| This study examines word-order shifting phenomena, where positional variants of modal lexical verbs and adjectives with the first person subject, I think/guess/believe, and I'm sure, exhibit a variety of position-sensitive meanings and sequential functions within turn-constructional units (TCU—minimal units out of which a turn can be formed). The position-driven behaviors of I think /guess/believe, and I'm sure in TCU-initial/-medial/-final positions are analyzed in order to establish some systematicity in their meanings manifested at each position, thereby determining a flow of modal qualities from beginning to ending in TCUs. This study suggests that such a word-order management strategy is indispensable in marking the speaker's attitude in English.; An analysis of TCU-initial tokens of I think/ guess/believe, and I'm sure shows that in TCU-initial position, the speaker explicates various attitudinal stances by claiming his/her renewed ‘footing’. The disjunctive move in ‘footing’ is complemented by the sequential achievement of interlocking interactional activities, the combined effect of which often renders the utterance unique-to-the-speaker, and thus worthy of discrete attention. TCU-medial position is found to be a critical locus at which the speaker manages a moment-specific flow of talk in order to package the information in the most communicatively/cognitively efficient manner. The TCU-medial tokens are enlisted predominantly as an informational lubricant device, by which the informational prominence/break is identified. TCU-final position is reserved for displaying the speaker's orientation to and concern for the interlocutor, and socially-prescribed rules of language use. An analysis of modality flow indicates that as the utterance proceeds toward the TCU-ending, the speaker's major concern changes from stance-marking toward the informational content to information ordering, and ultimately to manners of presentation ensuring the interactional appropriateness of the talk.; The results of this study are further applied to second language learning, suggesting functional similarities between modal inflectional endings in Japanese and the ‘positioning’ strategy in English. The linkage between the word-order strategy in English and grammatical/morphological approach in Japanese uncovers the fact that speakers of English and Japanese employ different linguistic resources to express the same interactional need to express modality, which disentangles various misconceived language ideologies widely held for both languages. |
