Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko DOCTORAL DISSERTATION MODAL MEANINGS IN DIFFERENT TEXT TYPES IN THE FIELD OF LOGISTICS APRIL, 2016 Polona VIČIČ Oddelek za anglistiko in amerikanistiko DOCTORAL DISSERTATION MODAL MEANINGS IN DIFFERENT TEXT TYPES IN THE FIELD OF LOGISTICS DOKTORSKA DISERTACIJA MODALNI ODNOSI V BESEDILNIH VRSTAH NA PODROČJU LOGISTIKE APRIL, 2016 mag. Polona VIČIČ Mentorica: doc. dr. Klementina JURANČIČ PETEK Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere thanks to doc. dr. Klementina Jurančič Petek for supervising the present thesis and continuously supporting me in the process of writing. Special thanks goes to prof. dr. Branka Čagran and dr. Jožica Zajc for their help with matters of statistics and to Dragica Brinovec for proofreading the Slovene text. I would also like to thank my family for their support and encouragement throughout the research process. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgments 1 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND OF MODALITY .................................... 5 2.1 INTRODUCTION TO MODALITY AND MODAL VERBS ................................. 5 2.2 MODALITY ............................................................................................................. 8 2.3 STUDIES OF MODALITY: PAST TO PRESENT ............................................... 11 2.3.1 Jespersen (1924) .............................................................................................. 13 2.3.2 Von Wright (1951) ........................................................................................... 15 2.3.3 Coates (1983) ................................................................................................... 17 2.3.4 Palmer ([1979], 1990 and [1986], 2001) ........................................................ 19 2.3.5 Leech ([1971], 1987) ....................................................................................... 21 2.4 CHARACTERISATION OF MODALITY ............................................................ 22 2.4.1 Characterisation by modal verbs ..................................................................... 23 2.4.1.1 CAN .......................................................................................................... 25 2.4.1.2 COULD ..................................................................................................... 27 2.4.1.3 MAY ......................................................................................................... 28 2.4.1.4 MIGHT...................................................................................................... 30 2.4.1.5 MUST ....................................................................................................... 32 2.4.1.6 OUGHT TO .............................................................................................. 34 2.4.1.7 SHOULD .................................................................................................. 36 2.4.1.8 BE ABLE TO ............................................................................................ 38 2.4.1.9 BE BOUND TO ........................................................................................ 39 2.4.1.10 BE GOING TO ....................................................................................... 40 2.4.1.11 HAVE (GOT) TO ................................................................................... 40 2.4.2 Basic semantic categories of modality ............................................................. 42 2.4.2.1 Epistemic modality ................................................................................... 43 2.4.2.2 Deontic modality ....................................................................................... 45 2.4.2.3 Dynamic modality ..................................................................................... 47 2.4.2.4 Modal mergers .......................................................................................... 49 2.4.3 Genre variation ................................................................................................ 51 2.4.4 Discipline variation ......................................................................................... 57 2.4.5 The discipline of logistics ................................................................................. 60 i 2.4.6 Language variation .......................................................................................... 62 3 CORPUS AND METHODOLOGY ................................................................ 63 3.1 MOTIVATION ....................................................................................................... 63 3.2 RESEARCH PROBLEM ........................................................................................ 64 3.2.1 Research questions ........................................................................................... 65 3.2.2 Research hypotheses ........................................................................................ 66 3.3 CORPUS LINGUISTIC SETTING ........................................................................ 68 3.4 CORPUS OF LOGISTICS TEXTS ........................................................................ 71 3.5 RESEARCH METHODS OF ANALYSIS ............................................................. 76 4 EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ................................................................................ 78 4.1 MODAL VERBS IN ENGLISH SCIENTIFIC AND PROFESSIONAL LOGISTICS DISCOURSE ........................................................................................... 78 4.1.1 Research papers ............................................................................................... 79 4.1.2 Scientific textbook ............................................................................................ 99 4.1.3 Application handbook .................................................................................... 115 4.1.4 Spoken discourse ............................................................................................ 125 4.1.5 Statistical analysis of modal verb use in logistics written discourse ............. 131 4.2 MODAL VERBS IN SLOVENE SCIENTIFIC LOGISTICS DISCOURSE ....... 139 5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION ............................................................... 145 6 POVZETEK V SLOVENŠČINI ................................................................... 151 References ........................................................................................................... 159 Appendices .............................................................................................................. 1 Appendix 1: Corpus of logistics texts ............................................................................. 1 Appendix 2: Statistical comparisons of differences between subcorpora Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 4 ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Corpus of logistics texts .......................................................................... 73 Table 2. Modal verbs and their modal meanings in the logistics research papers 81 Table 3. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in the logistics research papers ...................................................................................................... 98 Table 4. Modal verbs and their modal meanings in the logistics scientific textbook ............................................................................................................................. 100 Table 5. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in the logistics scientific textbook ............................................................................................... 114 Table 6. Modal verbs and their modal meanings in the application handbook... 116 Table 7. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in the application handbook ............................................................................................................. 124 Table 8. Modal verbs and their modal meanings in logistics spoken discourse . 126 Table 9. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in logistics spoken discourse ................................................................................................. 130 Table 10. Comparison of the use of CAN in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 .......................... 133 Table 11. Comparison of the use of MAY in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 ......................... 134 Table 12. Comparison of the use of SHOULD in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 .................. 135 Table 13. Comparison of the use of COULD in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3..................... 136 Table 14. Comparison of the use of MIGHT in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 ..................... 137 Table 15. Comparison of the use of MUST in Sc1, Sc2 and Sc3 ....................... 138 Table 16. Modal verbs and their modal meanings in the scientific textbook in Slovene ................................................................................................................ 141 Table 17. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in the scientific textbook in Slovene ............................................................................................. 144 Table 18. Proportion of epistemic, deontic and dynamic modality in the corpus of logistics text ........................................................................................................ 146 iii ABSTRACT The thesis sets out to investigate modality, which has been recognised