A Study On The Use Of High Frequency Modal Verbs In English Academic Discourse From The Perspective Of Metapragmatic Awareness

Modality is not only a category of syntactic and semantics,but also a way to express cognitive status,such as intentions,attitude,beliefs and desiresof communicators.Thus,proper use of modal verbs is a way to reveal the language competence of communicators.From the perspective of metapragmatics,the use of different modal verbs is determined by different levels of metapragmatic awareness of communicators,and this consciousness reflects the intentions that language communicators intend to express.Therefore,this study takes Halliday's(2004)classificationon modal verbs as the standard,and employ Micheal Haugh's(2014)classification of metapragmatic awareness as the theoretical foundation,aiming to explore features and functions of modal verbs in academic discourse by the use of quantitative and case analysis methods for English International Journal Corpus(EIJA Corpus).The following three questions are going to be addressed:(1)What are the frequencies of modal verbs with different modal value?(2)What are the collocation features of high-frequency modal verbs?(3)What is the pragmatic function of high-frequency modal verbs from the perspective of metapragamtic awareness?The results show that:(1)There are significant differences in the frequency of use of modal verbs with different modal values.The use of low-value modal verbs is the highest,up to 52.44%,and the median modal verbs are used at a medium frequency,accounting for 35.91%.High-value modal verbs have the lowest frequency in use,only 11.65%.There are also differences in the use of different modal verbs under the same modal value.The highest frequency used in low-value modal verbs is can,the highest frequency used in median modal verbs is will,and the most frequently used high-value modal verbs are need.(2)By use of AntConc analysis software,the collocation of the three high-frequency modal verbs above are to be explored.The findings show that the subject of the modal verb need is more inclined to animate than to objects or pronouns.The same is true of will,and the subsequent verbs followed will are usually verbs such as show,illustrate and so on.Clusters of the modal verb can tend to be a passive voice,and the subsequent verb is usually used to express cognition or epistemic.(3)Based on the above two research results,from the perspective of metapragmatic awareness,the research results show that modal verbs have rich metapragmatic functions,such as presenting cognitive status,representing pragmatic meaning,establishing interpersonal interaction,such as politeness,face saving,and mental consensuses.Based on the finding of this study,some implications shall be proposed.In theory,this study can enrich the metapragmatic study of modal verbs and promote the use of modal verbs by second language learners from the perspective of metapragmatic awareness.In practice,the results of this study encourage scholars and second language learners to strengthen the metapragmatic awareness and establish the metapragmatic competence in academic writing.