Epistemic Modality in Vietnamese EFL Students’ Argumentative Writing

Trang Thu Nguyen

Abstract


Epistemic modality plays a crucial role in expressing a writer’s opinion, degree of certainty, and engagement with the reader, particularly in argumentative writing. Inspired by prior research, this paper aims to explore the epistemic modality markers used in 50 essays written by English-majored students. A combination of quantitative and qualitative data was employed to discover how the participants have used linguistic devices to express different degrees of commitment and categories of epistemic devices. The results suggest that epistemic modality is a common feature in this genre, with roughly one-third of the sentences in the data containing epistemic elements. The findings also show a clear preference for expressing probability through modal verbs. Additionally, the data reveal frequent use of epistemic lexical verbs and adjectives to convey certainty and modal verbs to denote probability. The study concludes with pedagogical recommendations for enhancing students’ use of epistemic modality in argumentative essays.

Keywords


academic writing, argumentative writing, epistemic modality, ESL, essays

Full Text:

PDF

References


Allison, D. (1995). Assertions and alternatives: Helping ESL undergraduates extend their choices in academic writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 4, 1-15.

Btoosh, M. A. (2019). Modals in Arab EFL learners’ composition: A corpus-based approach. Linguistics and Literature Studies, 7(3), 100-109. DOI: 10.13189/lls.2019.070302

Bybee, J., Perkins, R., & Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. University of Chicago Press.

Chunyu, H. & Xuyan L. (2015). Epistemic Modality in the Argumentative Essays of Chinese EFL Learners. English Language Teaching Vol. 8(6). 20-31.

Coates, J. (1983). The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. Croom Helm

Coates, J. (1995). The expression of root and epistemic possibility in English. In Bybee, J., & Fleischman, S. (Eds.), Modality in Grammar and Discourse (pp. 55-66). John Benjamins.

Connor, U., & Lauer, J. (1988). Cross-cultural variation in persuasive student writing. In A., Purves (Ed.), Writing across languages and cultures: Issues in contrastive rhetoric (pp. 138-159). Sage Publications.

Depraetere, I., & Reed, S. (2006). Mood and modality in English. In Aarts, B., & McMahon, A. (Eds.), The Handbook of English Linguistics (pp. 269-290). Blackwell.

Gustová, I. (2011). The Ways of Expressing Epistemic (Extrinsic) Modality in Spoken English. Unpublished Undergraduate Thesis. University of West Bohemia

Halliday, M. (1970). Functional diversity in language as seen from a consideration of modality and mood in English. Foundations of Language, 6(3), 322-361.

Hermerén, L. (1978). On Modality in English. CWK Gleerup

Hinkel, E. (1995). The use of modal verbs as a reflection of cultural values. TESOL Quarterly, 29(2), 325-343. https://doi.org/10.2307/3587627

Holmes, J. (1983). Speaking English with the Appropriate Degree of Conviction. In C. Brumfit (ed.) Learning and Teaching Languages for Communication: Applied Linguistic Perspectives. CILT

Holmes, J. (1988). Doubt and certainty in ESL textbooks. Applied Linguistics, 9, 20-44. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/9.1.21

Hyland, K., & Milton, J. (1997). Qualification and certainty in L1 and L2 students’ writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 6(2), 183-205

Karanasiou, T. (2017). The expression of epistemic modality in Greek EFL learners’ argumentative essays. Unpublished Thesis. Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.

Kärkkäinen, E. (1992). Modality as a Strategy in Interaction: Epistemic Modality in the Language of Native and Non-native Speakers of English. Pragmatics and Language Learning, 3, 197-216. Extracted from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED395530

Kiefer, F. (1994). Modality. In Asher, R. E. (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (pp. 2515-2520). Pergamon.

Kongpetch, S. & Thienthong, A. (2021). Use of Core Modal Verbs in Academic Writing of Thai EFL Students. International Journal of Language and Literary Studies. Vol 3(1). 277-291. https://doi.org/10.36892/ijlls.v3i1.509

Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics (Vol. 2). Cambridge University Press.

Mahdi Aben Ahmed (2021). Saudi EFL Learners’ Use of English Modal Verbs: A Study of Challenges and Solutions. International Journal of Language and Literary Studie. Vol.3(2)

McEnery, T., & Kifle, N. (2002). Epistemic modality in argumentative essays of second-language writers. In T. Flowerdue (Ed.) Academic discourse (pp. 182-195). Longman.

My Nhat, T. N., & Dieu Minh, N. T. (2019). Epistemic Modality in Ted Talks On Education. VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, 35(4). https://doi.org/10.25073/2525-2445/vnufs.4396

Nuyts, J. (2000). Epistemic Modality, Language and Conceptualization. A cognitive pragmatic Perspective. John Benjamins

Palmer, F. R. (2001). Mood and Modality. Cambridge University Press.

Pemberton, C. (2020). In my opinion: Modality in Japanese EFL learners’ argumentative essays. Asia Pacific Journal of Corpus Research, 1(2), 57-72. https://doi.org/10.22925/apjcr.2020.1.2.57

Portner, P. (2009). Modality. Oxford University Press.

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Longman.

Surjowati, R. (2016). Modality Meanings in Student’s Argumentative Writing. Prosiding ICTTE FKIP UNS 2015. Vol 1(1). 196-201.

Torabiardakani, N., Khojasteh, L. & Shokrpour, N. (2015). Modal auxiliaries and their semantic functions used by advanced EFL learners. Acta Didactica Napocensia, 8(2), 51-60. Extracted from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1073275.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.21462/jeltl.v10i2.1562

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.






JELTL (Journal of English Language Teaching and Linguistics); Web: www.jeltl.org; Email: journal.eltl@gmail.com


Creative Commons License
JELTL by http://www.jeltl.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License


Indexed and Abstracted BY: