The Birth of the Academic Article - Le Journal des Sçavans and the Philosophical Transactions 1665-1700 - David Banks
Modality: possibility, ability, obligation
The Birth of the Academic Article - Le Journal des Sçavans and the Philosophical Transactions 1665-1700 - David Banks
David Banks [+]
Universite de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France
David Banks is Emeritus Professor of English Linguistics at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, France. He is a past Director of ERLA (Equipe de Recherche en Linguistique Appliquée) and a past Chairman of AFLSF (Association Française de la Linguistique Systémique Fonctionnelle). His research interests include the synchronic and diachronic analysis of scientific text, and the application of systemic functional linguistics to French. He has published over 80 academic articles and authored or edited over 20 books. His book The Development of Scientific Writing (2008) won the ESSE (European Society for the Study of English) Language and Linguistics Book Award in 2010.
Description
In this section, the incidence of modality in the two journals is considered. The grammatical structures used to express modality are analysed. Because of differences between the two languages concerned, these are not directly comparable. The meanings of modal expressions are studied in terms of epistemic modality, and root modality, the latter being divided into dynamic and deontic modality. The results of the analysis of modal meanings for the two journals are compared.