epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” vinh university Foreign language department Ngun thÞ phơng thảo Epistemic modality manifested in conversations in The Thorn Birds (Tính chân nguỵ đợc thể qua lời thoại t¸c phÈm “tiÕng chim hãt bơi mËn gai”) summary graduation thesis Field: linguistics Vinh – 2007 Acknowledgement My graduation thesis has been completed with great support from my teachers, friends and family members First of al, the study would have never finished without the enthuastic guiding of my supervisor, Dr Ngô Đình Phơng who has given me a lot of significant advices as well as critical comments on my thesis Nextly, I would like to express my deeply gratitude towards the full help of some teachers in the Faculty of Foreign Languages; esp Mr Trần Bá Tiến, M.A epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” who lends me some valuable reference books and responds enthuastically to my consultations with useful explanations and advices Last but not least, I would certainly never forget the warmly encouragement of my dedicated friends and all of members in my family who play as spiritual factors during my studying process Vinh, May 15, 2007 Nguyễn Thị Phơng Thảo Abbreviations S.P : E.g : H : S : i.e : et al.: Esp : Speech Act For example Hearer Speaker That is to say and others Especially epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” table of contents Page Acknowledgement i Abbreviations ii Table of content iii Part I: Introduction 1 Rationale Aims of the study Scope of the study Methods of the study Design of the study Part II : development Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1 Concept of modality 1.1.1 Definition epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” 1.1.2 Types of modality 1.1.2.1 Deontic modality 1.1.2 Epistemic modality 10 1.1.3 Realizations of modality 15 1.1.3.1 Verbs expressing modal meanings 15 1.1.3.2 Other means of expressing modal meanings 16 1.2 Speech Act 17 1.2.1 Speech Act performance 17 1.2.1.1 Definition 18 1.2.1.2 Locutionary act, Illocutionary act, Performation act 18 1.2.2 Speech act classification 20 1.2.3 Indirect Speech act 20 1.2.3 Relationship between Speech act and Modality 21 Chapter 2: Epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” 23 2.1 Modal verbs 23 2.1.1 Can/Could 23 2.1.2 May/ Might 25 epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” 2.1.3 Will/ Would 26 2.1.4 Shall/ Should /Ought (to) 27 2.1.5 Must 28 2.2 Adverbs 33 2.3 Adjectives 35 2.4 Nouns 35 2.5 Personal relationship 37 Chapter 3: Implication 39 3.1 The problems 39 3.2 Implication 40 Part III: conclusion 43 References Appendix suggested Exercises epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” Part I: Introduction Rationale: The basic fuction of laguage, as Robin (1952) proposes, is communication in which people exchange information and express their opinions and attitudes And in English the term used to convey attitudes or feeling is called Modality It is fact that nowhere modality can be used popularly and vividly than in conversation language It occurs frequently in everyday conversations and in literary works as well And the latter one truly, attracts us most Moreover, as far as learning- teaching English is concerned, from a small survey it is alarm that a high rate of Vietnamese learners of English are lack of the English modality’s theoritical background That matter inspires us to explore how modality is performed in English with hope to reduce this challenge For those reasons presented above, we decide to choose the topic “ Epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Bird” as the theme for our thesis Aims of the study: To explore how modality is expressed in English language appropriately epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” To investigate the way characters in a literary work operate modality in their conversations To offer some implications for learning and teaching English and some suggestions for further study Scope of the study: Modality has two main types deontic and epistemic.However, our thesis only deals with one of them, that is epistemic.English modality’s realizations are very wide including all word forms: adjective, adverbs, verbs, nouns and a number of subordinate clauses Yet we only consider it in four word forms.The data is based on the utterances in conversations among characters in “The Thorn Birds” written by an amateur writer in 1976.Clearly, nowhere is better for the characters to express their feelings and attitudes toward every incident than in conversations which therefore, are reliable source of data for modality in general and epistemic in particular Methods of the study: The thesis is finished with the following methods: Synthetic Analytical Design of the study: The thesis comprises three main parts: Part I: Introduction This part includes five sub- parts : the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study Part II: Content Chapter 1: Theoretical background Chapter 2: The study of epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” Chapter 3: Implication for teaching – learning English Modality to Vietnamese learners of English Part III: Conclusion This part summarize somewhat has discussed in the above two parts and showing some restriction of the thesis - epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” Part II : development Chapter 1: Theoretical background 1.1 Concept of modality: 1.1.1 Definition: Modality,in general, means the commitment of the S towards what he is saying It involves,according to Downing and Lock (1995:382), the other terms such as possibility, probability, necessity, volition, obligation, permission, doubt, wish, regret, design, and temporal notions such as usuality Then, Steel et.al (1981:21)explicit them: “Element expressing modality will mark any of the following: possible or the related notion of permission, probability or the related notion of obligation, certainty or the related notion of the requirement.” 1.1.2 Types of modality: Many linguists are interested in classifying modality Finally, most of linguists come to agreement that modality consists of two main kinds: deontic and epistemic According to,Lyons (in conjunction with other scholars) : Epistemic modality which is concerned with matters of knowledge, belief (1977: 793) or “opinion rather than fact (1977: 681) and “Deontic modality which is concerned with the necessity or possibility of acts performed by morally responsible agents (1977:832) 1.1.2.1 Deontic modality: As far as grammar is concerned, directives and commissives, as Searl (1979:14) noted, are grammar types of deontic Both are concerned with “fitting the world to the word” epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” 1.1.2.1.1 Directives (hearer- oriented) 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 possibility or ability and the others show the necessity/obligation In saying “you may /must arrive on time” the S wants to impose the possibility /necessity of arriving on time upon his hearer 1.1.2.1.2 Commissive (speaker- oriented): It is defined by Searl (1983:166) as” where we commit ourselves to thing” Here the event via an utterance will be performed by the S, not the H “Will” or “shall” are often be used in this case to show the S’s commitment toward an action such as a threat or a promise happening in the future 1.1.2 Epistemic modality: This term derived from Greek word meaning “understanding or “knowledge” (Lyons uses these terms in his definition about modality) refers to the type of modality that indicates the degree of commitment by the S to what he says.Epistemic is concerned with the truth ,belief and knowledge And it is categorized into two kinds: judgments and evidentials 1.1.2.2.1 Judgment: 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 1.1.2.2.2 Evidentials: Following the typology of Aikhenvald (2003, 2004) there are two broad types of evidential marking - Indirectivity marking (type I) - Evidential marking (type II) Aikenvald defines that the first indicates whether evidence exists for a given statement but doesn’t specify what kind of evidence (such as the evidence is visual, reported, or inferred) whereas the second specifies the kind of evidence that may be direct or indirect evidence 1.1.3 Realizations of modality 1.1.3.1 Verbs expressing modal meanings: Lexical verbs, Lexical-modal auxiliaries, Modal auxiliaries, Semi-modals 1.1.3.2 Other means of expressing modal meanings: Modal adverbs, Modal adjectives, Modal nouns, Intonation, Modality in subordinate clauses 1.2 Speech Act: epistemic modality manifested in conversations in “The Thorn Birds” G.Yule defined S.A as “Actions performed via utterances are generally called Speech Acts and, in English, are commonly given more specific labels, such as apology, complaint, invitation, promise, or request” The action performed via an utterance always consists three related acts: The first is named “locutionary” which involves the basic act of an utterance or produces a meaningful linguistic expression.What participants intend to achieve via language in a communication process is called “Illocutionary act” The illocutionary act will have some effect on the H This effect is Perlocutionary act 1.2.2 Speech act classification: Searl gives classification system including five types: assertives (representatives), directives, commissives, expressives, declaratives 1.2.3 Relationship between Speech act and Modality: The reason we consider speech act as a great background is that they have close relationship And as Lyons (1977:725) noted, the theory of S.A derived from Austin (1962) is used as a “framework for the discussion of mood and modality” Furthermore, like modality, S.A is also concerned with a relation between the speaker and what he says Especially , two types of modality use four five basic categories of illocutionary act for their sub-division on the side of grammatical realization: deontic with directives and commissives; epistemic with assertives and declaratives: “there is no epistemically stronger statement than a categorical assertion” 10 ... language appropriately epistemic modality manifested in conversations in ? ?The Thorn Birds? ?? To investigate the way characters in a literary work operate modality in their conversations To offer... conversations in ? ?The Thorn Birds? ?? For those reasons presented above, we decide to choose the topic “ Epistemic modality manifested in conversations in ? ?The Thorn Bird” as the theme for our thesis Aims... data for modality in general and epistemic in particular Methods of the study The thesis is finished with the following methods: Synthetic Analytical 12 epistemic modality manifested in conversations