The modal forms 'must' and 'should' in English academic discourse by Spanish postgraduates

This paper presents a corpus linguistic study investigating the use and functions of the modal verbs, must and should, in academic discourse. The study analyses a corpus of doctoral dissertations within two distinct fields of knowledge, written in English and submitted to Spanish universities betwee...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inLanguage value Vol. 2; pp. 1 - 26
Main Authors Alvarez Gil, Francisco J, Soto Déniz, Isabel
Format Journal Article
LanguageSpanish
Published 2023
Subjects
academic discourse
corpus linguistics
modality
must
should
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Summary:This paper presents a corpus linguistic study investigating the use and functions of the modal verbs, must and should, in academic discourse. The study analyses a corpus of doctoral dissertations within two distinct fields of knowledge, written in English and submitted to Spanish universities between 2011 and 2021. By employing corpus linguistics, we could interrogate this compilation to obtain concordances that could be analysed from a horizontal perspective, ensuring that each sample was appraised appropriately within its context of occurrence. The frequency and distribution of these modals in various contexts were examined. The findings revealed that must and should are utilised with differing frequencies and in diverse ways, depending on the academic discipline and the rhetorical purpose of the discourse. The paper contends that the use of modality, particularly deontic modality, is a vital aspect of academic writing, as it signals the writer's stance and the level of necessity, recommendation or obligation in their argumentation.
ISSN:1989-7103
1989-7103