This paper attempts to fill a gap in the study of Chinese modality by presenting an empirical analysis on the motivation for epistemic use in the discourse context of newspaper reporting. We arrive at the conclusion that linguistic and contextual components are highly interactive. The proper application of epistemic supplement is regulated by the customary ideology and moral standards observed in the journalistic society – being as impartial and as honest as possible. Consequently, by bringing to light the sensitivity of epistemic patterns to contextual factors, one may capture part of the homogeneous and heterogeneous qualities embedded in epistemic modal markers.
A significant conclusion derived from the results of this study is that journalists’ intention to build up agreement in their subjective or objective stance can explicate how epistemic modals are distributed across different types of news subjects and functions. These findings also demonstrate the impact of language users’ stance taking on language use. Moreover, the correlations between the basis of epistemic evaluation and the strength of stance taking will in turn confirm the cognitive reality of the conceptual taxonomy attested in Chinese modality.
The conclusions of this study also supply preliminary evidence for the necessity to bring together modal phenomena which have been detected by linguists whose interest is in distinct subject areas, such as semantics, syntax, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and cognitive linguistics. It is hoped that the present study has achieved this goal by illustrating the contribution of its specific approach to the general disciplinary survey on modality.
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