An Interlanguage Pragmatics Study Of Modality In Written Argumentation

The present study is motivated by the following major factors: although requests have received considerable attention in SLA research, most studies have focused on the spoken medium; and while politeness theory has literally been taken as sub-discipline of pragmatics, little empirical research is now available; such interlanguage pragmatics studies are, indeed, 'scarce' as employing written data of Chinese EFL learners (Hong, 1996; He et al., 2001).The stated objective of the paper is to examine politeness in written argumentation, realized by means of modality. Specifically, two questions are raised: a) What are the linguistic means employed to express modality? b) How and to what extent does pragmatic force of modality affect written argumentations?To answer the two questions, an investigation was conducted, and 68 samples of written argumentations collected as basic data. The participants were second-year non-English majors from a local university. A questionnaire survey was administered and a fair amount of native-written samples employed as support. Methodologically, a multi-dimensional approach is taken, adapting speech acts, face theory, and cultural understanding to complement rhetoric explanations.The basic conclusions are summarized as follows. First, grammatical correctness is achieved by the subjects at sacrifice of pragmatic appropriateness, as in consistence with the traditional over-focus on grammar, which, in turn, has much to do with the way English in general and English writing in particular are taught and tested; second, the subjects involved seemto lack the pragmatic as well as semantic competence to vary expressions of modal meanings in accordance with specific situations; third, from the theoretical perspective, modifications were made for the popular version of politeness theory (Leech, 1983 and Brown & Levinson, 1987). Precisely, politeness is, in the present context, chiefly characterized by a subjectivity/objectivity distinction; lastly, pedagogical implications were offered in testing as well as teaching both in terms of modality and in connection with writing; a shift from grammatical 'well-formedness' to pragmatic 'appropriateness ' was proposed.The investigation is tentative in nature, resulting partly from lack of LI data. More empirical studies are thus indispensable for testifying the conclusions drawn, with academic writing holding high in the agenda. Specifically, more factors need to be investigated for written argumentations. Taking methodology into consideration, longitudinal studies seem to be more illuminating. Finally, the study testifies to the fact that researches on politeness have to resort to more fine-grained analysis of what 'count as' polite in given contexts.