Sensory verbs

Sensory verbs are generally used to indicate that the truefulness of a proposition is based on the speakers’/writers’ subjective perception. Altogether 30 different forms (with 190 occurrences) are utilized by the speakers to express their subjective judgments towards the utterances, while 18 different forms (with 31 occurrences) are employed by the writers. Table 13 illustrate the top 10 sensory verbs used by the speakers/writers.

Table 13. Frequency of sensory verbs used in the spoken vs. written genres

Table 13, the percentage of juede 覺得 ‘feel’ (51.05%) in spoken data instantly attract attention as it is especially high among those sensory verbs, which implies that the speakers tend to employ juede 覺得 ‘feel’ to express their subjective opinions towards the statements.

In the written data, there is not a preferred sensory verb observed. Sensory verbs are employed evenly in the written discourse. The discrepancy concerning the distribution of sensory verbs may be due to genre difference. The realization of syntax in natural

conversation is dynamic and locally managed, so the speakers usually use the forms that pop up at the time while having an instantaneous talk. Thus, juede 覺得 ‘feel’ can be seen as the most favored sensory verb in face-to-face encounter. In writing, repetition is one of the constraints that writers should try to avoid, and that may be the reason that sensory verbs are well-distributed in the written data. The following examples demonstrate how the

speakers/writers express their personal viewpoints by applying sensory verbs:

(154) 那最近..er..即使醫學會他們開始想要做一個革命 hon,他們想要給..給醫生 有..有拒絕病人的權利,那..我覺得這事..最..終..終究不會成就啦, (S2) Nà zuìjìn..Er.. Jíshǐ yīxué huì tāmen kāishǐ xiǎng yào zuò yīgè gémìng hon, tāmen xiǎng yào gěi.. gěi yīshēng yǒu.. yǒu jù jué bìngrén de quánlì, nà.. Wǒ juédé zhè shì.. zuì.. zhōng.. zhōngjiù bù huì chéngjiù la

Spoken N % Written N %

覺得 97 51.05% 注意 6 19.35%

覺得說 15 7.89% 感到 4 12.90%

看得出來 9 4.74% 察覺 3 9.68%

看起來 8 4.21% 看起來 2 6.45%

感覺到 8 4.21% 感覺 2 6.45%

注意 6 3.16% 覺得 2 6.45%

記得 6 3.16% 回想 1 3.23%

看看 5 2.63% 回想起來 1 3.23%

發覺 4 2.11% 有感於 1 3.23%

發覺說 4 2.11% 自覺 1 3.23%

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‘Lately..er..even if the Medical Association, they started thining of making a revolution hon, they want to .. give doctors the right of refusing patients, .. that ..

I feel that this thing .. eventually... eventually.. will not succeed.’

(155) hon 這個也是..er 我個人覺得說,我們..參與了..ICF,就是參與了身心障礙鑑定, 不是只有幫政府做這些一般的事情,我們要有一個..加值,一個邊際效應出來, (S1)

Hon zhège yěshì..er wǒ gèrén juédéshuō, wǒmen.. cānyùle..ICF, jiùshì cānyùle shēnxīn zhàng'ài jiàndìng, bùshì zhǐyǒu bāng zhèngfǔ zuò zhèxiē yībān de shìqíng, wǒmen yào yǒu yīgè.. Jiā zhí, yīgè biānjì xiàoyìng chūlái

‘This is ..er, I personally feel that we .. participated in..ICF, the identification of disability, not only help the government do these general things, we expect to have a .. bonus, a marginal effect coming out,’

(156) 像我們以前就是,只有知道患者的<E physical condition E>就好,那現在,那個

<E physical, social E>我們也都要注意 hon,心裏層面的啦,啊他的活動部分,我 們都要注意. (S1)

Xiàng wǒmen yǐqián jiùshì, zhǐyǒu zhīdào huànzhě de physical condition jiù hǎo, nà xiànzài, nàgè physical social wǒmen yě dū yào zhùyì hon, xīnlǐ céngmiàn de la, a tā de huódòng bùfèn, wǒmen dōu yào zhùyì

‘Before, we only needed to know the patients’ physical condition. And now, we need to pay attention to both their physical and social conditions hon, such as phychological aspect, their daily activities. All of these, we have to pay attention to.’

(157) 可見在處理兒童泌尿道感染時，我們也須同時注意是否有其它潛在危險因 子，(W2)

Kějiàn zài chǔlǐ értóng mìniào dào gǎnrǎn shí, wǒmen yě xū tóngshí zhùyì shìfǒu yǒu qítā qiánzài wéixiǎn yīnzǐ

‘While dealing with children who have urinary tract infection, we shall also pay attention to whether there are other potential risk factors,’

(158) 發現高達 11%的健康婦女有偽陽性的報告，12%的婦女對此項檢查感到有 壓力 (W2)

Fāxiàn gāodá 11%de jiànkāng fùnǚ yǒu wěi yángxìng de bàogào,12% de fùnǚ duì cǐ xiàng jiǎnchá gǎndào yǒu yālì

‘It is found that up to 11% of healthy women have a false positive report, 12 percent of women feel stressful on this check.’

The above examples show that the subject who performs the sensory verbs is not necessarily the speaker or the writer. It can be a group of people who take part in certain experiments or

the inclusive ‘we’. juede 覺得 ‘feel’ in (154) collocates with the first person pronoun wo 我

‘I’ to indicate that the utterance is a personal viewpoint; Juedeshuo 覺得說 ‘feel’ in (155) collocates with both the first person pronoun wo 我 and the reflexive geren 個人 ‘personal’

to emphasize that the statement is merely the speaker’s subjective evaluation, which displays the strong sense of subjectivity. Examples (156) and (157) contain the inclusive women 我們

‘we’, which show the speakers’/writers’ affiliation to the audience/readers, and zhuyi 注意

‘pay attention’ serve to remind the hearers/readers to sense other aspects during the treatment.

In (158), the subject of the verb gandao 感到 ‘feel’ is a group of women. This type of the third party subject occurs relatively much less in the medical discourse. In general, sensory verbs in great majority focus on the perception of mind. The sensory verbs referring to the auditory or visual sense are uncommon. Those verbs convey the speakers’/writers’ subjective perceptions with the transparent semantics. With sensory verbs, the speakers/writers express that the truthfulness of propositions are based on perceptions instead of scientific evidence, which help them distance themselves from the verifiability of the statements.

Hyland (1998: 124) argues that “scientific writers rely heavily on ‘hearsay’ evidence from the research literature, and the choice of reporting verb can indicate their commitment to what is reported.” The quotative verbs are utilized not only to specify and acknowledge previous findings but also to present the writers’ stance towards those findings. This may explain why quotative verbs are applied overwhelmingly in the written corpus. In face-to-face interaction, the speakers on the one hand ought to express their attitude and feeling to what is being said, and on the other hand need to pay attention to the interaction with their audiences. The sensory verbs greatly serve these two functions since they are typically used to indicate that what is being said is based on the speakers’ subjective viewpoints. As the communicative style of the peer lectures is partially adheres to conversation, the common conversational hedges, such as juede 覺得 ‘feel’ and juedeshuo 覺得說 ‘feel’ are inevitably

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repeated constantly in spontaneous talks. On the contrary, writing is not an instant process, the writers always can make time to check and cite the references. Owing to the above reasons, quotative verbs and sensory verbs distribute differently between these two genres.