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2.6.1 Studies on Epistemic Modality

A great deal of research has focused on epistemic modality as it closely relates to stance formation in academic texts. Aull & Lancaster (2014) analysed the expression of modality in 4,000 argumentative essays of new and advanced university level students and in published articles. They showed that across all subject areas, there is greater use of intensifiers and fewer hedges in the first year university students’ essays compared with the more advanced writers. A larger study by Aull (2015) which directly compared approximately 35,000 first year writers’ essays at two US universities with published articles confirmed this difference and noted a disparity between the two types of writers, noting that the first-year students used boosters at twice the rate of the use of hedges, whereas the academic writers preferred to use hedges more often. The preference for intensifiers over hedges impacts the dialogic space available for the writer to occupy, how their authority is projected and ultimately how writer identity is portrayed (Tang, 2009, 170).

The focus of these research projects has been on comparing non-native with native speakers or novice academics with experienced academics. Research on modal verb use has focussed on the belief that they are prototypical markers of epistemic modality despite the existence of other linguistic items which function in a similar way. As noted above, epistemic modality is used to express the level of certainty that a writer associates with their assertions. Many linguists accept that there exists a gradience of epistemic classification and this has been identified in the discussion on the typologies of modality in the previous section. However, Hoye (1997) points out that there is no principled method in identifying the degree of certainty

of a particular item since its meaning is closely associated with the context in which it is expressed. The reason that many researchers focus principally on epistemic modality is its importance in the formulation of arguments and qualified claims in written texts, frequently marked by the use of hedges and shown to be frequent in advanced academic writing irrespective of the field (Ädel, 2006; Hyland & Tse, 2004; Hyland, 2005, 2008; Li & Wharton, 2012) and is central to good academic writing.

Hu, Brown and Brown (1982) observed that Chinese second language writers seem more direct and authoritative in tone and make greater use of epistemic devices from the ‘certainty’ end of the epistemic continuum than the NSs. Allison (1995) agrees and found that Hong Kong writers make unjustified, strong assertions more frequently than NS writers. This finding was also reported by Hyland and Milton (1997), who compared the expression of doubt and certainty in examination texts of school leavers in China (n=900) and in the UK (n=770) through the creation of a corpus of 1 million words. The results revealed that the NNS writers preferred to use a more limited range of language items, expressing stronger commitments and greater uncertainty in conveying an appropriate degree of commitment. A reason for this apparent difference is the emphasis given to classroom practice in Hong Kong which places importance on the teaching of expressions, such as ‘there is no doubt’. This research was extended to include the semantic concepts of usuality (sometimes, often, always) and approximation (about, approximately) and adopted the term ‘downtoners’ from Holmes (1982,

p.18) to refer to hedges in writing and ‘boosters’ to refer to a strengthening of an assertion

(Milton & Hyland, 1999).

The presence of stronger assertions and commitments in learner writing has not been consistently reported in the literature. McEnery and Kifle (2002) compared the expression of epistemic modality in argumentative essays with second-year university students in Eritrea with secondary school students in the UK, and observed the opposite trend to Hyland and Milton (1997) and Milton and Hyland (1999), in that the non-native writers used more tentative language whilst the native speaker writers used stronger devices. The results were attributed to the fact that the non-native writers were trained specifically to avoid strong assertions through the use of learning of lists in textbooks used in secondary schools. However, equally, the choice of epistemic device is said to reflect a learner’s personal belief and attitude as well as any cultural difference between the writers. Age and educational stage may also influence the results.

In developing learner English expression in a university setting, Gabrielatos and McEnery (2005) have been developing and comparing the expression of epistemic modality in a corpus of native and advanced non-native MA Dissertations. Results suggest that both NS and NNS writers cluster around a small number of lexical items when expressing epistemic

modality; however, NSs use epistemic modal verbs much more frequently than NNSs (+50%) and even more so in the case of adverbs and adjectives (+75%).

Building on McEnery and Kifle's (2002) study, Chen (2010) employed Granger’s (2002) CIA by analysing learner interlanguage development in the use of nine epistemic devices by comparing NNS and NS texts and then comparing NNS and NNS, not by comparing L1 groups as in Granger’s model, but across proficiency levels in academic writing. The NS corpus was a collection of 30 texts obtained from the BNC Baby (approximately 1.1 million words) and the NNS corpus was the Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC), a collection of argumentative essays over five educational levels from high school to university, each sub-corpus equating to approximately 250,000 words. The results showed that the NNSs used fewer downtoners and more boosters; however, Chen noticed that this changes with proficiency, and the writers become more native-like, particularly with the use of may and might, and other devices that express epistemic modality, suggesting that pragmatic competence in this area is developmental.

2.6.2 Studies on Non-epistemic Modality

The hegemony of epistemic modality as a focus for research, and in particular as a focus for learner English research, has meant that its relationship with non-epistemic modalities has been largely overlooked. There are very few examples where research has addressed the non- epistemic side of modal expression in academic and General English writing. One of the examples to do so is Piqué, Posteguillo and Andreu-Beso (2001) who compared the expression of modality in research articles (RAs) from the Health Sciences with newspaper articles and literary criticism RAs in NS writing. They only focussed on the central modal verbs and three semi-modal verbs (ought to, dare, and need), but nevertheless their results showed that non-epistemic modal preference is discipline specific, noting that writers of Health Sciences RAs almost exclusively employ epistemic modality (98% of occurrences), but that writers of literary criticism RAs more frequently employ modal verbs with deontic meanings (30% of occurrences). Newspaper articles are in between with a reported use of 91% epistemic modality. Piqué-Angordans (2002) took the study further by comparing the epistemic and deontic expression in RAs in medical research, Biology and literary criticism, and this time only focussing on the use of central modal verbs. Their results show that, combined, 11.67% of instances of modality in the RAs were used with deontic meanings; however, as with their previous study, differences were identified according to discipline, with medical RAs showing the least use of deontic modality (3.28%), literary criticism again the highest with 23.53% of occurrences expressing deontic modality, and Biology between the two with 7.48%. Their results suggest that there is a difference between the frequency of use of deontic modality in Medical and literary criticism RAs, but only partially so with Biology. Both papers highlight the

greater variety of choice of modality within literary criticism RAs and suggest that the choice of the type of modality depends on the communicative purpose (2002, p.56). Their results align with Simpson (1990) who analysed one literary criticism text and from that noted greater assertiveness in writer expression within this discipline. Likewise, the lack of deontic modality in medical RAs confirmed that reported in Vilha (1999).

From a NNS perspective, Hinkel (1995) analysed the expression of root modality (i.e. obligation and necessity) in modal and semi-modal verbs (must, have to, should, ought to and need to) in 450 US-based adult ESL students’ General English writing, collected over a 5 year period and covering topics on family roles, responsibilities, obligations and relationships, friendships, family, cultural traditions, education, patriotism, racism, and politics. The NNSs had received extensive instruction in ESL (average 12.6 years) and the average time spent in the US was 2.4 years. Students were speakers of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, and Vietnamese, representing groups that are heavily influenced by Confucian, Taoist, Buddhist sociocultural values. Her findings showed that in topics related to family, friendships and traditions, NNSs’ use root modality significantly differently to NSs, particularly in topics related to patriotism, racism and politics. In Confucian, Taoist and Buddhist cultures, teachers are highly respected and occupy a position next to parents. Therefore, Hinkel concludes that students may come to class with pragmatic presuppositions of this kind and therefore diverge in their understanding of the nature of obligation and necessity which may contribute to the under- or over-use of these modal items. Furthermore, Hinkel states that living in an Anglo- American cultural setting does not necessarily lead to NNSs assuming nativelike beliefs and pre-suppositions.

2.6.3 Studies on Modality from a Functional Perspective

Genre is a fundamental part of the systemic functional linguistics framework and much recent work has focused attention on rhetorical moves, originally conceived by Swales (1990), within them. For example, using texts extracted from the BAWE corpus, Gardner (2012) uses an SFL perspective to review the rhetorical moves within the genres and registers of student report writing across corpus linguistics, psychology and chemistry assignments, and Nathan (2013) contrasts business case reports between a locally developed corpus of marketing and management student writing and examples of texts from the marketing and management subcorpus of the BAWE corpus. Both studies have been used to inform EAP teaching practices and to help students better understand the requirements of their courses in terms of structures of discipline specific text types. However, neither of the studies involved finer-grained analysis of lexicogrammar within each genre.

When lexicogrammar within specific academic genres has been the focus of research, it has followed a similar pattern to other studies on modality with an SFL framework, in that the

attention has been on epistemic forms of expression, that is, modalization, given the importance of the expression propositions in academic writing, the level of certainty and the writer’s confidence in the truth of the propositions. Takahashi (2009) carried out an in-depth qualitative analysis of the expression of modality in the writing of legal memorandums of six international students at a US law school, in order to identify patterns of use between different levels of proficiency (high, mid and low). The genre of the legal memorandum is characterised by an objectively written report aimed for internal use in a law firm and examines the legal implications of a factual situation with the aim of making predictions on the potential success of a case (Block, 1999, p.166). The analysis compared levels of propositional commitment, subjective and objective manifestations, and the use of grammatical metaphors (henceforth, GMs). The results showed that the predictive nature of the text encouraged the use of modalization, but also that there were differences in lexicogrammatical devices used across proficiency levels with higher proficiency students adopting a more impersonal stance and using a wider array of grammatical metaphors to maintain objectivity. The lower proficiency students, on the other hand, used stronger modal expressions and less qualified statements (concurring with the findings of Hyland and Milton (1997)), and sometimes failing to use hedging devices in preference to presenting their assertions as facts. Furthermore, the lower proficiency students were seen to depend more on congruent forms in the form of modal verbs and adverbs, and less on metaphorical expressions, thus increasing the sense of subjectivity in their writing.

In a more quantitatively based study, Yang, Zheng, & Ge (2015) conducted an analysis of modalization in medical research papers. The researchers created a corpus of 25 medical research articles from top rated journals in the field, and analysed the distributions of values (commitment: low, median and high) and orientations (responsibility: objective and subjective, explicit and implicit) across the texts. The results showed that low and median values predominated and coincided with studies from Vilha (1999), Hyland (1996) and Hyland (2008) on modality and hedging, where they report low and median value modality as the most frequently used modal expressions and, in the case of Hyland (2008, p.372), where the frequency of hedges was recorded as 2.5 times higher than boosters (including high value epistemic modal expressions). However, surprisingly, the writers preferred to express subjectivity over objectivity within the orientations used. In 58% of all occurrences the writers expressed implicitly subjective orientations with constructions involving modal verbs showing the writers’ willingness to accept the judgement expressed by them. Unlike the results obtained in Takahashi's (2009) study, objective orientations, particularly explicit objective orientations, orientations adopted in the construction of GMs, accounted for only 19.58% of all occurrences. Liardét (2016) carried out an in-depth analysis of ten texts from first year university students (split into groups according to whether they were high or low performing) at an

Australian university who were based within a unit designed to develop skills in academic and business discourse. The learner texts were part of the Macquarie Longitudinal Learner Corpus (MQLLC) and were a mix of English L1 and a variety of L2 backgrounds. The student texts were compared only for their use of GMs. However, in this case, the focus for Liardét was not only due to the fact that GMs are seen to be important features in academic registers and as contributors to academic success (p.110), she was interested in examining experientially the quality of the GMs and their impact on academic expression. The findings showed that there is very little difference in the frequency of use of GMs across the texts of the higher and lower performing students, suggesting that GMs are not the only factor involved in determining success in academic writing. Leading on from that study, Liardét (2018) developed a much larger quantitative study which continued to examine the quality of the GMs used without reference to academic attainment, focusing on data drawn from the Chinese Longitudinal Learner Corpus (CLLC), a specialised corpus containing 130 students’ argumentative essays collected over a two-year period and divided into four subcorpora according to each semester. Each student contributed 4 essays to the corpus thereby generating a total of 520 essays. The essays were written under timed exam conditions and the question types were similar in nature to those of the Chinese National Test for English Majors (TEM; Cheng, 2008). In this study, Liardét developed an elaborated framework which allowed her to map learner development of interpersonal metaphors and overlay the data with how the learners evaluate meanings metaphorically. The findings showed that the Chinese learners relied heavily on subjective (contracting) forms of interpersonal metaphor (e.g. as we all know; there is no doubt) and that across the semesters there was a marginal increase in the frequency of use of interpersonal metaphors, although only subtle increases in the use of objective expanding metaphors (e.g. it is evident; it is essential).