Epistemic modality as a hedging device in biochemistry RAs in two languages: Spanish and English?

Mar del Plata

Congreso; 5to Congreso Internacional de la Asociación Latinoamericana de Lingüística Sistémico-funcional: LAS RELACIONES ENTRE GRAMÁTICA, REGISTRO Y GÉNERO EN LOS DISCURSOS SOCIALES; 2009

Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, ALSFAL y GIAD

(Este trabajo es en co-autoría con la Prof. Angélica Gaido)Epistemic modality as a hedging device in biochemistry RAs in two languages: Spanish and EnglishIn this presentation, we will report on the preliminary findings of a larger research project which was meant to provide some insights into writer stance in the Introduction and Discussion sections of research articles (RAs) written in Spanish and in English in the fields of psychology and biochemistry. The general objective of the initial project was to describe and interpret the use of four main markers of stance, namely, personal pronouns, hedges, attitudinal lexis and boosters. In this presentation, however, we will focus our attention on only one of these linguistic devices. Although the theoretical framework underpinning our study is Appraisal Theory (Marin & Rose, 2003; Martin & White, 2005), for the analysis of hedges as markers of stance we have incorporated categories and concepts advanced by scholars not necessarily associated with that theory (Hyland, 1998). The preliminary analysis of the data indicates that the most revealing differences appear to be associated with the language in which the articles are written, rather than with the epistemological nature of each area of knowledge. Therefore, in our talk we will limit our analysis to the comparison of tendencies in the two languages rather than focusing on the comparison of tendencies in both disciplines and languages. Out of the four markers of stance, our focal point has been hedging devices. In particular, we have examined lexico-grammatically based hedges that convey epistemic modality, mainly because the initial findings revealed that this type of hedging was one of the resources more widely used in the RAs examined. Our first approach to the selected RAs reveals a difference in the realization of epistemic modality between the two languages: the proportion of modal verbs, epistemic lexical verbs, and epistemic nouns is higher in the English corpus than in the Spanish one. The reverse is true about epistemic adverbials. As far as epistemic adjectives are concerned, the difference in their frequency of occurrence in the two languages is negligible. These tendencies, which need to be confirmed with the analysis of more data, indicate that there are some preferences that seem to be language related. In our presentation, besides discussing the preliminary results, we will describe the realization patterns of epistemic meanings as far as hedging is concerned and the factors that might be responsible for their occurrence in the corpus of biochemistry articles written in both languages.