set a recordattendance for any event held in Washington, D.C., marked the commencement ofthe four year term of Barack Obama as the president and Joseph R Biden as vicepresident Based on the combined attendance numbers, television viewership andInternet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by the global audience.According to Kay ( S Korea), the speech shows humanity and magnamity He isshowing respect and openess toward other nations In general, the speech is veryhonest and concrete

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 : The Norwegian Nobel Committee hasdecided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to president BarackObama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy andcooperation between peoples The committee has attached special importance toObama's vision and work for a world without nuclearwepons

Both the Inaugural Address and the Nobel Peace Prize were made by Obama in

2009 They are very famous speeches, expressing responsibility to his country andvision of him to peoples' Peace In general, there are a lot of comments on theInaugural Address and The Nobel of many policians, lawyers, and others.However, we find that in these two speeches, he uses a lot of means of expressingmodality (e.g modal auxiliary verbs, lexical words carrying modality) Therefore,

we choose these two speeches for analyzing modal meanings

1 2 Theoretical Preliminaries :

1.2.1 Text and Discourse

Through the process of development of discourse analysis, the distinction

between the two terms text and discourse is understood differently and

controversially To some linguists, two terms can be used interchangablely

Brown and Yule (1983 :6) use “ text as a technical term to refer to the verbalrecord of a communicative act ”

According to Crystal (1992) : A text may be spoken or written, prose orverse, dialogue and monologue It may be anything from a single proverb to awhole play, from a momentary cry for help to all day discussion in committee”

Crystal (1992:25), defines discourse as “ a continuous stretch of ( especiallyspoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as asermon, argument, joke or narrative”

While Nunan (1995) states that : “ A text, or a discourse, is a stretch oflanguage that may be longer than a sentence”

This thesis adapts the theory of Cook (1989:156) who views text as a stretch oflanguage interpreted formally, without context; and discourse as stretches oflanguage perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive (1989:158)

1.2.2 Discourse Analysis and Text Analysis

Basing on the concept of text and discourse as mentioned earlier, Text

analysis and Discourse analysis can be interpreted as follow:

Text analysis is the studying of how a text exemplifies the operation of the

Discourse analysis is concerned with the study of relationship between

language and the context in which it is used, that is, it involves the study oflanguage in use It also examines how stretches of language, considered in their fulltextual, social, and psychological contexts, become meaningful and unified for theirusers Moreover, it is a study of how and for what purposes language is used in acertain context of situation, and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes

1.2.3 Spoken Discourse and Written Discourse

Written discourse and spoken discourse can be understood as speech andwriting They share much in common, however, there are many differences betweenthem Halliday (1985) poses that writing emerged in society as a result of culturalchanges which created new communicated needs These needs could not be readilymet by spoken language

Both spoken and written perform a similar range of broad function That is,they are used to get thing done, provide information and entertain Nevertheless, interm of their differences, while spoken language is used to communicate with othersdirectly, written language is used to communicate with others who are removed intime and place or for those occasions on which a permanent or semi- permanentrecord is required

To conclude, in spite of the differences between written language and spokenlanguage, those distinctions are not absolute and the characteristics that we tend toassociate with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language and viceversa.This means that some spoken texts will be more like written texts than othersand vice versa

1.2.4 Discourse Context

David Nunan (1995: 7) suggests a concept and a classification of context as

follows:

Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse, and within with the

discourse is embedded There are two different types of context.

The first of these is the linguistic context- the language that surrounds oraccompanies the piece of discourse under analysis

The second is non- linguistic or experiential context within with the discoursetakes place Non- linguistic contexts include : the type of communicative event; thetopic; the purpose of the event, the setting including location, time of day, season ofyear and physical aspects of the situation; the participants and the relationshipsbetween them; and the background knowledge and assumptions underlying thecommunicative event.

Halliday and Hasan (1976) share much in similar to the view held by Nunanwhen proposing that when responding to a passage or speech of writing, thereceiver uses not only linguistic clues, but also situational ones Linguistically, heresponds to specific features which bind the passage together, the pattern ofconnection, independent of structure, that we are referring to as cohesion;situationally, he takes into account all he knows of the enviroment: what is going

on, what part the language is playing, and who are involved

The importance of context towards discourse interpretation is apparently

undeniable, as Cook (1989: 10) asserts:

“ There are good arguments for limiting the field of study to make itmanageable, but it is also true to say that the answer to the question of what givesdiscourse its unity may be impossible to give without considering the world at large:the context.”

As political speech is obviously an actual use of language but the interpretation

of that use needs non- linguistic features of the discourse, in this study, bothlinguistic and non- linguistic contexts are taken into account

1.3 Concept of Modality

1.3.1 Some Points of View of Researchers about Modality

Modality is a multifold phenomenon, and therefore in the linguistic literature

we can find different thoughts concerning the essence of this phenomenon

Modality in linguistics is a semantic scope, contained in many languages in the

world, however realizations of them are different in each language Therefore, there

are many different ways of understanding and defining modality Many researchers

defining modality is V Vinogradov According to V Vinogradov (1977), modality

is formed basing on the speaker’s opinion; however, that opinion itself is formed bythe position of the speaker at speaking time to the hearer or the reader (91, p 271-272) O Jespersen (1949) in “ A modern English Grammar on Historical Principles

I – IV, London and Copenhagen gives his opinion about the concept “ modality” : “

Modality expresses the definite attitude of the speaker toward the proposition of a

sentence Although in many cases, the use of mood is not decided by the speaker’attitude but the characteristics of proposition and the relationship of it with theranges of relative clauses (pg 138:9) According to the judgement of F Palmer,theoretically, the proposals of O Jespersen are little important, except for hisappriciation on two types “ mood” : (1) including the element "will", (2) notincluding the element "will" ( in fact, O Jespersen has already demonstrated clearly

“ mood” is a classification of grammar) F.S Palmer (1986) also mentioned

modality : Modality is semantic information of sentence expressing speaker’s

attitude or opinions to the proposition(130, pg14) In 1990, M.V.Liapon assumed

that modality is a functional semantic scope expressing the different relationships of

the utterance to reality as well as the different subjective judgements to the thinginformed

V Wright (1951), in a research on modal logic, classifies modal logic into

four types : a/ the alethic modes; b/ the epistemic modes; c/ the deontic modes; d/the existential modes However, we need pay attention to the classification betweenthe epistemic modes and the deontic modes We see the examples about “ may” and

“ must” in English

A1/ John may be there by now

A2/ You may come in now

B1/ John must be there by now

B2/ You must come in now

“ May” shows possibility but “ may” in A2 also expresses “ Allow doingsomething” Similarly “ must” in B1 is different from “must” in B2: “ Must in B1conveys possibility or logic inference; “must: in B2 has obligatory meaning

Therefore, “may” in A1 and “must” in B1 show epistemic modality “ May” in A2and “must” in B2 express deontic modality These two types of modality areconsidered as important and popular in different languages Therefore manyauthors talk about it in detail

Modal logic , a branch of philosophy of language, which deals with the notion

such as possibility and necessity, has greatly influenced linguists' understanding of

modality Looking at modality from a semantic point of view, it is obvious thatsome researchers (e.g Palmer 1990) follow this modal logical classification closely.Others concentrate on such aspects of modality as speaker/ address- ee involvement

in the situation described by modally modified proposition ( E.g Bybee and

Fleischman 1995, Quirk at all 1985) That is to say, modality is considered as a

semantic phenomenon, and is seen as the addition of a special kind of meaning tothe neutral value of a proposition in an utterance

T Givon (1993) expresses his opinion about modality in a short way: “

Modality expresses the attitude of the speaker to the proposition" According tohim, attitude includes two types of judgement of the S about the information of theutterance conveyed through the proposition: a/ Judgements on reality, possibility,belief, certainty or evidence; b/ Judgements on wishes, hobby, intention,capacity T.Givon also proposes 4 subtypes of epistemic modality which are dominant inlanguage : - Presupposition; realis assertion; irrealis assertion; negative assertion(113, part 1, 171)

1.3.2 Definition of Modality

The notion " modality" goes back to classical formal logic, from which linguistborrows the classification of propositions into assertional (propositions of reality),problematical (propositions of possibility), and apodictical (propositions ofnecessity) and besides into reliable and probable propositions Thereby in a generalway was specified semantic notional sphere of modality The term “modality” isused in various senses “ most generally, it may be defined as the manner in whichthe meaning of a clause is qualified so as to reflect the speaker’s judgement of the

on some points of view of the authors above, we can give the definition of modality:

“ Modality is described as the expression of the S’s attitude or opinion toward thecontent of proposition”.(Understanding English Semantics- 2004 p.176)

Furthermore, according to Cao Xuan Hao “…The content of a proposition is

divided into two parts : The first part is called lexis or dictum, the second is named

modus (modality)” Thus, reseaching modality is to consider two parts : The dictum

means what is said and the modus deals with how is said that is the S’s cognitive,

emotive…attitude about what is said

1.3.3 Types of Modality

Up to now,many authors are interested in classifying modality Palmer notes

that modality is concerned with our opinions and attitudes, (1990), and most

linguists accept the existence of at least two types of modality, with one more type

needed in order to account for the auxiliaries given as a group in Headway Modal, then, refers to the formal properties of a certain class of words, while modality

refers to the meanings of those words (and others)

For Fairclough (2001), he divided modality into 2 types : The first type is

relationalship modality, with different participants processing certain levels of

authority The second one is expressive modality, which indicates the evaluation of

the speaker toward the truth or probability of a representation of reality

(Quoted in Nguyen Thi Huyen Le – B.A Thesis)

Long time before Fairclough, Jesperson (1924, p.320) realizes modality into

two sub- categories :

- One of them contains an element of will : Hortative, precative, advisory,obligative, permissive, optative(realiabe), promissive, intentional, dubitative,potential, hypothetical,concessional, apodictive, conditional

- The other named “ no element of will” : Necessitate, assertive, presumptive However his proposals are judged to have so much limitation esp Containinglittle of theoretical significance, except for his recognition of two types and its termsare used to realize “ deontic” and “epistemic” modality then

Finally, most of the linguists come to agreement that modality contains two

main kinds : Epistemic modality and deontic modality

1.3.3.1 Epistemic Modality

From the Greek, episteme means knowledge Epistemic modality is

concerned with the speaker’s judgement of the truth of the proposition embeded in

the statement Most researchers agree that epistemic modality can be defined as

modality expressing the speaker's attitude towards the truth and the degree of

authenticity of what is said Epistemic modality is concerned with areas of

possibility and necessity which are refered to "weak" and "strong" epistemic

modality Weak epistemic modality is grammaticalized with the verbs “can” and

“may’ Strong epistemic modality is grammaticalized as “must” or “shall” If I say,for example, “John may go home.”, I am telling you that I am uncertain about the

truth of the proposition John is going home Other examples of epistemic modality

are must in “John must be home Look there’s his car.” and can’t in “John can’t be

home yet His flight doesn’t arrive until 9 o’clock.”

According Palmer, there are at least four basic ways in which S presents what

he is saying or the fact:

Possibility (i) is the area of what is commonly called judgement The other threepossibilities (ii), (iii), (iv) represent three types of evidentiality

And there are some equivelent ways to express the degree of S’s commitment tothe truth of the proposition

(i) It is possible that / I think that

Thus, Epistemic is concerned with truth, belief and knowledge Epistemic

meanings of modal verbs are related to the speaker's subjective interpretation of thereal world situation, which can be roughly divided into three categories:

- Necessity : Epistemic necessity indicate the speaker's certainty about the proposition And it is usually presented by must

- Prediction : Epistemic prediction, realized by will, would and shall often

present a statement of " I predict that…" made by the speaker

- Possibility : may, might, can, could are used to show epistemic possibility,

which indicate different levels of the speaker's uncertainty about the proposition

* We summarize forms and meanings of epistemic modality in the tablebelow:

According to Palmer, epistemic modality is divided into two subtypes :

Judgement and evidence Of which, judgement modality involves

acknowledgement, ability, and necessity.

1.3.3.1.1 Judgement

Judgement modality is an epistemic modality that connotes S' strength ofinference or degree of confidence

* Forms expressing Modal meanings

- Modal auxiliary verbs : May, might, will, must

- Lexical items ( Nouns, adverbs, adjectives, main verbs)

+ Nouns : necessity, possibility, probability, likelihood, chance, etc

+ Adjectives : necessary, vital, possible, probable,etc

+ Adverbs : Perhaps, maybe, possibly, probably, necessarily

+ Main verbs : Doubt, guess, look as if, appear, etc

It involves necessity or possibility and has two degrees : a “ weak” one and a “

strong” one Correlatively, there are two typical representatives: May and must.

May signals speculative inference, must signals deductive strength of inference

* Judgement's meanings :

Modal judgement conveys the following meanings :

- Necessity

+ Must is often used to show "necessity" in term of judgement

Eg : He must arrive at the airport by 10 o’clock

= It is necessary that he arrives at the airport by 10 o’clock

- Possibility

+ Realization of judgement possibility is may

Eg : He may arrive at the airport by 10 o’clock

= It is possible that he arrives at the airport by 10 o’clock

+ Modal nouns, modal adverbs, modal adjectives all convey " possibility"

Eg : Perhaps he will not arrive

There is a possibility that I go abroad next month

+ Conditionals also convey modal meaning " possibility"

Eg : If it rains, we will stay at home

May and must carry Speculative and Deductive like the comment of Coats :

In its most normal usage, epistemic “must” conveys the speaker confidence in the truth of what he is saying, base on the deduction from facts known to him (1983 :41) May and might are the modals of epistemic possibility, expressing the speaker’s lack of confidence in the proposition expressed.

In terms of negation, positive judgements can be made about negativepropositions and negative judgements about positive ones " May not" can be usedfor the former and " can not" for the latter.

Eg : They may be there

They may not be there = It is possible that they are not there

They can not be there = It is not possible that they are being there

From the above illustration, it is easy to realize the logical relations between

"possibility" and "necessity" since " not possible" is equivalent to " necessary not"and vice verse

There is a difference between deontic and epistemic modality in using "may"and "must", in epistemic "may" and "must" have no past tense forms that are used torefer to past time " May have" and "must have" occur but make present timejudgements about

Besides " may" and "must", Palmer also mentions "will", "might" and "would"

as another realization of epistemic Of which, " will" falls between "may" and

Adjectives  Main verbs

Table 1.2 : Forms and Meanings of Judgement- Epistemic Modality 1.3.3.1.2 Evidentials

Evidentiality refers to the source of evidence the speaker has for his statement.

Commonly, evidentiality is divided into direct and indirect evidentiality Direct

evidentials are used when the speaker has witnessed the action (visually, aurally,orpotentially, with the other senses) while indirect evidentials are used when thespeaker has not witnessed the action personally but has either deduced the action orhas heard about it from the others When the action is deduced , we are taking about

inferentials When information about event is conveyed through the others, they are

called quotative Aikhenvald (2004,2006) indicated that there are two broad types of

evidential marking:

1 Indirectivity marking (type I)

2 Evidential marking ( type II)

Indirectivity known as inferentiality indicates whether evidence exits for a given

source of information- thus, they contrast direct information (reported directly) andindirect information (reported indirectly) Unlike the second type (evidentialmarking), indirectivity systems does not indicate information about source ofknowledge

* Forms and meanings of Indirectivity marking

Quirk classified indirectivity marking into sub- catergories as following:

(i) They express primarily a subjective view on the truth of what is said:

Certainly, admittedly, surely, undeniably, undoubtedly, unquestionably

Eg : Undeniably, he is kind man

evidently, obviously, plainly

Eg : Obviously, we will hold a meeting to discuss this problem tomorrow

(iii) Markers of reality or lack of reality in what is said : actually, officially,

technically, theoretically.

Eg : Theoretically, This statement is not true

* Forms and meanings of Evidential marking

The second type of evidentials specifies the nature of the evidence supporting astatement These kinds of evidence can be divided into such criteria as :

- witness and non- witness

- Firsthand, secondhand, thirdhand

- Sensory ( visual and non- visual)

observation by the S Usually this is from visual observation (eyewitness), but

some languages also mark information directly heard with information directly

seen A witness evidential is usually contrasted with a nonwitness evidential which

indicates that the information was not witnessed personally but was obtainedthrough a secondhand source or was inferred by the speaker

Eg : I saw him climbing through the window.( witness)

He looks very tired He must have worked hard all day( non-witness)

+ A secondhand evidential is used to mark any information that was not

personally observed or experienced by the speaker This may include inferences orreported information

Eg : They said that he was sentenced for ten years His wife must be very sad

+ Sensory evidentials can often be divided into different types visual

evidence differently from nonvisual evidence that is heard, smelled, or felt.

Eg : I went to Da Lat yesterday The climate is very wonderful here (visualevidence)

My close friend went to Da Lat yesterday She said that the climate is verywonderful there ( non- visual evidence)

+ An inferential evidential indicates information was not personally

experienced but was inferred from indirect evidence Some languages have differenttypes of inferential evidentials Some of the inferentials found indicate:

1 Information inferred by direct physical evidence,

2 Information inferred by general knowledge,

3 Information inferred/assumed because of speaker's experience withsimilar situations,

4 Past deferred realization

Eg :

+ Reportative evidentials indicate that the information was reported to the

speaker by another person A few languages distinguish between hearsay evidentials and quotative evidentials Hearsay indicates reported information that

may or may not be accurate

Eg : He is rumoured to be lady- killer

+ A quotative indicates the information is accurate and not open tointerpretation (i.e., is a direct quotation)

Eg : He said that he had lived in london for 5 years

1.3.3.2 Deontic Modality

The second primary category of modality is deontic modality Deontic in the

Greek means duty Deontic modality is described as performative: Deontic modals are used to impose obligation, give permission, or make a promise or in some other

way influence or direct the behaviour of the addressee (Palmer 1988 : 96-98 and

1990 : 69-72) Deontic modality is concerned with “influencing actions, states, orevents” In other words, it is oriented towards performing speech acts – doingthings with words, as Austin would say When we say, “John may go home now.”

to give John permission to leave, or when we advise, “Elena should go home Shelooks tired.” We are using deontic modality

These descriptions raise several considerations The first is that we used the

same modal, may We consider the difference in two meanings of the sentence “

John may go home now" :

In the first case, the speaker gives John permission to go home (deonticmodality) and in the second case the S tell his listener that he is not certain if John isgoing home (epistemic modality), this may cause ambiguity This ambiguity isfound throughout the modal system (and not only in English) and from this example

we can see that modality is a complex issue and it is one of the reasons thatclassroom activities and exercises focusing on modality can be so difficult todevelop

Epistemically, there seems to be little difference between have to and must

Eg : He has to be home; there’s his car

He must be home; there’s his car

Both express a sense of certainty Deontically, must obliges the subject of the sentence to do something (you must be home before 9 o’clock) Have to, on the other hand, does not have a strong deontic role In dialects where must is rarely used

deontically (such as many American dialects) the form for obliging someone to dosomething is often the imperative In the sense of dynamic modality, however, the

distinctions between must and have to create confusion When an obligation is clearly speaker-oriented must is a clear choice When an obligation is clearly external, the choice is have to But there are

Many times when a situation is neither “clearly external” nor “clearly

speaker-oriented” and here in this “neutral” area many native speakers use must and have to

more or less indiscriminately (Palmer, 1990)

According to Jesperson, deontic modality is characterised as “ containing anelement of will” that is concerned with action by other or by speaker himself Anaction may be:

- Obligation : You must come back home by 10 p.m

- Permission : Can I use your pen?

- Ability : She can swim

- Necessity : It is necessary for us to study hard for the final examination

Actually, modals like must, should, and ought to belong to deontic obligation meaning, while can, could, may and might belong to deontic permission Can and

could express ability These information will be summarized in the table below :

modality concerns with two sub – types They are directives and commissives.

1.3.3.2.1 Directives ( hearer- oriented)

Searl (1983: 166) defines directives as “ where we try to get our hearer to dosomething” Hence, in directives the hearers will be the performers

* Forms of expression :

- Modal auxiliary verbs : May, might, can, could, should, ought to, must

- Lexical items : Nouns, adverbs, adjectives

+ Nouns : Necessity, ability

+ Adverbs : Necessarily

Its realizations are mostly reflected in some basic modal verbs : May, might,

must, can, could, ought to, should Among those, " may, might, can, could" generally

indicate the permission or ability and the others show the necessity or obligation

* The directives' meanings :

- Permission : To express permission , there are some typical modal auxiliary verbs such as : May, might, can, could

Eg : You may arrive on time = It is probable that you arrive on time(possibility)

John may go home = It is possible that John goes home

For may, we use “may” to deny permission ( It is not possible for ) but no

form for negative action

Eg : He may arrive on time

He may not arrive on time ( It is not possible for him to arrive on time)

The S can use “ ought to” or “should” to show possibility that the event may ormay not take place

Eg: He ought to / should arrive on time, but he won’t

- Ability : Ability is conveyed by can and could

Eg : Tom can play chess

I can not pick the box up , it's too heavy

I stood on a chair, but I still couldn't see

→ Here can used for the present, and could is used for the past

- Necessity :

+ Must, should and ought to are major means of expressing necessity

Eg : You must arrive on time = It is necessary for you to arrive on time

( necessity)

we should obey the law = It is necessary that we obey the law ( necessity)+ Besides modal auxiliary verbs, nouns and adjectives also express "necessity:

Eg : It is necessary that you come to class on time

When used in negative form, there are some interesting things to find out and I

am sure that many learners do not know about these things The first thing is

“mustn’t” when it is used to express obligation, there may be a positive towards a

negative course of action It can be infered that there is necessity not to and vice verse a negative obligation towards a positive course of action , it means there is no

necessity to when needn’t is used Consider the following illustrations :

Eg : He must arrive on time

He mustn’t arrive on time ( There is necessary for him not to arrive on time)

He needn’t arrive on time ( There is not necessary for him to arrive on timeFor “ Must have”, it only could be interpreted epistemically, never deontically.And “ might” is more polite form for asking permission or to make a quitesuggestion, it express stronger kind of deontic than “may”

Eg : Might I come late tonight? ( Asking permission)

You ought to obey your parents.( teacher said to his students)

+ Adjectives also convey obligation in such example :

Eg : It is obligated for you to finish this thesis by ten a.m tomorrow

Besides the meanings above, " imperative" can be seen as a sub- system ofdirective or an unmarked member of deontic system The H has to judge theforce of his obligation act from the circumstances For instance :

Eg: Stand up! ( teacher at class)

Stand at ease! ( in the army)

* Those presented above will be summarised in the table below:

in commissives the speaker will perform action

* Forms expressing commissive meaning: There are two representative

modal auxiliary verbs that expressing modal meanings focusing on the speaker'saction:

- Will

- Shall

* The meanings : In commissives, the speaker is performer So that the

meanings are expressed to show S’s commitment toward an action such as a threat,undertaking or a promise

1.3.4 Modal Meanings

As we have defined the term “ modality” above : “ Modality is described asthe expression of the speaker’s attitude or opinion toward the content of proposition.Moreover, that it is obvious all message choose some degrees of modality even if it

is only to make a neutral assertion

Some major modal meanings include degree of certainty, possibility,volition, permission, obligation, etc

These wide ranges of modal meanings follow by :

- Ability , admonition , advice , cause ( causative) , commands , future,suggestion, permission, possibility, certainty, necessity, etc

These modal meanings are expressed in particular types of modality as wewill show in the following part of the thesis

1.3.5 Classifications of Means of Expressing Modality

Different scholars give their own classifications of means of expressingmodality

Many authors such as V.V Vinogradov, G.V Kolshanskiy, I.B Khlebnikovapoint out that modal content may be expressed with the help of different means oflanguage, here belong: grammatical (Mood); lexical (modal words); lexico-grammatical (modal verbs) and intonation (11; p.5)

The founder of the English study in Russia professor B.A Ilyish gave thefollowing characteristics of ways of expressing modality: ”modality may beexpressed in the sentence with the help of different means: modal words, modalverbs, sometimes just with the help of mere verbiage, intonation and finally with thehelp of Mood” (11; p.7) In English language modality is transferred first of all withthe help of all meanings and shades, which are expressed with the help of syntheticand analytical forms of Moods of the verbs Combinations of modal verbs with theinfinitive render the attitude of the subject of the action towards the action,capability, probability, permission, necessity of doing the action by the subject.Different modal meanings are expressed with the help of intonation means

shades of modality at the perceptual level But, in the special literature there is nosufficient determination, at the expense of which intonation means such differencesare created The question about the interaction of different verbal and non-verbalmeans of modal meanings expression is not learnt enough.

According to A.V Bondarko there are 6 types of meaning, which havedifferent (grammatical, lexical, intonation) means of expressing

Speaker’s evaluation of the content of the utterance from the point of view ofreality/unreality, which is expressed with the help of forms of Mood and Tense ofthe verb, and also some conjunctions, particles and other elements of the sentencestructure

Expressing with the help of modal verbs and other modal words the evaluation

of the situation in the utterance from the point of view of its possibility, necessityand desirability

Speaker’s evaluation of his certainty in the reliability of what is informed,which may be expressed with the help of modal adverbs, parenthetic words, andalso with the help of compound sentences

The aim of the speaker or communicative function of the utterance On thisbasis all sentences are subdivided into statements (which express information),interrogative sentences (which express a question), and optative sentences (whichexpress desire) Means of expressing these meanings are different: morphological(Mood of the verb), syntactic (structure of the sentence), prosodic (intonation).Meanings of affirmation/denial, which reflect presence/absence of objectiveconnection between the objects, features, events, about which the sentence informs.First member of the opposition (affirmation) isn’t marked, the second – is markedwith the help of grammatical, word-forming and lexical means

Emotional and qualitative evaluation of the content of the utterance, which isexpressed lexically, prosodically (with the help of exclamatory sentences), and alsowith the help of interjections (2; p.67)

Scholar I.P Krylova thinks that the main means of expressing modality is themood of the verb Thus in English we find the Indicative Mood representing an

action as a fact (it may be called the fact-mood), the Imperative Mood urging theperson addressed to perform an action and different forms of expressing unreality(the Subjunctive Mood and the Oblique Moods) She also mentions in her book theother means of modality – lexical means, namely modal verbs and modal words(18; p.7).

According to G.V Kolshanskiy modality is expressed with the help ofgrammatical means (morphological), lexical means (modal words, modal verbs) andintonation means [9; p.97]

Regarding the functional range of modality much broader, modality isexpressed by phonetic means (intonation) (11; p 7), grammatical (verbal forms,moods, word order etc.), lexical (word-combinations and phrases), and lexico-grammatical (modal verbs, modal words and modal particles) (17; p 7-8: 13; p 3).These means aren’t isolated in the context of the speech, but are in the difficultrelationship (13; p 3)

In this thesis, we focus on lexicalisation with modal auxiliary verbs and lexicalwords carrying modal meanings

1.3.6 Expressions of Modality

1.3.6.1 Modal Auxiliary Verbs

9 modal auxiliaries are considered pure deontic meanings but then some of

them express other meanings, epistemic meanings : Can / could, will/ would, shall/

should, may/ might, must and ought to They express a wide range of meanings : Ability, possibility, permission, necessity, etc

Most of them have more than one meaning Most of modal meaningsexpressed by modal auxiliary verbs are presented in detail as following :

1 Can :

a Ability :" Be able to do something", " know how to do some thing"

Eg : I can write backwards

She can lift over 50 pounds

b Permission ( An informal manner of asking permission)

Eg : Can I smoke here?

Can I make a phone call?

c Possibility - Possible facts, theory, or disbelief

Eg : Anyone can make mistakes

d Cann't : Disbelief

Eg : He lost the election? You cann't be serious.

e Cann't : Obligation, necessity

Eg : You can not tell her that! She will never speak to me again if you do!

2 Could

Often like can, but more formal or polite in meaning, or more conditional or

contrary to fact

a Possibility and ability ( conditional)

Eg : What could I do with a million dollars?

It could snow today

b Past ability ( past, past habitual)

Eg : When I was young, I could speak swim very far.

c Past conditional (in perfect tense)

Eg : She could have gone to the movies, but instead she played video games

d Permission

Eg : Could I be excused to go to the bathroom?

e Advice, strong suggestion

Eg : Could you knock before entering my bedroom?

g Couldn't : Disbelief

Eg : She couldn't have stolen your wallet She was with me at the time

3 May

a Possibility

Eg : The president may not be telling the truth

b Permission ( more formal for permission than can)

Eg : May I go out?

c Wishes

Eg : May the sunshine on you, and may the wind always be at your back

d May not : Prohibition

Eg : You may not leave the room until the test is over, and the teacher has

called time

4 Might

a Possibility : Express possibility that is more tentative , speculative,

theoretical, or uncertain than may

Eg : I might visit you when I come to England next week.

b Advice, suggestion

In the present tense, might implies a neutral or more polite suggestion In the

perfect tense, it can imply criticism

Eg : I don't know what is wrong But you might try shuting the computer down

and rebooting

c Very formal requests

Eg : Might I have look at the contents of your bookbag?

5 Will

a Future tenses : Plans, intension, volition, prediction, general facts, etc.

Eg : I will go to Da lat if the weather is fine.

The dog will run away if you don't take proper care of it

b Habitual action

This is colloquial way of expressing present habitual

Eg : She will come here from time to time just to buy herbs and spices.

a Hypothetical condition or possibility (conditional)

Eg : He would sleep all day if you let him

What would you do if you were in this situation?

b Past habitual ( narrative)

Would forms a past habitual, a conservational equivalent of used to

Eg : He would come in here every saturday, buy newspaper, and leave

c Insistence.

Would express the ideas that a subject did something and insisted on doing it

contrary to someone's wishes

Eg : He would get into fights, even though I told him that we would get into

trouble someday

d Probability

Would can express probability that is very likely or certain.

That would be my mother = That's probably my mother

a Volition, intention, determination, prediction

Eg : We shall overcome !

According to the polls, I shall win the race quite easily

b Offers and suggestions

Eg : Shall we go out for coffee?

Shall we dance?

c Strong commands ( Formal)

Eg : You shall do as I say!

You shall study English right now!

8 Should

a Strong advice or recommendation

Eg : You should see the doctor to have your illness treated

You should often go jogging every evening.

b Infered probability

What the speaker infers or believe to probably be true, based on what evidence( It is very likely that…)

Eg : We have driven quite far We should be able to see Ha noi by now

c Conditional ( British English)

Eg : If you should change your mind, let us know.

9 Must

a Obligation, necessity , compulsion

You must follow my instructions

b Infered probability : Express probable conclusion that the speaker draws

Eg : You have worked hard all day You must be very tired.

From these information, we can summarise modals meanings in the followingtable:

To make it clear, below we present the interpretation of each pure modal verb

Must

It's necessary thatIt's necessarily the case

S + be obliged to + V( stronger in comparison

with should/ ought to)

Table 1.6 : The Interpretation of Each Pure Modal Verb

1.3.6.2 Lexical Words Carrying Modal Meanings

Besides modal verbs, there are a large number of lexical words which conveymodal meaning They are adverbs, nouns, adjectives, verbs carrying modalmeaning Below we present the use of them in detail:

 Adverbs : Adverbs are also important means of expressing modal meanings.

Modal adverbs are used to express the speaker's view of the truth value of theproposition with which it is associated They can be positioned next to an adject oradverb word or phrase and can be considered modifying such word and phrase.Some adverbs such as :