Epistemic Modality In Written English Of Chinese English Majors: An Interlanguage Pragmatic Study

Epistemic modality, as an indispensable aspect of modal system, has attractedenormous attention which ranges from philosophy of logic to linguistic literature. Epistemicdevices–the linguistic means of expressing the extent of the speaker s confidence about thevalidity of a proposition (i.e. to express epistemic modality) may also function affectively aspragmatic devices modifying the illocutionary force of utterances for interpersonal reasonsof protecting “face”, showing deference, modesty, solidarity, and facilitating open dialogueand further discussion. Such epistemic devices are crucial to academic writing where authorshave to distinguish opinions from facts and evaluate their statements in acceptable andpersuasive ways. Therefore, the appropriate use of epistemic devices has been proved to beof great importance to language learners, particularly to second/foreign language learners.Since there is almost no longitudinal research on epistemic modality in the area ofinterlanguage pragmatics (ILP), it is very necessary to conduct such a study in expression ofepistemic modality by Chinese students in order to improve English language teaching andEnglish learners pragmatic competence.The present study employs a corpus-based method to compile longitudinal learner datavia four argumentative writing tasks administered to the154Chinese English majors overthe four academic years. By way of comparing learner data with those of native speakerwriters and among learners, it aims at detecting the non-native features in the use ofepistemic devices by the Chinese English majors, tracing the general pragmatic developmentover the four years of undergraduate English studies, and identifying proficiency variationsin the use and development of these devices. Possible factors that influence the learners performances are also examined. Specifically, this study yields the following importantfindings:1. Although the non-native speaker (NNS) and native speaker (NS) writers showsimilarities in the total number of devices employed and a preference for some commonlyused items, substantial differences are identified between the two speaker groups. Overall,the Chinese students tend to employ a more restricted range of epistemic modifiers anddepend far more heavily on several predominantly speech forms to express epistemicmeanings. As regards the two epistemic categories, over half of the devices in the NNS datafunction as boosters, while most items in the NS sample are hedges, marking qualification toclaims. This result demonstrates that the academic writing of Chinese students is indeedcharacterized by firmer assertions and stronger commitments than NS discourse. Specifically,among the boosters, modal verbs and lexical verbs are significantly overused, while adjectives and nouns are underused. In contrast, hedging modal verbs, lexical verbs andadjectives are markedly under-represented, but multiword expressions are noticeably morecommon in the English majors essays. In addition, adverbs of both categories are detectedthe least differences in frequency but great disparity in variety from the NS usage.2. Some improvements in the use of epistemic devices are clearly observed in theEnglish majors data during the four years, while still distant from the NS norms. Generally,the findings seem to suggest a non-linear developmental path, with the fastest developmentobserved in the period from the second year to the third year, and more significantly, in thethird year the frequencies of both boosters and hedges approximating most closely towardsthe NS norms, but more lexical types are identified in the last year s essays. In addition,these devices also exhibit a varied speed of development. On the whole, boosters tend todevelop more closely towards the NS norms than do the hedging devices. Among theoverused, boosting modal verbs tend to move towards the NS norms faster, while someadverbs and multiword expressions remain invariant, changing slower or even away from theNS norm. On the other hand, most of the underused subcategories, such as hedging modals,hedging lexical verbs, adjectives and nouns tend to change in considerably slower pace andremain great disparity from the NS usage. It has also been found that the English majors spoken style tendency in their written English is somewhat weakened with the progress oftheir learning.3. The study reveals an uneven distribution of items between ability bands, with highproficiency students approximating more closely to the NS usage. The high level Englishmajors employ more devices overall with a wider variety and they can make a balanced useof boosters and hedges, while only one third of the total devices in the low proficiencystudents essays serve to hedge, making their writings more forceful and assertive. Withrespect to the developmental path, both proficiency groups show some improvement in theuse of both boosters and hedges towards the NS norms. However, it appears that the highlevel group makes more progress and move more regularly towards the NS norms than thelow level peers. It is also detected that the low level students are more easily influenced byessay topics and experience more difficulties along the way to development, and thesegreatly restrict them from moving more closely towards the NS norms.4. There are several possible intertwining factors that might explain the differencesbetween the English majors and the native speakers and between the learners themselves.Among these factors, language proficiency seems to have played a large part, as evidencedby high proficiency students better performances, and by the NNS students narrower rangeof devices and over-reliance on spoken style items for expressing epistemic meanings. Thelearners problems may also due to reasons such as a high degree of topic sensitivity in theuse of particular modals and adverbs, the influence of the pedagogical environment, transfer of patterns of use from spoken English into the written medium, overcompensation for whatthey see to be communicative conventions of explicitness and directness in English,grammatical constraints on L2pragmatic development, and even lack of cognitive abilitiesin “noticing” and “controlling” over language processing.This thesis is of theoretical significance. It has shed light on the lexical forms that canbe used for expressing epistemic modality and their distributional information in the NS andNNS discourse, as well as the longitudinal developmental path in using these devices by thelearners. This study has empirically confirmed previous conclusions and hypotheses withregard to the acquisition of pragmatic competence and extended the small but fast growingbody of developmental ILP research in particular and second language acquisition in general.Based on these findings, pedagogical suggestions are offered concerning the necessity ofexplicit intervention and the inclusion of a whole range of epistemic devices in the learners teaching materials. Finally, this study may provide some evidence for a more focusedexamination of the development of English majors pragmatic abilities based on large-scalelongitudinal learner corpora.