A Corpus-Based Study Of The Use Of The Modal Verbs In Maritime Law English

Based on comparison of corpus of the modal theory of Functional Grammar by Halliday and the five classifications by Fowler, this thesis aims to analyze the modality type and modality value of the modality verbs in Maritime law and Corpus (BROWN corpus) of the native English speakers with the aid of Antconc,Visual FoxPro and SPSS software to explore the differences between the modal verbs and the reasons of the differences.The research results show that:The Maritime Law English uses the modal verbs with high modality value to express responsibility, obligation and request; While, the general English (BROWN Corpus) uses the modal verbs with median modality value.The analysis of this paper proves to be useful and feasible to carry out the research on modality of the modal verbs in maritime law and to reduce the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of interpreters and the maritime law learners effectively.