A Comparative Study Of Modality In English Academic Discourse From The Lens Of Systemic Functional Grammar

Since the 1970s,more and more attention has been paid to academic discourse analysis.As an important linguistic feature,modality is also given extensive attention in academic discourse.However,most previous studies focused on the interpersonal meaning that modality expresses in academic discourse,few comparative studies were conducted to compare the usage of modality among different disciplines.Therefore,this study attempts to compare the usage of modality in different types of English academic discourse from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar.In this study,90 research articles of humanities,social sciences,and natural sciences published from 2013 to 2017 are collected from 9 leading journals with high impact factors.Linguistics,politics,and physics are chosen as the representative disciplines of humanities,social sciences,and natural sciences respectively.Three corpora are built with each discipline having 30 research articles.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in this study.The quantitative method is employed to present and analyze the frequency and distribution of modality resources in three corpora and to explore whether the differences among them are significant.Based on the similarities and differences in modality usage among the three disciplines,the author uses qualitative analysis to propose two main reasons for these similarities and differences and explains these reasons in detail.Results of the study show that modality is most frequently used in academic discourse of social sciences and least frequently used in that of natural sciences.It also demonstrates that there are similarities and differences concerning the distribution of different types,orientations,and values of modality in English academic discourse of the three disciplines.The similarities are as follows:(1)For the general distribution,no significant difference of modality usage is found between English academic discourse of humanities and social sciences.(2)For types of modality,no significant difference is found concerning the usage of modulation among the three corpora.As for the four types of modality,there is no significant difference in the usage of usuality,obligation,and inclination among the three corpora.Besides,the frequency of the usage of modalization and modulation is very close.Possibility and obligation are frequently used in all three disciplines.(3)For orientations of modality,no significant difference is found regarding the usage of subjective explicit modality among the three disciplines.Besides,subjective modality is more frequently used and subjective implicit modality is the most prominent type.(4)For values of’modality,there is no significant difference with regard to the usage of low value modality among the three disciplines.In the academic discourse of all three disciplines,low value modality is the most frequently used type and high value modality is the least frequently used type.Differences in the modality usage among the three disciplines are as follows:(1)In general,statistical results show that there exist significant differences in the usage of modality between English academic discourse of humanities and natural sciences as well as social sciences and natural sciences.(2)For different types of modality,significant differences in the usage of modalization among the three corpora are found.It is found that there exists significant difference with respect to the usage of modalization between English academic discourse of humanities and natural sciences as well as social sciences and natural sciences.In addition,modalization is less used in academic discourse of natural sciences compared with the other two disciplines.As for modulation,it is more frequently used than modalization in academic discourse of natural sciences,which is different from the other two disciplines.As for the four types of modality,possibility is less frequently used and obligation is more frequently used in the academic discourse of natural sciences,which is different from the other two disciplines.(3)For orientations of modality,it is found that there exist significant differences concerning the usage of subjective and objective modalities among the academic discourse of all three disciplines.To be specific,a significant difference is found with respect to the usage of subjective implicit modality,objective explicit modality and objective implicit modality among the three disciplines.One notable difference is that with regard to the normalized frequency,subjective implicit modality and all objective modalities are less frequently used in natural sciences.(4)For values of modality,a significant difference is found regarding the usage of median and low value modalities among the three disciplines.It’s obvious that more median value modalities are used in academic discourses of social sciences than the other two disciplines,especially the natural sciences.The similarities and differences in modality usage among different disciplines are due to the multiple interpersonal meanings of modality.The interpersonal meanings realized through modality in this study are manifested by:first,modality has evaluative functions;second,modality can construct dialogic space and realize dialogism in academic discourse.On one hand,possibility and obligation are frequently used by authors of all the three disciplines to express evaluative meaning.Besides,different orientations of modality can be used to adjust the stance of the appraisal subject and adjust the responsibilities the speakers undertake when negotiating with other voices.Subjective modality can help authors avoid taking too many responsibilities,while objective modality can help authors gain more responsibilities f’or the truthfulness or certainty of a proposition.On the other hand,modality is as an important engagement resource and it can construct and adjust dialogic space.High value modality can condense dialogic space and low value of-modality can expand dialogic space.Lastly,it is found that in spite of the differences in the usage of some modality resources,authors of all three disciplines often use possibility to express certainty,use obligation to impose obligation on other voices,use subjective implicit modality to avoid excessive responsibility,and use low value modality to expand dialogic space.In spite of some limitations,this study provides theoretical and practical implications.Theoretically,this comparative study applies both quantitative and qualitative analysis and enriches the current study of modality usage from the perspective of Systemic Functional Grammar.From a practical perspective,it offers guidance for academic writing of humanities,social sciences,and natural sciences.