This dissertation analyzes undertheorized grammatical and linguistic details of Shakespeare’s language. Using tools derived from the fields of linguistics, pragmatics, and discourse analysis, I trace the ways that Shakespeare’s speakers represent themselves in language, and how they position themselves relative to their interlocutors. Grounding my study in a selection of Shakespeare’s works in which questions of self-positioning are particularly fraught, I argue that the nuances of grammar that undergird the linguistic performance of Shakespeare’s speakers encode significant clues about interaction and interpersonal relationships. I maintain that the minute details of linguistic encounters, easily overlooked words such as modal verbs (particularly shall and will) and deictic markers (words such as I, this, and now), hold important information about speakers’ perceptions of themselves, their interlocutors, and their environment. Attention to such details, and to charged moments of linguistic encounter in which speakers must negotiate their modes of self-positioning, helps to illuminate the troubled processes of self-representation and changing self-perception. Chapter one focuses on Shakespeare’s sonnets, and suggests that these poems provide a productive model for the examination of the nuances of speech and interactive dialogue. I anchor my discussion in the particular resonance of the word shall in the sonnets, and explore the ways in which the sonnet speaker attempts to preserve linguistic control relative to a threatening interlocutor. The second chapter extends these concerns to consider how the speakers of Troilus and Cressida respond to a wide network of potentially threatening interlocutors. In this chapter, I focus on linguistic encounters such as arguments and gossip to examine the risks that speakers encounter when they enter the fray of communal discourse. My third chapter turns to Coriolanus to consider moments of aggressive linguistic collisions, in which speakers vie for the right to speak a potent and contested word such as shall. The fourth and final chapter analyzes Richard II through the frame of deictic markers and grammatical modes of self-reference to consider the protective strategies afforded by language in moments of crisis.

The thesis provides a corpus-based study of the development of Irish English modal verbs from the fourteenth to the twentieth centuries in comparison to mainland English. More precisely, it explores the morpho-syntax of CAN, MAY, MUST, SHALL and WILL and the semantics of BE ABLE TO, CAN, MAY and MUST in the two varieties. The data of my study focuses on the Kildare poems, i.e. fourteenth-century Irish English religious poetry, and a self-compiled corpus consisting of personal letters, largely emigrant letters, and trial proceedings from the late seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The analysis of the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries is further compared to a similar corpus of English English. The findings are discussed in the light of processes associated with contact-induced language change, new-dialect formation and supraregionalization. Contact-induced language change in general, and new-dialect formation in particular, can account for the findings of the fourteenth century. The semantics of the Irish English modal verbs in this century were mainly conservative in comparison to English English. The Irish English morpho-syntax showed an amalgam of features from different dialects of Middle English in addition to some forms which seem to be unique to Irish English. The Irish English poems recorded a high number of variants per function in comparison to a selection of English English religious poems, which does not conform to predictions based on the model of new-dialect formation. I suggest that this might be due to the fact that the English language had not been standardized by the time it was introduced to Ireland, and thus the need to reduce the number of variants was not as great as it is suggested to be in the post-standardization scenarios on which the model is based. In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Ireland, increased Irish/English bilingualism caused the formation of a second-language (L2) variety of English. In the nineteenth century the bilingual speakers massively abandoned the Irish language and integrated into the English-speaking community. As a result, the varieties of English as spoken by the bilingual speakers and as spoken by the monolingual English speakers blended and formed a new variety altogether. The use of modal verbs in this new variety of Irish English shows signs of colonial lag (e.g. in the development of a deontic possibility meaning for CAN). Additionally, the subtle differences between BE ABLE TO and CAN in participant-internal possibility contexts and between epistemic MAY and MIGHT in present time contexts were not fully acquired by the L2 speakers, which resulted in a higher variability between the variants in the new variety of Irish English. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the use of modal verbs converged on the patterns found in English English, either as a result of linguistic accommodation in the case of informants who had migrated to countries such as Australia and the United States, or as a result of supraregionalization in the case of those who remained in Ireland.

This diploma thesis focuses on problems with expressing modality in German language system. It also deals with modality adaptation in contemporary textbooks for teaching German as a foreign language at CEFR level A1-A2. In the beginning the thesis deals with theoretical adaptation of modality and ist possibilities of expressing in grammatical and lexical system of contemporary German Language. The end of theoretical part pays attention to teaching German as a foreign language, especially to problems with grammar arrangement or more precisely modality. The empirical part focuses on analysis of modality presentation in selected textbooks at CEFR level A1-A2 at lower secondary schools and corresponding grammar schools. The attention is aimed at formal, pragmatic and stylistic aspect of presenting the phenomenon, as well as comprehensibility, suitability and reasonability of its adaptation.

[pt] O presente estudo busca investigar o uso de verbos modais na produção escrita de universitários brasileiros em inglês como língua estrangeira (ILE), contrastando-o com o emprego realizado por alunos universitários americanos e britânicos que têm o inglês como primeira língua. Para tanto, lança-se mão do arcabouço teórico da lingüística de corpus (Sinclair, 1991; McEnery & Wilson, 1996; Hunston, 2002; Berber Sardinha, 2004; McEnery, Xiao & Tono, 2006) e de recursos tecnológicos, especialmente o programa computacional WordSmith Tools (Scott, 1999), para analisar dois corpora. O corpus de estudo consiste em uma fração do Br-ICLE (The Brazilian Portuguese Sub-corpus of the International Corpus of Learner English), coletada em quatro universidades do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, totalizando 51.430 palavras, enquanto o de referência corresponde a uma parte do LOCNESS (Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays), somando 165.135 palavras. Adotando uma abordagem textual à escrita (Hyland, 2002) e uma abordagem estatística para quantificar os resultados, a investigação tem como foco os verbos modais centrais (Biber et al., 1999), a saber, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will e would. Os resultados indicam que os falantes brasileiros de inglês empregam menos verbos modais do que seus pares americanos e britânicos. Mais especificamente, nota-se que will e would são usados com freqüência significativamente menor na escrita em ILE de brasileiros. Diferenças entre os modais também são encontradas quando se analisa o padrão de uso destes verbos. Os resultados da pesquisa evidenciam, de certa forma, a diferença na produção escrita dos dois grupos estudados, o que pode contribuir para o ensino de língua inglesa no contexto brasileiro. / [en] The present study aims at investigating and contrasting the use of modal verbs in the writing of Brazilian undergraduates majoring in English as a foreign language (EFL), contrasting it to that of British and American university students who speak English as a first language. To this end, it makes use of both the theoretical background of Corpus Linguistics (Sinclair, 1991; McEnery & Wilson, 1996; Hunston, 2002; Berber Sardinha, 2004; McEnery, Xiao & Tono, 2006) and of technological resources, especially the computer program WordSmith Tools (Scott, 1999), to analyze two corpora. The research corpus consists of a section of the Br-ICLE (The Brazilian Portuguese Sub-corpus of the International Corpus of Learner English) which has been collected in four universities in the city of Rio de Janeiro, totaling 51,430 words, while the reference one corresponds to a part of the LOCNESS (Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays), accounting for 165,135 words. Adopting a textual approach to writing (Hyland, 2002) and using statistical tests to quantify the results, the investigation focuses on central modal verbs (Biber et al., 1999), namely, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will and would. Results indicate that the Brazilian speakers of English make less use of modal verbs than their American and British counterparts. More specifically, it is observed that both will and would present significantly lower frequencies in Brazilian EFL writing. Differences among modals are also found when the patterns of use of these verbs are taken into account. Research results show that there are certain differences in the written production of the two groups, which may contribute to the teaching of English in the Brazilian context.

The purpose of this study is to examine how the modal verbs- deber, querer and poder – are treated and explained in selected tasks in two exercise books Colores 9 Exercise Book and ¡Qué bien! 9 Exercises. Texts linked to the tasks in their respective textbooks are also examined. By taking into consideration the research questions, this study helps to show how the selected exercises in each exercise book deal with how modal verbs are designed and used from amorphosyntactic perspective in the selected exercises, and this study will also examine how the function and meaning of these modal verbs are explained in their context. The study uses a qualitative method with a content analysis based on a functional perspective, which includes an analysis of three categories or perspectives designed to answer the research questions. The analysis shows that the exercise books have some exercises that use the modal verbs deber, querer, and poder among other verbs to teach grammar but exercises focusing on these modal verbs are missing. The selected exercises which discuss the modal verbs include deductive and inductive strategies in which grammar learning can take place as a product and as a process. The authors of the exercise books use translation, memorization, and repetition of the contents of the textbooks in most of the exercises. These modal verbs are also used in exercises that focus on free communication to understand language. From a morphosyntactic perspective, all three verbs are largely used only in the present tense in indicative and querer and poder are treated as examples of diphthong verbs. Finally, it is shown that the selected exercises do not deal with the function and meaning of modal verbs. The study concludes that the pedagogical methods used in the two exercise books to convey the content of the exercises do not help to gain an understanding of the importance of the function and meaning that these modal verbs have, although they are significant for language learning.

This corpus based diploma thesis takes stock of Finnish epistemic modal verbs voida, saattaa, taitaa and mahtaa and surveys their translational counterparts as they can be found in the parallel corpus InterCorp. The aim of the thesis is to find out what tendencies there can be found in the translation of the modals in question. In the theoretical part, there is, firstly, a description of both modality and modal verbs in Finnish and Czech, secondly, of the differences between the approaches to modality in both languages and, thirdly, of the features of translated language. In the analytical part, the translations are sorted out into categories based on the particular modal specifiers. The description of the different modal specifier categories follows.

[ES] El objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las perífrasis modales, sus significados y la existencia de variación en las secciones mencionadas del artículo científico en un corpus de las secciones denominadas "introducción" y "conclusión" del artículo de investigación en la disciplina de turismo. Estos textos se han extraído de revistas en el campo y con un índice de impacto notorio en la especialidad. Las perífrasis modales reflejan el punto de vista del hablante. Como parte de la metodología, se usan herramientas de lingüística de corpus que permiten la gestión de los textos y su consulta, además de la extracción de ejemplos concretos que ilustren las formas, las categorías semánticas y las funciones que se encuentren en los textos estudiados. Sin embargo, dado que el contexto es fundamental para poder identificar los significados modales, parte del análisis de los textos requiere de un reconocimiento visual directo de cada caso, pues una misma perífrasis modal puede indicar diferentes significados. El análisis y discusión de los datos se nutre de estudios en lingüística funcional que permitan dar cuenta de los usos y funciones. Las conclusiones indican que, en efecto, existe variación no solo en cuanto a las formas usadas en cada una de las introducciones y en las conclusiones, sino también con respecto al significado. En este sentido, se constata que la modalidad dinámica es más frecuente en las introducciones, según frecuencias relativas, y la modalidad epistémica es más frecuente en las conclusiones. Igualmente, se han detectado varias funciones estrechamente relacionadas con los significados modales. Así, la función de mitigación y cortesía lingüística se relaciona en mayor medida con la modalidad epistémica y lo mismo ocurre con la formulación del significado inferencial, que refiere a la necesidad epistémica. La expresión de la factualidad y de la imposibilidad se nutren de la modalidad dinámica, mientras que la predicción, la organización de los contenidos, la autoridad y la recomendación se manifiestan con el uso de la modalidad deóntica. / [CA] L'article d'investigació en el camp dels estudis de turisme no ha sigut prou estudiat, malgrat ser una disciplina que representa un sector de desenvolupament econòmic per a nombrosos països. Altres gèneres textuals relacionats amb el registre turístic com el resum, els fullets i les pàgines webs en el registre turístic, els últims amb gran rellevància pel seu clar impacte social i econòmic dels estudis turístics, han rebut major atenció. La investigació científica en turisme, no obstant això, proveeix a les organitzacions, ja siguen públiques o privades, d'informació rellevant per a la millora de l'activitat que es tradueixen en recomanacions que, amb freqüència, s'aporten en les conclusions d'aquests treballs. S'entén, per tant, que existeix una relació directa entre el progrés del sector i la investigació empírica, la qual cosa, al seu torn, indica l'interés per la publicació acadèmica periòdica. Per aquest motiu, en aquest treball, s'inclou una caracterització formal del gènere en una estructura de seccions. Aquest estudi es complementa amb una anàlisi de les estructures lèxic-gramaticals recurrents en cadascuna de les seccions de l'article científic i les variables lèxiques i sintàctiques que caracteritzen al text dins del registre científic, tant per la complexitat com pel nivell d'elaboració que exhibeix la llengua usada en aquests treballs. Aquestes estructures persegueixen indicar la perspectiva dels autors, entre altres aspectes. Dit això, l'objectiu d'aquest treball és analitzar les perífrasis modals, els seus significats i l'existència de variació en les seccions denominades "introducció" i "conclusió" de l'article d'investigació en la disciplina de turisme. Aquests textos s'han extret de revistes en el camp i amb un índex d'impacte notori en l'especialitat. Les perífrasis modals reflecteixen el punt de vista del parlant. Com a part de la metodologia, s'usen eines de lingüística de corpus que permeten la gestió dels textos i la seua consulta, a més de l'extracció d'exemples concrets que il·lustren les formes, les categories semàntiques i les funcions que es troben en els textos estudiats. No obstant això, atés que el context és fonamental per a poder identificar els significats modals, part de l'anàlisi dels textos requereix d'un reconeixement visual directe de cada cas, perquè una mateixa perífrasi modal pot indicar diferents significats. L'anàlisi i discussió de les dades es nodreix d'estudis en lingüística funcional que permeten donar compte dels usos i funcions Les conclusions indiquen que, en efecte, existeix variació no sols quant a les formes usades en cadascuna de les introduccions i en les conclusions, sinó també respecte al significat. En aquest sentit, es constata que la modalitat dinàmica és més freqüent en les introduccions, segons freqüències relatives, i la modalitat epistémica és més freqüent en les conclusions. Igualment, s'han detectat diverses funcions estretament relacionades amb els significats modals. Així, la funció de mitigació i cortesia lingüística es relaciona en major mesura amb la modalitat epistémica i el mateix ocorre amb la formulació del significat inferencial, que es refereix a la necessitat epistémica. L'expressió de la factualidad i de la impossibilitat es nodreixen de la modalitat dinàmica, mentre que la predicció, l'organització dels continguts, l'autoritat i la recomanació es manifesten amb l'ús de la modalitat dóntica. / [EN] The research article in the field of tourism studies has not been sufficiently studied, despite being a discipline strongly connected with a sector of economic growth for many countries. Other textual genres related to the tourism register such as the summary, brochures and web pages in the tourism register, the latter with great relevance for their clear social and economic impact of tourism studies, have enjoyed more scholarly attention. Scientific research in tourism, however, provides organisations, whether public or private, with relevant information for the improvement of the activity, which translates into recommendations that are often included in the conclusions of these studies. It is held, therefore, that there is a direct relationship between the development of the sector and empirical research, which, in turn, shows the interest in academic publications in leading journal. For this reason, this paper includes a formal characterisation of the genre into sections. This study is supplemented with a description of the recurrent lexicalgrammatical structures in each of the sections of the scientific article and the lexical and syntactic variables that characterise the text within the scientific register, both in terms of the complexity and the level of elaboration exhibited in the language used in these works. These structures are intended to signal the authors' perspective, among other aspects. That said, the aim of this paper is to analyse modal verbs, their meanings and the existence of variation in the "introduction" and "conclusion" sections of the research article in the discipline of tourism. These texts have been taken from leading journals in the field and with a clear impact index in the discipline. Modal verbs reflect the speaker's point of view. As part of the methodology, corpus linguistics tools are used to allow the management of the texts and their consultation, as well as the excerption of concrete examples illustrating the forms, the semantic categories and the functions found in the texts studied. However, given that context is fundamental to the identification of modal meanings, part of the analysis of the texts requires direct visual recognition in each occurrence, as the same modal verb may entail several meanings. The analysis and discussion of the data is informed by studies in functional linguistics which allow us to count on the uses and functions of the different modal forms. The conclusions indicate that there is indeed variation not only in terms of the forms used in each of the introductions and conclusions, but also in terms of meaning. In this sense, it is found that dynamic modality is more frequent in the introductions, according to their relative frequencies, and epistemic modality is more frequent in the conclusions. Likewise, several functions closely related to modal meanings have been detected. Thus, the function of mitigation and linguistic politeness is most closely related to epistemic modality, as is the formulation of inferential meaning, which refers to epistemic necessity. The expression of factuality and impossibility are nourished by the dynamic modality, while prediction, content while prediction, content organisation, authority and recommendation are manifested using deontic modality. The thesis is structured in five chapters, and bibliographical references are included finally in this dissertation. / Domínguez Morales, ME. (2021). Los verbos modales en las introducciones y en las conclusiones de los artículos científicos de turismo [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/172247 / TESIS

This study focuses on the notions of deontic and dynamic modality in Spanish and how they are expressed through the modal verbs deber ‘must’ and tener que ‘have to’. The analysis is based on a corpus of political debates from the European Parliament, conducted 2010‒2011 by Spanish MEPs. In total, 578 occurrences of deber and 334 occurrences of tener que have been studied in detail, in order to understand their semantic and pragmatic behavior. Out of the 912 cases, 860 were classified as deontic necessity and 52 as dynamic necessity. When separating the deontic readings from the dynamic ones, the notions of volitivity and factuality proved to be crucial: whereas deontic cases are volitive and non-factual, dynamic cases can be described as non-volitive and, to a high extent, factual. In order to further examine the deontic uses, four classificatory variables were taken into account, namely, grammatical person, degree of agentivity, tense and source of the necessity. The distributions of deber and tener que were analyzed using Chi-square tests. Statistically significant differences were found for all four variables. The results show that deber is highly preferred in the third person, whereas tener que occurs equally often in the first and third person. Moreover, deber occurs more frequently in contexts which obscure the responsible agent, such as the impersonal se construction and inanimate subjects. As far as tense is concerned, the major difference between deber and tener que is found in the conditional tense, where tener que barely occurs, while deber is fairly frequent. A final difference between the two verbs is that the speaker usually is the source of the necessity when tener que is used, whereas deber is the first option when the speaker refers to another source or authority. In conclusion, it is argued, firstly, that there is a clear difference between deontic and dynamic modality in Spanish, and secondly, that deber and tener que display different semantic and pragmatic functions in deontic contexts, pointing towards an intersubjective use of deber and a subjective use of tener que.

This diploma thesis aims to contribute to the proposed project concerning the update of the multi-media application EMSA (Elektronická mluvnice současné angličtiny, The electronic grammar of contemporary English). This project is based on the text of Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí češtiny [Grammar of contemporary English against the background of Czech] by Professor PhDr. Libuše Dušková, DrSc. et al., which was digitalized and can be accessed at the website www.mluvniceanglictiny.cz. In the future, this application aims to contain supplementary texts, relevant bibliographic information, exercises, authentic examples acquired from electronic corpora, etc. The particular task of this diploma thesis is the critical revision of chapter 8.4 Modal verbs. The first step was the survey of relevant literature and identification of parts which are not explicitly covered by Dušková's original text. These findings are presented in the theoretical part of the thesis (chapter 1.); they are concerned mainly with theoretical definitions (e.g. the delimitation of central and marginal modals or kinds of modality) and information concerning the distribution and recent developments of modal verbs. The second main step was to compile these findings into texts which would be suitable for the use in the project...

Om något är sant eller inte är upp till forskningen och vetenskapen att undersöka. Trots det kan mycket information upplevas som sanning även om det bara är en åsikt, egen erfarenhet eller myt. Den här studien undersöker hur privatpersoner online skapar sanningar utifrån en osanning. Undersökningen är baserad på en tråd från diskussionsforumet ”Flashback”. Tråden har en frispråkig och destruktiv diskurs om personer från Somalia. Analysen är baserad på olika sätt att få något att upplevas som trovärdigt, exempelvis modalitet, hänvisningar och objektivitet. Resultatet visar att de flesta åsikterna och upplevelserna är modifierade på olika sätt för att framstå som mer trovärdiga och om något är trovärdigt ökar det chansen att någon annan anammar samma åsikt eller åtminstone tror att den är sann. / Whether something is true or not is a matter for science and research to investigate. Although, a lot of information can pass by as true even though it might just be an opinion, personal experience or myth. This study investigate how private persons online create a truth out of something untrue. The investigation is based on a thread from the forum for discussion named ”Flashback”. The thread have an outspoken and destructive discourse about people from Somalia. The analysis is based on different ways to make something appear as reliable, for example modality, referencing and objectivity. The result shows that most opinions and experiences are in different ways modified to seem more reliable, and if something is reliabile it increases the chanses of someone else to acquire the same opinion, or at least believe it to be true.