Modality in Scientific Communication. A Case Study of Modal Meaning in Scientific Articles (Economics) in English by Romanian Authors
Modality in Scientific Communication. A Case Study of Modal Meaning in Scientific Articles (Economics) in English by Romanian Authors

Summary/Abstract: Studies of modality (mainly expressed through modal verbs, but not only) in the scientific discourse have revealed patterns of use that vary significantly across disciplines and/or depending on the native language of speakers. The present paper continues a previous investigation which identified important differences between the English used by natives as compared to that used by Romanian authors publishing in English in journals of Economics. One of the important differences found was the diverging patterns of modal use; however, the difference did not lie in the total raw number, but rather in the selection of the modals in the two corpora; thus, as anticipated, in the Romanian corpus certain modals were overused (can, will, must), while others were underused (may, might, would). Cross disciplinary studies point out that epistemic use of modals in scientific texts exceeds the deontic use, as expected. In the Romanian corpus, however, instances of deontic use of must outnumber the instance of epistemic use, while would is underrepresented, surprisingly so, since its modal values are numerous. An interesting case is that of may, with important epistemic meanings and frequent formulaic use in scientific writing, which is favoured by the natives, who prefer to make less strong scientific claims, a stance which is not replicated by the Romanians. These differences – and others – can be attributed to the influence of native language patterns, to cultural differences as well as possibly to the different view of the epistemological status and scientific character of Economics.

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