A Contrastive Study On Modal Adjuncts In Chinese And English Academic Discourses

Academic discourses(AD)aim to make a clear statement of the academic achievements and present the academic view of the author himself.With the use of language,authors manage to persuade readers and academic discourse communities to accept and identify the validity and effectiveness of their academic discourses.Thus abundant interpersonal meanings are reflected in both English and Chinese academic discourses.As “the ‘purest' expressions for epistemic modality”,modal adjuncts are one of the important lexical and grammatical resources to express the personal attitude and evaluation of the speakers.Guided by Systemic Functional Linguistics(SFL),this study contrasts and analyzes modal adjuncts in both Chinese and English academic discourses.The major features of modal adjuncts in both Chinese and English academic discourses are investigated;the similarities and differences in the uses and interpersonal meanings are presented;the possible reasons underlying are explored.Three research questions need to be answered in this study.They are(1)What are the general features in the use of modal adjuncts in both Chinese and English academic discourses?(2)What are the similarities and differences in the use of specific semantic types of modal adjuncts between Chinese and English academic discourses?(3)What do the different uses of modal adjuncts reflect from the perspective of interpersonal meanings?In this study,altogether 120 pieces of academic discourses are selected from authoritative academic journals to establish the corpus.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted to analyze modal adjuncts in the corpus.Quantitative method is used to calculate the amounts and frequencies of each type of modal adjuncts.Qualitative method is employed to show how to classify modal adjuncts and how do the specific uses of modal adjuncts reflect different interpersonal meanings according to the statistics.Through analyzing,the study finds that(1)Both Chinese and English academic discourses offer considerable amounts of modal adjuncts,among which mood adjuncts outnumber comment adjuncts.(2)As to mood adjuncts,adjuncts of intensity occupy the most in the English academic discourses while occupy the least in the Chinese academic discourses,which reveals English academic authors' willingness to express their own viewpoints and open attitude towards the readers.Adjuncts of temporality are the most frequently used mood adjuncts in the Chinese academic discourses,which shows their certainty of time issue and positive expectation.Adjuncts of modality are adopted by Chinese academic authors to strengthen high possibility while English academic authors use them to suggest low possibility.As to comment adjuncts,both Chinese and English academic authors are inclined to use adjuncts of asseverative and factual so that they can support themselves with obviousness and authenticity of the propositions.Adjuncts of qualificative and personal engagement are both employed least to keep the scientificity and objectivity.Chinese academic authors tend to use adjuncts of persuasive to strengthen the authority while English academic authors prefer adjuncts of validity to convey their confidence.(3)Such differences occur due to different reasons.Firstly,different academic communities may hold different values and ideologies,which may affect the specific uses of language resources including modal adjuncts.Secondly,different cultural backgrounds may influence their choices of language uses.Chinese culture puts more emphasis on harmony and authority,while English culture pays more attention to individualism and freedom.