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Conditionals have been deemed a particularly valuable resource in scientific and academic discourse (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 191), a register in which they have been used particularly frequently (Horsella & Sindermann 1992: 131, Ferguson 2001: 69). This usefulness is in good part a result of their functional versatility, which allows conditionals to express a very high number of different functions in discourse⁶⁷.

In what follows, the functions which conditional structures perform in scientific writing will be analysed, as a necessary previous stage to the development of the corresponding functional typology in Section 3. To do this, Section 1.1 will analyse the functions of conditionals related with the content of the text and Section 1.2 will focus on the functions related to the interpersonal nature of scientific discourse. Section 1.3, meanwhile, studies the relationship of conditional structures performing an interpersonal or mitigating function with hedging, by examining the literature on the topic and providing a possible solution for the difficulties in classifying conditionals as hedges.

1.1. Conditionals in scientific writing: content-related functions

The core function of conditionals both in general and scientific language is to contribute to the advancement of the argument, indicating “the relationship between different segments of text and to make the readers recognise this relation” (Warchal 2010: 146). In other words, the function of conditionals is to establish a link, mainly causal, between two statements, optionally including a judgment on their probability. From a rhetorical point of view, conditionals are said to contribute to the establishment of facticity (Latour 1987), this is, the determination of the status of a statement as a fact, as conclusions stemming from valid conditional relationships and factual premises are consequently “promoted” to the status of facts (Warchal 2010: 146).

When applied to scientific discourse, this core function has several applications. As shown in (1) below, conditionals can be used to express well-known causal relationships, such as mathematical equalities.

(1) Given that x=y, then n(x+a)=n(y+a) must also be true. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1090)

Conditionals can also help reflect on dependencies between situations (Ferguson 2001: 61), thus being used to express the relationship between a phenomenon and its consequences, both at a sentence-level, establishing relationships between statements, and at a text-sentence-level, establishing links between

67 This is in keeping with the specialised nature of scientific language (Liddicoat 1997: 767), a condition which is normally exemplified in the lexicon but which also applies to syntactic structures, as in this case.

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premises and conclusions or between different sections of the text. (2) and (3) below are examples of this kind of use.

(2) If one accepts these treatments as valid, major changes in the management of cancer patients […] must be considered. (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 194)

(3) If perceptions of change had been measured, then the findings may have been different (Warchal 2010: 144)

The contribution to the establishment of facticity is also the reason why conditionals are used when stating pre-requisites or instructions, as commonly done in the methods sections in scientific discourse. (4) is an example of this use:

(4) Patients entered the study if they satisfied the WHO criteria for stroke (Ferguson 2001: 71) On the other hand, conditionals are inherently non-assertive (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008:

191) and, consequently, can be used to introduce tentative claims or conclusions, both, again, at a sentence-level and at a text-level. This tentativeness may be regulated by using conditionals with different combinations of tenses⁶⁸, as this allows constructing a series of different structures, which are in “a cline from conditionals that are sufficient and necessary to those that are merely probable, thus determining the degree of certainty of the conclusions reached” (Horsella & Sindermann 1992:

138). An example of these uses can be seen in examples (5-6) below. In (5) tentativeness is absent, as the conditional is presented as an almost absolute certainty, whilst in (6), the conclusion is much more tentative as a result of the presence of may.

(5) ...glucagon is ineffective if hepatic glycogen stores are depleted. (Ferguson 2001: 72) (6) If a patient has an early failure from a low anterior resection, they may be able to be retrieved by resection. (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 200)

At the same time, the possibilities of conditionals to speculate with outcomes are also useful in scientific writing to consider different options, evaluating the consequences of alternative courses of action, as well as to formulate hypothesis and theories (Horsella & Sindermann 1992: 131, Ferguson 2001: 61, Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 191, Gabrielatos 2010: 1).

68 These, however, go beyond the combinations usually presented in EFL grammars, as will be shown below.

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1.2. Conditionals in scientific writing: interpersonal functions.

In all of the examples in the previous section, the conditional structure is contributing to the advancement of the argument at the propositional level. However, as explained in Chapter 1, ever since the substitution of logocentric scholastic knowledge with the new paradigms of science and the expansion of scientific communities, scientific discourse has been dialogic and interpersonal. Thus, scientific discourse now does not only revolve around the subject matter, but also takes into account the relationship between authors and their audience: authors have to engage with their peers, persuading them of the validity of their claims, whilst at the same time assuring the best reception possible for their works by using certain discourse strategies such as humility and politeness (Bazerman 1988; Myers 1989; Swales 1990; Atkinson 1996, 1999; Hyland 1996, 1998, 2000).

Conditionals, with their versatility, play an important role for the presentation of a researcher’s work to their peers, to the point that they have been defined as “a rhetorical device for gaining acceptance for one’s claims”, by means of which “scientists try to reach a consensus with their readers” (Warchal 2010: 141). Thus, conditionals also fulfil several functions in which their role is basically interpersonal,

“establishing agreement between the writer and the reader of an academic text” (Warchal 2010: 142), or, in other words, helping the author guide their audience towards acquiescence.

This drive towards consensus is basic in several aspects of scientific register. For instance, in order to present their research, scientists have to connect it to the existent body of works on the matter, circumscribing the scope of the claims. They also have to present their assumptions and negotiate the meaning of the concepts they use, so that their interpretation is shared with their audience.

Conditionals, in their role as space-builders (Fauconnier 1994, Dancygier 1998) help researchers do this, by allowing them to create argumentative spaces, either real or hypothetical, in which their claims hold. This is used both to create the niche (Swales 1990) of a particular research publication and to delimit the scope of claims at a textual level (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 191). An example of this latter use can be seen in example (7) below, in which an entity is given a particular interpretation in the protasis, under which the apodosis holds.

(7) As such, it can be said to belong to modality if the category is defined as the expression of the speaker’s attitude or stance. (Warchal 2010: 148)

At the same time, as already explained, it is also important to achieve the best reception possible for one’s work among one’s peers. To achieve a good reception, authors must show solidarity and respect towards their peers. This is done both directly, through the use of express politeness, and indirectly, by recognising others’ contributions, conceding competing points of view and envisaging possible

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alternatives to one’s claims (Declerck & Reed 2001, Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 191).

Conditionals are useful in these instances: for example, in (8) below the protasis introduces a possible alternative to the reasoning, under which the original point in the apodosis still holds, thus recognising that more than one point of view has been considered. Example (9) shows a direct (and conventional) politeness structure, used to soften the force of the words in the apodosis.

(8) Even if health care providers are diligent in keeping current with genetic medicine, the interpretation of the results of genetic testing is often complex. (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 202)

(9) If I may be quite frank with you, I don’t approve of any concessions to ignorance. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1095)

It is also important for authors to show modesty, recognising uncertainty and avoiding categorical claims. As explained above, the inherent non-assertiveness of conditionals is useful for this, as it can be used to tone down claims that could otherwise be considered categorical, by making their validity conditional on a series of factors expressed in the protasis. At the same time, avoiding categorical claims and recognising one’s uncertainty are also useful for authors to anticipate potential criticism.

Examples (10-12) below show different uses of conditionals showing uncertainty, whether about the wording (10), the relevance (11), or the good understanding of others’ points (12).

(10) His style is florid, if that’s the right word. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1096).

(11) Finally (if this is important), the S1 meaning can be converted into an S meaning to recover a more intuitive object to represent the meaning of the original sentence. (Warchal 2010: 148) (12) Chomsky’s views cannot be reconciled with Piaget’s, if I understand both correctly. (Quirk et al. 1985: 1096)

Finally, conditionals are also useful for authors to manage interactions with their audience (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 191). An example of this is the use of conditionals as a signposting device, providing readers “with guidance about the author’s intentions and the development of the text” (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 194). This is shown in example (13) below.

(13) Now if we go to patients who experienced mucositis toxicity. (Carter-Thomas & Rowley-Jolivet 2008: 194).

This strategy is also used in face-to-face interaction, in which the conditional helps present a

“proposed action on the part of the addressee contingent on the willingness of the addressee”

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(Ferguson 2001: 77). This is particularly useful with difficult content, such as a bad prognosis in a medical consultation, which can be presented in a less threatening way by using a conditional that helps avoiding presenting it as definite (Ferguson 2001: 79). It is also common in presentations, a use more alike the signposting function discussed above.

1.3. Defining the interpersonal uses of conditionals.

As explained in Chapter 1, one of the characteristics of the evolving scientific register of the period under study is the permanent tension between the need of scientists to promote their unique contribution to a field, highlighting their individuality, and the need to move their readers towards consensus, emphasising their belonging to a community. Following the explanation in that chapter, this tension means that scientific writing is best seen as a negotiation between writer and readers, in which claims have to be asserted and mitigated at the same time in order to emphasise the possibilities of agreement. This led to the emergence of a series of strategies, such as avoiding categorical claims, emphasizing shared knowledge, recognising others’ work and their conflicting points of view, using a cooperative and non-confrontational tone, or conveying respect, modesty and politeness, which are used by authors to steer their readers towards agreement.

Warchal (2010) distinguishes five sets of rhetorical strategies playing a role in this tension between individualism and consensus: Inclusive-we constructions, common knowledge markers, attitude markers, hedges, and certainty markers (also known as emphatics).

Inclusive-we constructions are used to include both the author and readers as members of the community, emphasising their common belonging to the same group of experts (Warchal 2010: 142).

They help denote that readers and author share knowledge and values and thus predisposes the readers towards agreement. Similarly, common knowledge markers are used to refer to knowledge which the author assumes their readership shares (Koutsantoni 2004), thus helping the author relate their work to the field and supporting their claims by indicating that the approach is based on previous research which is accepted by the disciplinary community (Warchal 2010: 142). Common knowledge markers include evaluative adjectives and expressions of attribution, such as references.

Attitude markers express the author’s affective values towards the content and their readers. They contribute to the establishment of a shared argumentative space in which to discuss the claims, guiding the interpretation of the reader in order to approximate them towards consensus (Hyland 1998). They include evaluative adjectives and adverbs, modals expressing obligation, and expressions denoting a negative evaluation of previous research (Koutsantoni 2004).

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According to Warchal (2010:42), hedges are “expressions that tone down the force of a statement by limiting the commitment of the author to the expressed proposition”. They have several functions:

they help to separate claims from established knowledge, as the latter does not need cautious language in its wording, and they also open the possibility to criticism as they leave open the possibility of differing points of view. Among others, they are realised at the linguistic level by modals, verbs of cognition in the first person and expressions of probability. Some authors, such as Hyland (1994), also include conditionals, questions, passives and impersonal phrases.

Finally, certainty markers or emphatics, realised at the linguistic level by the same expressions as hedges, help authors express their confidence towards their findings. Thus, they predispose readers to be more willing to accept the authors’ claims, avoiding a possible disagreement (Hoey 2000: 33).

This is particularly useful when the acceptance of the claim is dependent on the acceptance of a previous claim (Warchal 2010: 142). Certainty markers and hedges are the main contributors to the balance between commonality and individualism.

As has been shown in the previous two sections, conditionals can perform some of these mitigating functions. Warchal defends that conditionals can be used as “a rhetorical device for gaining acceptance for one’s claims” (2010: 141), and that they can perform any of the latter three functions (attitude markers, hedges and emphatics). According to her, conditionals can function as hedges when

“they limit the assertiveness of a claim by making its validity conditional on some other factors” (2010:

142), this is, when they act as consensus-building strategies. At the same time, they can also perform the role of emphatics when they “add assertiveness to a claim” or when “they promote a claim to the status of the obvious once another claim is accepted” (2010: 142), as well as the role of attitude markers when they express concessive meanings.

However, Warchal’s classification overlooks the controversial nature of hedges, which are often contradictorily defined by several authors: there is no consensus in the literature about the definition of hedge, the set of structures which are covered by this definition, and the borders with several related phenomena. These problems are shown in what follows.

Lakoff coined the term hedge to refer to linguistic structures, such as sort of, or quite, that were used by authors to disguise the meaning of a proposition, making “things fuzzy or less fuzzy” (1972: 194).

However, this conception evolved, and hedge started to refer to a conventional phenomenon of academic style which is used by authors to reduce the strength of a claim in order to avoid disagreement on the part of their audience (Taavitsainen 1997) or to be seen as diplomatic or modest

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(Fraser 1980, Myers 1989), as part of a set of fixed strategies which also includes expressions of recognition and politeness.

Similarly, Hyland (1998) considers that hedges are “any linguistic means used to indicate either (a) a lack of complete commitment to the truth value of an accompanying preposition, or (b) a desire not to express the commitment categorically” (Hyland 1998: 1). This makes hedges be tightly linked to epistemic modality, and in fact Hyland considers that “items are only hedges in their epistemic sense, and only then when they mark uncertainty” (Hyland 1998: 5).

This approach has related the concept to other phenomena, such as stance, evidentiality and metadiscourse, with which it is sometimes confused, as they all feature some degree of involvement of the writer. Thus, stance is defined as the expression of the speaker/writer’s “personal feelings, attitudes, value judgements or assessments” (Alonso 2012: 202), whilst evidentiality relates to the expression of the source of information (Dendale & Tasmowski 2001), being also useful to determine the attitude of the author towards the arguments being used. Finally, metadiscourse refers to a series of expressions “used to negotiate interactional meanings in a text, assisting the writer (or speaker) to express a viewpoint and engage with readers as members of a particular community” (Hyland 2005:

37-38). These three concepts have also received several, sometimes contradictory, names by different authors⁶⁹, and their limits are, again, fuzzy.

This reflects an extended problem in the literature, as hedge remains “a concept that evades definition” (Lewin 2005: 165), but which has nonetheless been used as a label to identify very different phenomena. In Alonso’s words, “the notion of hedging has been used as a stock category, often used to account for unclear strategies in discourse showing some degree of epistemic modality” (Alonso 2012: 199).

Being this the case, it is not surprising that there is uncertainty about how to identify members of the category (Crompton 1997). Hedges can be realised in several ways at the surface level, from modals such as might, to adverbs expressing probability such as perhaps, as well as expressions showing the opinion of the author, such as I think. However, there is no easy way to identify the real uses of the category.

Crompton, who defined hedges as “an item of language which a speaker uses to explicitly qualify his/her lack of commitment to the truth of a proposition he/she utters” (1997: 281), applied this definition to the identification of single uses of hedges. According to him, hedges are those

69 In Chafe (1986), evidentiality was used as a label to refer to what is here defined as stance.

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expressions which, if changed, would render the truth-value of the proposition unchanged but would increase the commitment of the writer. However, this operational definition was criticised by Salager-Meyer, as it would narrow the category too much, even though it would lead to unequivocal identification of the members of the category. Thus, she defends the fuzziness of the concept, holding that the identification of hedges was to be based on introspection and contextual analysis (Salager-Meyer 1998: 298). This is also assumed by Alonso, who defends that “[t]he analysis of context is not only necessary, but unavoidable if one really wants to highlight the cases of hedging with any degree of confidence” (Alonso 2012: 204).

The paragraphs above have shown that hedge can be considered a problematic term. Several of the definitions presented above are too fuzzy, and others, such as Crompton’s or Hyland’s, seem too narrow to be helpful for the classification here. Moreover, it is not clear whether conditionals are considered as examples of this phenomenon: Hyland (1994) includes if-conditionals as hedges, but the same author decided to exclude them in his 1998 work.

Consequently, references to the consideration of conditionals as hedges will be avoided here. The focus will be put, instead, on their performance of two pragmatic functions (which are, moreover, intimately related with those performed by hedges): interpersonality and mitigation. Conditionals are considered mitigating when they are used to tone down the assertiveness of a claim, as well as when they are used to mark politeness or humility on the part of the authors. They are considered interpersonal when their use helps “establishing agreement between the writer and the reader of an academic text” (Warchal 2010: 142). These include conditionals which guide the readers’

interpretation, negotiate terms and concepts, ward off possible criticism, or acknowledge others’

points of view, among others.

These two pragmatic functions will be used as one of the criteria to define a typology of the functions of conditionals in scientific writing, as will be shown in Section 3 below. However, they are not enough to define all the different uses of conditionals in eighteenth and nineteenth-century scientific writing, and further examination of the literature will be needed.