A corpus based study on gender related differences in deontic modality markers used in commencement remarks by american speakers

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ DUY AN A CORPUS-BASED STUDY ON GENDER- RELATED DIFFERENCES IN DEONTIC MODALITY MARKERS USED IN COMMENCEMENT REMARKS BY AMERICAN SPEAKERS Ma

UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

ĐỖ THỊ DUY AN

A CORPUS-BASED STUDY ON GENDER- RELATED DIFFERENCES IN DEONTIC MODALITY MARKERS USED IN COMMENCEMENT REMARKS BY AMERICAN SPEAKERS

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

This thesis has been completed at University of Foreign Language

Studies- The University of Danang

Venue: University of Foreign Language Studies

This thesis is available for the purpose of reference at:

- Library of University of Foreign Language Studies,

The University of Danang

- The Information Resources Center, the University of Danang

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE

Commencement remark makes up a substantial part of campus culture, distinguishes themselves as memorable and profoundly inspirational messages This type of public speaking is delivered at graduation ceremony and primely expected to celebrate the graduates’ past experience, present academic accomplishments and provoke future hopes with the motivation, encouragement and inspiration

Commencement remarks are believed to be potently written; hence, among such factors as word choices, stylistic devices, sentence structures and other grammatical elements, the huge potential of semantic and pragmatic meanings of modality markers

can effectively contribute to the conveyance of speakers’ ideas

However, the frequency and meanings conveyed are evidently different in male and female speakers When stating obligation, for example, female guest speakers use more objective

obligation with inclusive “We” or impersonal “It” or passive voice to

imply an objective obligatory situation

- I want you to take a breath and reflect so that attention must be paid (Jane Lynch, 2012)

- So we must come together as competitors and carers

(Anne-Marie Slaughter, 2016)

In a sharp contrast, male speakers employ more subjective

obligation with second person subject “You” to intensify the hearer’s

responsibilities

- You must continue to work You must continue to serve

and empower others (Eric Holder, 2010)

Deontic modality makers can be employed to serve various functions such as confirming ability and assurance, persuading, requesting, expressing hope, wish and fear, providing advice and encouragement, evoking responsibility and obligation as well as calling for action

For the aforementioned reasons, I decided to conduct a study

entitled: “A Corpus-Based Study on Gender- Related Differences in Deontic Modality Markers Used in Commencement Remarks By American Speakers” Through the research, it is hoped that readers

and learners will be able to comprehend the employment of deontic modality markers and the speaker’s communication strategies as well

as exploring the role of gender in differentiating various desired effects regarding the use of modality markers

1.2 AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

1.2.1 Aims

commencement speeches by American speakers in terms of their popularity, frequency as well as syntactic structures, semantic features and pragmatic functions

- Find out the similarities and the differences between the usage of male and female

1.2.2 Objectives

- Examine some syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of deontic modality markers used in commencement speeches by American speakers

- Compare the employment of MM in the remarks made by male and female speakers, then analyze their differences in relation to

syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties

- Propose some implications of the findings for the teaching and learning of English concerning deontic modality markers

1.3 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This paper concentrates on investigating on the examination

of deontic modality markers regarding syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features in commencement remarks by American speakers Grammatical, lexical means of modal expressions are taken into consideration Such issues of pragmatics as illocutionary force of

utterances are also analyzed

in commencement speeches by American speakers?

3 What are the similarities and the differences in the use of deontic modality markers between male and female speakers?

1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The findings of this study are expected to facilitate better understanding of the use of modality markers concerning semantic features and pragmatic functions Additionally, the findings are supposed to be a useful source of modality markers application for the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language in general and for students who are interested in practical application in writing public speeches in particular

1.6 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: Literature Review and Theoretical background Chapter 3: Research Design and Methodology

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implications

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL

BACKGROUND 2.1 REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES

result, many aspects of modality markers have been dealt with in previous research works conducted by Lyons (1977), Searle (1979), Perkins (1983), Palmer (1986), Downing; Locke (2006), etc…

Nuyts, J., Byloo, P., & Diepeveen, J (2010) tries to understand the nature of deontic modality, and its relationship with the imperative mood, through a corpus-based analysis of the Dutch

modals mogen ‘may’ and moeten ‘must’ Jankowski, B (2004)

analyzes the English modal verb Must and the periphrastic

constructions have to, have got to and got to, focusing on the

variability and ongoing change in the use of deontic modality to express obligation or necessity in British and American English Coates (2004) accessed an approach to a more nuanced idea of women and men performing gender in their everyday interactions Yeganeh, M T., & Ghoreyshi, S M (2015) investigated the gender differences in the use of discourse markers in Iranian academic research articles

Trần Hữu Phúc (2017) examined the connection between the

employment of modality expressions and politeness strategies in British and American ambassadorial speeches to identify some striking differences in the frequency use of modality expressions as politeness categories Phạm Khắc Thu (2010) studied modal expressions used in inaugural speeches of the US Presidents in terms

of their grammatical lexical and some linguistic features means of modal expressions Trần Thị Như Quỳnh (2013), in her thesis, examined the lexical devices expressing modality meaning in lectures

In the position of Palmer (1986), modality is concerned with mood (subjunctive etc.) and with modal markers such as English modal verbs (can, may, must etc.) and is treated as a single grammatical category found in most of the languages of the world 2.2.2 Types of modality

Table 2.1: Theoretical framework of modality meanings (Adapted

from Tran Huu Phuc (2017))

Other

alternative

divisions of

modality

The basic semantic categories of modality Authors

Epistemic Deontic Dynamic

Discourse

oriented

obligation, permission

Palmer (1986) Subject

oriented

ability, volition desirability

Palmer (1974) Intrinsic obligation, permission, volition, desire,

ability, intention, willingness

Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech (1985) Extrinsic certainty, possibility,

ability, desire, intention, willingness Agent-

oriented

obligation, root possibility ability, desire Bybee and

Fleischman (1995) Speaker-

oriented

imperatives, permissives, optatives

Theory framework of Palmer will be studied in order to figure out their semantic characteristics in the discourse of commencement remarks

2.2.3 Deontic modality

Deontic modality means more specifically that the speaker or writer ‘intervenes in the speech event by laying obligations or giving permission’ (Downing and Locke, 1992: 332) Halliday (1970: 335) claims that deontic modality can be regarded as “a form of participation of the speaker in the speech event.” Chung and Timberlake (1985), in the same vein, consider deontic modality as modality that connotes the speaker's degree of requirement of, desire for or commitment to the realization of the proposition expressed by

the utterance Deontic modal category includes the following subcategories on which the analysis of the thesis’s data is based:

a Commissive modality express the speaker's commitment to do

something, like a promise or threat

b Directive modality are used in Imperative, Deliberative,

Obligative, Prohibitive, Precative, Permissive moods for

commands, requests, etc

c Volitive modality include Desiderative and Optative moods for

hopes, wishes, desires and fears

2.2.4 Linguistic realization of deontic modality markers

2.2.4.1 Modal nouns

2.2.4.2 Modal adjectives

2.1.4.3 Modal adverbs

2.2.4.4 Modal lexical verbs

2.2.4.5 Modal auxiliary verbs

2.2.4.6 Quasi modal auxiliary

2.2.4.7 If- clauses

2.2.4.8 The imperative forms

2.2.5 Speech act theory- Ilocutionary act

According to Austin (1975), speech acts are divided into three types namely locutionary act, illocutionary act, and

perlocutionary act Searle (1975) classifies illocutionary acts into five types according to their illocutionary force: Assertives,Assertives,

Directives,Commisives,Expressives andDeclarations In this thesis, the theories of illocutionary acts are applied as a means to analyze the semantic features in which deontic modality markers are used to convey feelings, attitudes, belief, or intention with respect to some events or state of affairs

2.2.6 Theory of politeness

Under conversational maxim view, Grice (1975) proposed four maxims: Maxim of Quality (Be true), Maxim of Quantity (Be brief), Maxim of Relation (Be relevant), and Maxim of Manner (Be clear) Lakoff (1975) develops rules of politeness, consisting of three things which are “Don’t impose or Distance”, “Give option or Deference”, and lastly “Make audience feel good or Camaraderie”

Leech (1983) proposes how to produce and understand language based on politeness including the Tact Maxim, Generosity Maxim, Approbation Maxim, Modesty Maxim, Agreement Maxim and Sympathy Maxim Brown and Levinson (1987) introduce notion

of politeness including key concepts such as face (positive and negative), positive politeness, negative politeness, politeness strategies and face threatening acts (FTA) In this thesis, I will analyse the pragmatic functions of deontic modality markers on the principles of face-saving view of Brown and Levinson (1987)

2.2.7 Sociolinguistics

2.2.8 Language and Gender

2.2.9 Commencement speech

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 3.1 RESEARCH DESIGN

Quantitative approach enables the calculation of occurrence and the finding of language pattern instances The qualitative technique including descriptive and contrastive analysis support the explaining and exemplifying quantitative patterns as well as to generate a concrete description of the grammatical realizations, semantic and pragmatic features of deontic modality markers and to

find out the similarities and differences in the use of these markers between male and female American speakers in their commencement speeches

3.2 DATA COLLECTION

3.2.1 Sampling of the study

Table 3.1: Data on the corpora of speeches made by male American speakers (MC) and female American speakers (FC)

speeches

Number of words

3.2.2 Population of the study

3.2.3 Procedure of Data Collection

- Using Google search engine to collect 100 commencement speeches

- Employing the software package of Wordsmith 5.0 (http://www.lexically.net/wordsmith)

- Observing and classifying the data into groups based on different types of deontic modality markers

- Sorting the deontic markers from epistemic and dynamic modality markers basing on context where the utterance is made as well as comparing the instance found from two corpora: male and female

3.3 DATA ANALYSIS

- A systematization and classification of language realizations as linguistic structures and devices of deontic modal expressions used in commencement speeches by US speakers

- Describing and analyzing deontic modality in terms of

syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features

- Comparing to find out the similarities and differences in deontic modality markers regarding gender aspects

3.4 RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY

3.5 SUMMARY

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 TYPES OF DEONTIC MODALITY MARKERS IN COMMENCEMENT SPEECHES BY AMERICAN SPEAKERS

4.1.1 Modal Nouns

4.1.2 Modal Adjectives

4.1.3 Modal Adverbs

4.1.4 Modal Lexical Verbs

4.1.5 Modal Auxiliary Verbs

c.Mlex denoting acts of exercising

Table 4.3: Typical grammatical patterns of deontic modality markers

in commencement speeches by American speakers

And so my final wish for you: May you have

This is/ It is/ That is

+ possessive

adjectives + Mns +V

to-inf

It is our obligation to nurture and educate

talent to serve that trust — creating the people and the ideas that can change the world [F-63] Modal

adjective

It is + MAdj+ to inf

V

It’s important to respect what they have done,

and to be grateful for it [M-26]

Modal

marker Syntactic patterns Examples of MM

which to navigate your life and to succeed in the modern world you are entering—a world that seems to get more complex every day [M-42]

It is + Adj+ for SO +

to inf V

It’s important for you to give, as a way of

saying thanks, but also to invest in future generations [M-32]

Modal

adverb

years after we received government support,

we will repay every dollar that was lent to us

by the American and Canadian governments, with interest [M-45]

step is the most important one you’ll ever take [M-4]

Modal

Lexical

Verbs

Subject + Mlex +

object+ V-to Inf

So today, I ask you to make tomorrow matter

and then the day after that and the day after that.[M-39]

Subject + Mlex +

(that) + P

I hope that you navigate the hard times and

you come out with greater strength and resolve [M-39]

Modal

auxiliary

verb

whatever your fellow improviser throws at you [F-18)

+ P

If you remember nothing else from today, I hope you remember this moment of human connection [M-47]