Analysis of the linguistic expression I think in a corpus of late Modern English scientific texts

• Francisco J. Álvarez-Gil ^[1] ; Natalia García Alonso ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

     Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

     Gran Canaria, España

     
• Localización: LFE: revista de lenguas para fines específicos, ISSN 1133-1127, Vol. 25, Nº 2, 2019, págs. 44-57
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    Este trabajo trata sobre la relación entre modalidad y evidencialidad. Está centrado específicamente en el uso de la expresión I think en combinación con otros elementos modales, así como los posibles efectos pragmáticos observados en muestras de textos obtenidas del Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing. Asimismo, analizamos si la variable de disciplina podría tener algún efecto sobre las funciones que la expresión lleva a cabo en estos textos. Aunque todavía queda mucho por investigar en textos académicos desde una perspectiva diacrónica, hay algunos estudios previos sobre elementos de posicionamiento realizados en el ámbito de la pragmática histórica (cf. Gray, Biber y Hiltunen 2011; Moskowich and Crespo 2014; Alonso-Almeida 2015; Álvarez-Gil, 2017, 2018, 2019). Siguiendo esta tradición, nos centramos en la expresión I think, siguiendo el trabajo de van der Auwera y Plungian (1998) para la descripción de la modalidad y los tipos modales

  • English

    The present paper deals with the relationship between modality and evidentiality, focussed specifically on the use of the expression I think in combination with other modal devices, as well as the possible pragmatic effects observed in text samples obtained from the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing and whether the variable of discipline might have some effect on the functions the expression represents in these texts. Even if much research is still to be done in academic texts from a diachronic perspective, there are some previous studies on stance devices carried out within the arena of historical pragmatics (cf. Gray, Biber and Hiltunen 2011; Moskowich and Crespo 2014; AlonsoAlmeida 2015; Álvarez-Gil 2017, 2018, 2019). Following this tradition, we focus on the expression I think, following the work of van der Auwera and Plungian (1998) for the description of modality and modal types.

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