An investigation into linguistic features of argumentative utterances in the american tv series

THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

HỒ HẢI XUÂN TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO LINGUISTIC
FEATURES OF ARGUMENTATIVE UTTERANCES
IN THE AMERICAN TV SERIES “THE LAST SHIP”

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 822.02.01

MASTER THESIS IN
LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES OF
FOREIGN COUNTRIES

Da Nang, 2020


THE UNIVERSITY OF DANANG
UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDIES

HỒ HẢI XUÂN TRANG

AN INVESTIGATION INTO LINGUISTIC
FEATURES OF ARGUMENTATIVE UTTERANCES
IN THE AMERICAN TV SERIES “THE LAST SHIP”

Major: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
Code: 822.02.01

MASTER THESIS IN
LINGUISTICS AND CULTURAL STUDIES OF
FOREIGN COUNTRIES

SUPERVISOR: HỒ THỊ KIỀU OANH, Assoc. Prof. Dr.

Da Nang, 2020



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ABSTRACT
This thesis titled “An Investigation into the Linguistic Features of
Argumentative Utterances in the American TV Series “The Last Ship”” studies
the linguistic features of argumentative utterances used by the characters in the
American TV series “The Last Ship”. The methods used are observational,
descriptive and analytic method accompanied by the qualitative and quantitative
approach. The analysis is based on 100 pilot samples and 200 final samples. The
findings of the study show that the strength of an argumentative utterance is the
combination of the choice of both argument types including valid argument and
invalid argument, and linguistic features in terms of syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic features. Depending on the situational context in the debate, the choice
whether to use which types of argument as well as the suitable sentence structures,
the modality or the types of illocutionary acts affect the force and the effect of the
argumentative utterances. The findings of the thesis could help learners of English
as a foreign language learn better and be able to identify speaker’s implicature and
realize arguments through illocutionary acts which are used frequently in real life
English debates.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Statement of authorship ............................................................................................ i
Abstract ........................................................................................................................ ii
Table of contents ......................................................................................................... iii
Abbreviations............................................................................................................... vii
List of tables ............................................................................................................ viii
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE ......................................................................................................... 1
1.2. SCOPE OF STUDY ............................................................................................... 2
1.3. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES.................................................................................... 3
1.3.1 Aims............................................................................................................... 3
1.3.2 Objectives ...................................................................................................... 3
1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................... 3
1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY ....................................................................... 3
1.6. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY .................................................................... 4
CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES .................................................................... 6
2.2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ....................................................................... 8
2.2.1. Critical Thinking .......................................................................................... 8
2.2.2. Arguments ................................................................................................... 9
2.2.2.1. Concept of Argument ..................................................................... 9
2.2.2.2. Entailment ....................................................................................... 10


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2.2.2.3. Types of Argument ......................................................................... 11

2.2.3. Modality........................................................................................................ 13
2.2.3.1. Epistemic Modality......................................................................... 14
2.2.3.2. Volitional Modality ........................................................................ 15
2.2.4. Pragmatic Markers ........................................................................................ 16
2.2.5. Speech Acts .................................................................................................. 17
2.2.6. Definition of Politeness ................................................................................ 19
2.2.7. Some Viewpoints on Linguistic Politeness .................................................. 20
2.2.7.1. Grice’s Conversational Principles .................................................. 20
2.2.7.2. Lakoff’s Rules of Pragmatic Competence ...................................... 21
2.2.7.3. Leech’s Maxims of Politeness ........................................................ 22
2.2.7.4. Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory ...................................... 23
2.2.8. Arguments as a Face Threatening Act.......................................................... 24
2.2.9. Implicature .................................................................................................... 25
2.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY ........................................................................................ 25
CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1. RESEARCH DESIGN ........................................................................................... 27
3.2. RESEARCH PROCEDURES ................................................................................ 27
3.3. RESEARCH METHODS....................................................................................... 27
3.4. SAMPLING ........................................................................................................... 28
3.5. DATA COLLECTION........................................................................................... 29
3.6. DATA ANALYSIS ................................................................................................ 30
3.7. RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY ......................................................................... 31


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CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. ARGUMENT TYPES USED IN THE ARGUMENTS IN TV SERIES
“THE LAST SHIP” ...................................................................................................... 32
4.1.1. Valid Arguments .......................................................................................... 32

4.1.2. Invalid Arguments ........................................................................................ 36
4.2. LINGUISTIC FEATURES EXPRESSED IN THE ARGUMENTS IN TV
SERIES “THE LAST SHIP” ....................................................................................... 38
4.2.1. Pilot Results .................................................................................................. 38
4.2.1.1. Syntactic Features Expressed in the Arguments in
TV Series “The Last Ship” .......................................................................... 38
4.2.1.2. Semantic Features Expressed in the Arguments in
TV Series “The Last Ship” .......................................................................... 41
4.2.1.3. Pragmatic Features Expressed in the Arguments in
TV Series “The Last Ship” .......................................................................... 45
a. Representative ............................................................................. 46
b. Directive ..................................................................................... 54
c. Commissive ................................................................................ 59
d. Expressive ................................................................................... 63
e. Declaration .................................................................................. 65
4.2.2. Final Results ................................................................................................. 66
4.3. CHAPTER SUMMARY ........................................................................................ 70
CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
5.1. SUMMARY OF MAJOR FINDINGS ................................................................... 71
5.2. IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY ...................................................................... 72


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5.2.1. Theoretical Contributions ............................................................................. 72
5.2.2. Practical Contributions ................................................................................. 73
5.2.2.1. For English Learners ...................................................................... 73
5.2.2.2. For English Teachers ...................................................................... 74
5.3. DELIMTATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES .............. 74
REFERENCES

QUYẾT ĐỊNH GIAO ĐỀ TÀI LUẬN VĂN (bản sao)


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ABBREVIATIONS
-

C(s)

: Conclusion(s)

-

CP

: Cooperative Principles

-

FTA(s)

: Face Threatening Act(s)

-

F

: Frequency

-

InA(s)

: Invalid Argument(s)

-

N

: Number

-

P(s)

: Premise(s)

-

PP

: Politeness Principles

-

VA(s)

: Valid Argument(s)

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LIST OF TABLES

Number

Name of Table

Page

Table 4.1 The Frequency of Argument Types in TV Series “The Last Ship”

32

Table 4.2 Syntactic Distribution of Argumentative Utterances

39

in TV Series “The Last Ship”
Table 4.3 The Frequency of Argument Types in TV Series “The Last Ship”

67

in 200 Later Samples
Table 4.4 Syntactic Distribution of Argumentative Utterances in
TV Series “The Last Ship” in 200 Later Samples

67

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LIST OF CHARTS

Number

Name of Chart

Chart 4.1 Semantic Distribution of Modality of Argumentative Utterances

Page
42

in TV Series "The Last Ship"
Chart 4.2

Pragmatic Distribution of Argumentative Utterances in TV Series

46

"The Last Ship"
Chart 4.3

Semantic Distribution of Modality of Argumentative Utterances

68

in TV Series "The Last Ship" in 200 Later Samples
Chart 4.4 Pragmatic Distribution of Argumentative Utterances in

TV Series "The Last Ship" in 200 Later Samples

69


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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1. RATIONALE
It is the fact that the increasing developments of the world today makes
human become busier and live a hurried life. Therefore, the need of entertainment is
increasing and the entertaining industry is also developing quickly. Many kinds of
entertainment appear accordingly. For instance; music, plays, games, movies,
films… have become an important part of daily life. Among all, movies and films
have long been a useful source for English language learners. Beside the
comprehensive listening skills, English learners also learn how to persuade the other
speakers through the arguments of the characters in those movies, especially the
linguistic realizations used in arguments. It is important for interlocutors to identify
the argument patterns so that they can interpret the implicatures of speakers and
have the right choice of premises to support their conclusion. Let us consider the
following argument in the case that a soldier is shot on the isolated island.
(1.1) Danny: He's gonna bleed out. Just wait! Somebody gets the doc.
Rachel: Not enough time to wait. There's nothing a medic can do for
this man that we cannot, so if you want to help your friend,
just hold him still and listen to every word that I say.
(Steinberg and Welsh, 2014, The Last Ship, season 1, episode 2)
(Forever Dreaming. Retrieved April 2nd, 2019 from
/>As we can see in the example, the premise of Rachel is based on the
urgency of the situation, their ability of medical treatment and the friendship

between the soldiers so that she can persuade him to let her help. Many studies on
language features used by participants in conversations have been conducted yet
still little has been written about arguments, particularly in the problem that English
language learners as TV viewers have to face in the comprehending and analysis of


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argument patterns in an argument when watching English/ American TV series.
“The Last Ship” is an American action-drama television series, loosely based on the
1988 novel of the same name by Brinkley. It is a very famous TV series in America
that has many arguments in both formal and informal conversations. All the
characters in this TV series are highly-educated (captains, scientists, doctors…) and
the premises used in their dialogues are diverse and accurate.
For these reasons, I decided to choose to carry out the research with the
title: An Investigation into the Linguistic Features of Argumentative Utterances in
the American TV Series “The Last Ship”.

1.2. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The identification of the argument types used in the arguments in the
American TV series “The Last Ship” pays special attention to discussing the
explicitness of the arguments in terms of the presence or absence of a premise or a
conclusion, an antecedence or a consequence; this part also deals with the
identification of the argument types in reference to an initial list of common patterns
and the exploration of some new types that come into being. The identification of
the syntactic features of argument types used in the arguments in the American TV
series “The Last Ship” concentrates on the discussion of a wide range of linguistic
units ranking from a single word, a phrase to a clause or sentence argument patterns
used in the arguments in the American TV series “The Last Ship”. The exploration
of the pragmatic features of argument types used in the arguments in the American

TV series “The Last Ship” is directed to the discussion of the pragmatic markers
used to signal the argument dimension. This part also deals with the use of indirect
or direct illocutionary acts and the speaker’s implicature in arguments.
Though the investigation is typically conducted by examining the speaker’s
language in movies in face-to-face communicative situations, this study does not
deal with the visual factors such as facial expressions and gestures and the tones or
the intonation of speakers that may shape the interpersonal meaning or add an
expressive shade to the speaker’s message. On the scale of this research, I mainly


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concentrate on the argument expressions by the light of the linguistic features
related to syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features.

1.3. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
1.3.1. Aims
This study is aimed to investigate the linguistic features of argumentative
utterances in the American TV series “The Last Ship” from season 1 to season 5, in
order to help the learners of English as TV viewers have better insight into how the
participants of argument perform their skills of critical thinking in problem solving
and the linguistic features of their argumentative utterances as well as how to argue
more effectively.

1.3.2. Objectives
The study attempts to attain the following objectives:
1) to analyze argument types used in the arguments in the American TV
series “The Last Ship”.
2) to identify the linguistic features of argument types used in the
arguments in the American TV series “The Last Ship”.

1.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
For the achieve the above objectives of the study, the research attempts to
answer the following questions:
1) What are the argument types used in the arguments in the American TV
series “The Last Ship”?
2) What are the linguistic features in terms of syntactic, semantic and
pragmatic features in the arguments in the American TV series “The Last Ship”?

1.5. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
In accordance with the objectives of the research, this research is expected
to make contributions both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, the research
findings are anticipated to provide additional reference for the researchers who want


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to conduct research into language of arguments and hopefully can help English
learners identify the relationship between the argument patterns in the arguments to
make decision on problem solving. In terms of practical use, the results of this study
are expected to be useful for both English language teachers and learners. For the
teachers of English, the research is supposed to give input to their lecture of
Pragmatics, or more specifically, linguistic features of argumentative utterances.
For English language learners, the study may help them identify speaker’s
implicature and realize arguments through illocutionary acts which are used
frequently in daily English arguments.

1.6. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY
The study is intended to be organized into the following five chapters:
Chapter 1 – Introduction

This chapter includes the statement of the problem, the aims and objectives,
the scope of the study, the research questions, the significance and organization of
the study.
Chapter 2 – Literature Review and Theoretical Background
This chapter consists of two parts. The first part is devoted to the review of
previous related studies. The second one is concerned with the theoretical
background related to the issues under study such as concepts of argument and
argument types, speech acts, modality and politeness theory.
Chapter 3 – Research Design and Methodology
This chapter presents the methods of the study and procedures that the
study follows. It also shows a description of the procedure in which the data are
collected, analyzed and discussed.


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Chapter 4 – Findings and Discussion
This chapter presents the results and discussed the findings of the study. It
covers the description of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features of the
argumentative utterances in the American TV series “The Last Ship”.
Chapter 5 – Conclusion and Implications
This chapter presents the summary of the major findings followed by the
implications offered for the teaching and learning of English as a foreign language.
Some suggestions for further research related to the study are also included.


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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW AND

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1. REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES
A theoretical account of the problem of analyzing and evaluating
argumentative discourse was described and analyzed by Van and Grootendorst in
the book Argumentation, Communication, and Fallacies, A Pragma-dialectical
perspective (1992). After placing argumentation in a communicative perspective,
and then discussing the fallacies that occur when certain rules of communication are
violated, the authors offer an alternative to both the linguistically-inspired
descriptive and logically-inspired normative approaches to argumentation. The
authors characterize argumentation as a complex speech act in a critical discussion
aimed at resolving a difference in opinion. They outlined the various stages of a
critical discussion and discussed the communicative and interactional aspects of the
speech acts performed in resolving a simple or complex dispute. After dealing with
crucial aspects of analysis and linking the evaluation of argumentative discourse to
the analysis, the authors identify the fallacies that can occur at various stages of
discussion. Their general aim is to elucidate their own pragma-dialectical
perspective on the analysis and evaluation of argumentative discourse, bringing
together pragmatic insight concerning speech acts and dialectical insight concerning
critical discussion.
In the same area, Tsui (1999) had an investigation into how different types
of courses and instructional techniques affect students’ self-reported growth in
critical thinking in Courses and Instruction Affecting Critical Thinking. The author
used data from a survey of freshmen student in 1985 drawn from the Cooperative
Institutional Research Program's 1989. She found out that taking some certain
courses and enrolling in an honored program are each positively associated with
self-reported growth in critical thinking. Moreover, self-reported growth in critical


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thinking is positively related to having a paper criticized by an instructor,
conducting an independent research project, working on a group project, giving a
class presentation, and taking essay exams, but taking multiple-choice exams gives
negative effects on the growth of students. However, the overall findings in this
study suggest that the impact of classroom experiences on students' abilities to think
critically is far weaker than one might expect or hope.
In the book An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity: Think
More, Think Better (2011), Lau has made some great steps in classifying and sorting
arguments into two types which could be used as the framework in this thesis. His
classification is clear enough with examples for each type of argument. Also, he
provides the module of the two main types of arguments which are valid argument
and invalid argument. However, in this book, he has not given the illustration for a
certain circumstance of valid argument: valid argument with false premises and
false conclusions.
In recent years, many researches have been done on critical thinking and
language of argument as well. Cottrell (2017) stated that critical thinking is an
activity in his book Critical Thinking Skills: Effective Analysis, Argument and
Reflection. It is not sufficient to read about it, but it has to be practiced. Her book
focuses mainly on aspects of critical thinking that can be applied to work and study,
and which help individuals to think about how they think. Therefore, many
activities to apply the skill are introduced. She explains the concept of critical
thinking and introduces the range of underlying skills and steps to acquire those
skills. The author uses the learning-by-doing methodology, distinguishing it from
other introductory books on the subject.
Furthermore, there are many practical studies related to language features
used in movies and films. Syafitri (2014) has a research into language functions
used by the main characters in the movie Twilight. Like the same topic, Arista and
Murni (2014) are interested in the language functions in the movie “Sherlock

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Holmes II: A Game of Shadows”. Due to the differences in the genre of the two
movies, there are also differences in the dominant type of language function used in
each one. While Sigalingging (2014) investigated conversational implicature in
“Inception” movie dialogue, the newest study of Tarigan (2015) refers to ellipsis in
“Ocean’s Eleven” movie. All of these studies have revealed some aspects of
language used in movies.
However, there has been no research into linguistic features of
argumentative utterance aspect. Some issues like the linguistic features of argument
types, pragmatic features are still unclear and they need to be clarified so that
language learners as TV viewer can understand more about the way that the
characters in movie use premises to persuade in an argument. Thus, an investigation
into linguistic features of argumentative utterances in TV series “The Last Ship”
will be conducted with the hope to contribute a minor part to this field.

2.2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This study focuses on analyzing the linguistic features of argumentative
utterances in arguments, so the background of some concepts such as critical
thinking, argument types, and pragmatic features… are discussed as follow.

2.2.1. Critical Thinking
According to Cambridge Dictionary, critical thinking is the process of
thinking carefully about a subject or idea, without allowing feelings or opinions to
affect you. It was first mentioned by Socrates. Socrates set the agenda for the
tradition of critical thinking, namely, to reflectively question common beliefs and
explanations, carefully distinguishing beliefs that are reasonable and logical from
those that - however appealing to our native egocentrism, however much they serve
our vested interests, however comfortable or comforting they may be - lack
adequate evidence or rational foundation to warrant belief.

Stated by Lau (2011) in the book An Introduction to Critical thinking:
Think More, Think Better, critical thinking is thinking clearly and rationally. It


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involves thinking precisely and systematically, and following the rules of logic and
scientific reasoning, among other things.

2.2.2. Arguments
2.2.2.1. Concept of Argument
According to Armstrong and Fogelin (2009), in ordinary usage, an
argument is often taken to be a somewhat heated dispute between people. But in
logic and critical thinking, an argument is a list of statements, one of which is the
conclusion and the others are the premise or assumption of the argument.
(2.1) It is raining.
So you should bring an umbrella.
(Armstrong and Fogelin, 2009)
In this argument, the first statement is the premise and the second one the
conclusion. The premises of an argument are offered as reasons for accepting the
conclusion. It is therefore irrational to accept an argument as a good one and yet
refuse to accept the conclusion. Giving reasons is a central part of critical thinking.
It is not the same as simply expressing an opinion. But if you say “that dress looks
nice because the design is very elegant,” then it would be an argument indeed.
Dogmatic people tend to make assertions without giving arguments. When they
cannot defend themselves, they often resort to responses such as “this is a matter of
opinion,” “this is just what you think,” or “I have the right to believe whatever I
want.”
The ability to construct, identify, and evaluate arguments is a crucial part of
critical thinking. Giving good arguments helps us convince other people and

improve our presentation and debating skills. More importantly, using arguments to
support our beliefs with reasons is likely to help us discover the truth and eliminate
errors and biases.


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2.2.2.2. Entailment
Linguistic entailments occur when one may draw necessary conclusions
from a particular use of a word, phrase or sentence. According to Beth (1955),
entailment phrases are relations between propositions, and are always worded as, "if
A then B," meaning that if A is true, then B must also be true. Another way of
phrasing this is, "if A is true, then B must necessarily be true."
In pragmatics, entailment falls into a category with implicature and
presupposition. Sauerland (2007) claims that implicature, presupposition and
entailment deal with assumptions made by the listener or reader about a situation.
Entailment differs from implicature in that for the latter the truth of A suggests the
truth of B, but does not require it. For example taken from his book Presupposition
and Implicature in Compositional Semantics (2007), the sentence (2.2)"Jack missed
the meeting after his car broke down" implies that Jack missed the meeting because
his car broke down; but in reality Jack could have missed the meeting four days
after his car broke down because he slept in too late. Entailments do not allow these
reinterpretations. Entailment also differs from presupposition in that in
presupposition, the truth of what one is presupposing is taken for granted. The
classic and often mentioned example of this is, (2.3)"the king of France is not ill".
This sentence presupposes that there is a certain king of France, but not any kings in
France. This means that though the sentence can be seen as logically true, it is
normally interpreted as incorrect because there is no referent for "the king of
France". Entailment does not allow for a lack of referent, either.
In semantics, entailments depend entirely on the denotation (also called the

"dictionary definition" of the words in question). An example of this, as shown in
Murphy's Lexical Meaning (2010) would be, (2.4) "If it is a shoe, then it is made to
be worn on a foot." This example refers to the 'footwear' meaning of the word shoe,
and not the adjective, which is considered a different use of the word and thus a
different meaning. For an entailment to be true, the then statement (denoted as B)


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must always be true when the if statement (denoted as A) is true. To judge whether
an entailment is true, one can ask, "Could it ever be the case that B is not true while
A is true?" In order to accurately recognize entailments, a strong knowledge of the
denotation of the word is required.

2.2.2.3. Types of Argument
- Valid and sound arguments:
According to Lau (2011), validity is the most important concept in critical
thinking. A valid argument is the one where the conclusion follows logically from
the premises. An argument is valid if and only if there is no logically possible
situation in which the premises are true and the conclusion is false. In other words,
whenever we have a valid argument, if the premises are all true, then the conclusion
must also be true. What this implies is that if you use only valid arguments in your
reasoning, as long as you start with true premises (P), you will never end up with a
false conclusion (C).
(2.5) P: Marilyn is 20 years old (True)
C: Marilyn is more than 10 years old. (True)
(Lau, 2011)
This simple argument is obviously valid since it is impossible for the
conclusion to be false when the premise is true. However, it is possible that the
validity of the argument can be determined without knowing whether the premise

and the conclusion are actually true or not. Validity is about the logical connection
between the premises and the conclusion. We might not know how old Marilyn
actually is, but it is clear the conclusion follows logically from the premise. The
simple argument above will remain valid even if Marilyn is just a baby, in which
case the premise and the conclusion are both false. Now we have another argument
to demonstrate:
(2.6) P: Every bird can fly. Every bat is a bird.
C: Every bat can fly.


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P: false, C: true
(Lau, 2011)
Again the argument is valid—if the premises are true, the conclusion must
be true. But in fact both premises are false. Some birds cannot fly (the ostrich for
instance), and bats are not birds (they are mammals). However in this argument, the
conclusion is true (all bats can fly). So a valid argument can have false premises but
a true conclusion.
There are of course also valid arguments with false premises and false
conclusions. What is not possible is to have a valid argument with true premises and
a false conclusion. As I have mentioned in the literature review, the illustration
example of false premises and false conclusions have not been provided in this book
by Lau.
Given a valid argument, all we know is that if the premises are true, so is
the conclusion. However, validity does not tell us whether the premises or the
conclusion are actually true. If an argument is valid, and all the premises are true,
then it is called a sound argument. Of course, it follows from such a definition that
the conclusion of a sound argument must be true.
- Invalid and unsound arguments:

In An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity: Think More, Think
Better by Lau (2011), he also states that an argument that is not valid is invalid and
an argument that is not sound is unsound. This happens as long as there is at least
one logically possible situation where its premises are true and the conclusion is
false. Any such situation is known as an invalidating counterexample. It does not
really matter whether the situation is realistic or whether it actually happens. What
is important is that it is coherent and does not entail any contradiction. A single
invalidating counterexample is sufficient to prove that an argument is invalid.
In a discussion, we should try out best to provide sound arguments to
support an opinion. The conclusion of the argument will be true, and anyone who


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disagrees would have to show that at least one premise is false, or the argument is
invalid, or both. This is not to say that we can define a good argument as a sound
argument.

2.2.3. Modality
A number of semantic criteria have been proposed for the definition of
modality. The criteria now widely accepted is given by Lyons (1977), who refers to
modality as the Speaker’s “opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the
sentence expresses or the situation that the proposition describes”. On the other
hand, Palmer (1986) explains the “modality in language is concerned with the
subjective characteristics of utterance and subjectivity is an essential criterion for
modality”. He then defines modality “as the grammaticalization of Speakers’
(subjective) attitudes and opinions”. Bybee and Fleischman (1995) also attempt to
characterize modal systems across languages. Their explication sets the notion of
‘modality’ and ‘proposition’ apart: When the proposition of an utterance in the most
neural semantic status, i.e. factual or declarative, is subject to further addition or

overlay of meaning, this extension represent modality. The example they give
include jussive, desiderative, intentive, hypothetical, potential, obligative,
dubitative, hortatory, and exclamative. In a similar manner, it is suggested that
modality is a semantic category whose essential characteristic is the expression of
the Speaker’s involvement or subjective view of events or situations that are
potential or non-actual.
Modals affect the meaning of the complete proposition where they appear.
They express two types of meaning: epistemic and deontic. Epistemic modals are
“concerned with matters of knowledge or belief on which basis Speakers express
their judgments about state of affairs, events or actions” according to Hoye in
Adverbs and Modality in English (1997). Meanwhile, Deontic modals are related to
the “necessity of acts in terms of which the Speaker gives permission or lays an
obligation for the performance of actions at some time in the future. Modals could


14

be categorized as one type or as both. Traugott and Dasher (2001) offer another
approach for the term. He suggests that it is possible to define modality both
broadly and narrowly. A broad definition could involve all expressions of
interpersonal meanings that lie between it is so and it is not so or between do it and
don’t do it. A narrow definition of modality encompasses only the modal auxiliary
verbs and their uses, and sometimes also adverbs functioning as such modal
disjuncts as possibly, probably, certainly.

2.2.3.1. Epistemic Modality
Epistemic modality which is concerned with certainty or doubt, possibility
or impossibility, in other words the speaker’s attitude to the truth of the proposition.
Consider the degrees of certainty expressed in the following example in The
Expression of Modality by Frawley et al. (2006):

(2.7) The book might be in the top draw. It could be in the top draw.
The book should be in the top draw – that’s where I usually keep it.
The book must be in the top draw, because I put it there myself.
(Frawley et al., 2006)
The certainty of the position of the book is increasing from uncertain modal
verb might and the modal verb must express the surely kept position of it.
Depending on the choices of epistemic, speakers could express their level of
certainty. Considering the following example by Frawley et al. (2006), the speaker
employs a series of epistemic modality to underline his conviction:
(2.8) This brings us into conflict with Currie's account, for static images
surely cannot trigger our capacity to recognize movement. If that were
so, we would see the image as itself moving. With a few interesting
exceptions we obviously do not see a static image as moving.
Suppose, then, that we say that static images only depict instants. This