A Study On Interpersonal Function Of Epistemic Modal Words In English Academic Lectures

Academic lectures are mainly academic activities carried out by teachers or experts in a certain field,which can effectively impart teaching knowledge and improve the level of scientific research.As academic discourse,people tend to pay attention to its scientific nature,but ignore its negotiability.As oral discourse,the communicative effect between speaker and listener is particularly important in English academic lectures.In order to ensure the smooth progress of lectures,the speaker often negotiates between different positions through some ways of discourse.Modality is an important way to realize interpersonal function.As an important part of modality research,epistemic modality has multiple interpersonal meanings in English academic lectures,it can not only realize evaluation and speculation,but also have negotiation function in real communication.The negotiability of academic discourse can be examined through the use of modal words.Epistemic modal words with different modal values have different negotiation effects.Using high value epistemic modal words indicates that the statement tends to be more scientific and the possibility of negotiation is very low.The use of low value epistemic modal words tends to negotiability.Based on the Interpersonal Function Theory,this thesis selects six English academic lectures given by world-renowned linguists as research objects,and uses Ant Conc software to collect data,to discuss the interpersonal meaning of English academic lectures from the perspective of modal value of epistemic modal words.In the six English academic lectures,epistemic modal words were widely used,appearing 803 times in total,indicating that the speaker negotiated with the listener many times during the academic lectures.The result shows that the frequency of low value epistemic modal words is the highest,accounting for50.93%,followed by the frequency of median value epistemic modal words,accounting for38.36%,and the frequency of high value epistemic modal words is the lowest,accounting for10.71%.Therefore,the negotiability of English academic lectures is obvious.The research result of this thesis can help us to deepen our understanding of the characteristics of academic discourse.Through the use of epistemic modal words,this thesis analyzes the negotiability of academic discourse,reveals the speaker’s intention and discourse skills,and provides some reference value for teachers and scholars to make academic speeches.