THOMPSON

Neng Hasna Maulida

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4.4 MODALITY
4.4.1 MODALITY AND POLARITY
AS WE HAVE SEEN ABOVE, THE FINITE EXPRESSES NOT ONLY TENSE BUT ALSO POLARITY AND
MODALITY. ANY FINITE IS INHERENTLY POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE IN POLARITY. IT IS TRUE THAT THE
NEGATIVE FORMS HAVE AN IDENTIFI ABLE ADDED ELEMENT (‘N’T’ OR ‘NOT’) IN RELATION TO THE
POSITIVE, BUT THIS IS A REFL ECTION OF THE MARKED NATURE OF NEGATIVE MEANINGS IN GENERAL
(WE NEED A PARTICULAR REASON FOR TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS NOT RATHER THAN WHAT IS). IN
TERMS OF THE INTERACTION CARRIED OUT BY THE CLAUSE, POLARITY IS A BASIC PART OF THE
MEANING: AS NOTED IN 4.3.4, THERE IS A SPECIFI C GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE, THE YES/NO
INTERROGATIVE, WHOSE PRIMARY FUNCTION IS PRECISELY TO ENQUIRE ABOUT THE POLARITY OF A
MESSAGE.
Of course, polarity may also be expressed through Mood
Adjuncts such as ‘never’
or ‘hardly’ (in which case, interestingly enough, the Finite is
actually positive) – see
I ‘ve never liked him
I would hardly say that
subject finite Mood predicator complement
Adjunct
mood residue

To go a step further, we can see that in fact the expression of

polarity is not restricted
even to the Mood. In the fi rst example below, the Finite ‘has’ is
clearly positive, and
there is no Mood Adjunct: it is the Complement ‘nothing’ that
expresses negative
polarity.
He has said nothing to me about that.
He hasn’t said anything to me about that.
4.4.2 Types of modality
In order to understand more fully how modality works, we need fi rst of all to take
into account that – like mood choices such as declarative – modality normally has
scope over the whole clause. For instance, in a simple case like:
Scientists may have found the lost city of Atlantis
it is the whole propositional content (the event of scientists fi nding Atlantis) that is
mediated through the writer’s assessment of probability (‘may’). One refl ex of this
scope is that, as with polarity, modality may be expressed in diff erent positions in the
clause – and is not restricted to appearing only once. Possible rewordings of the
example above include:
Perhaps scientists have found the lost city of Atlantis
Scientists have possibly found the lost city of Atlantis
It’s possible that scientists may perhaps have found the lost city of Atlantis
Modality can thus be seen as constructing a kind of interpersonal ‘aura’ of the
speaker’s attitude around the proposition
4.4.3 Modal commitment
In 4.4.2, I talked about modality as involving degrees and scales. The speaker may,
for example, signal a higher or lower degree of certainty about the validity of a
proposition (‘they will/may be at home by now’); or a higher or lower degree of
pressure on the other person to carry out a command (‘you must/should leave’). It is
possible to formalize this to some extent and to establish three basic values (Halliday
and Matthiessen, 2014: 180) or points on the scale: high, median and low. These are illustrated in Table 4.2 for probability and obligation.
Note that the table shows
permission, often expressed by ‘can’, as low-value modulation: permission can be
seen as the lowest degree of pressure, opening the possibility for the other person to
do the action but leaving the decision to them.
It must be kept in mind that this is an idealization, and that the three labels
represent areas on a scale rather than absolute categories, with more delicate
distinctions possible (e.g. in ‘high’ modalization between ‘That’ll be the milkman’
and ‘That must be the milkman’). However, they are useful labels in investigating the
question of the speaker’s commitment: the degree to which the speaker commits
herself to the validity of what she is saying. This has important implications in a
number of diff erent areas of text analysis. For example, in an academic paper a writer
has to judge very carefully the extent to which he advances a claim as certain or as
still open to doubt; while in making a request a speaker has to judge very carefully
the extent to which she appears to be putting pressure on the other person. It is
worth noting that modalization is often used in commands, sometimes in combination
with modulation, to negotiate imposition – we saw this in the fi rst example in this
chapter, where the writer used the probability markers ‘might’ and ‘could’ to soften
the request.
4.4.4 Modal responsibility
We have already seen that modality can be signalled at a number of places in the
clause; and, although this takes us beyond the lexicogrammar of modality proper, it
is worth highlighting a particular range of forms that can be used to express modal
meanings. Here are two typical examples, with the modal expressions in italics:
Now that it’s the New Year, it’s likely that your new resolutions are being put to
the test
I think we’re alone now
What happens in these cases is that the modality is expressed not within the clause
but in a separate clause of its own: it has been ‘experientialized’ and is being
represented as if it were an event or state in the world. As we shall see when we look
at these forms again in Chapter 9, they are a kind of grammatical metaphor – that is,
using the lexicogrammatical resources of the language to express meanings for which
the resources did not originally evolve, and thus making it possible to express more
nuances of meaning (this brief description is deliberately designed to echo how I
talked about the pairings of mood choices and speech roles in section 4.2 above: the
precise mechanism at work is diff erent, but this is another manifestation of the same
principle).
The first of the two examples above illustrates how this objectivization
is achieved. Figure 4.19 shows the analysis of the main part of the sentence in terms
of Mood (see the discussion of anticipatory ‘it’ in 4.3.2 above).

It ‘s likely that your new

resolutions are
being put to the
test
S- F complement -Ubject
Table 4.3 Modal responsibility
Modalization Modulation
Explicit subjective I’m sure we should sell this place. I don’t
advise you to drink it.
Implicit subjective She might have written to me. I mustn’t go
there any more.
Implicit objective We probably won’t repay it. A cathedral is
supposed to be old.
Explicit objective It’s likely that they’ve heard by now. It’s
essential that you leave at once.
4.4.5 Modality in text
Given the complexity shown in Figure 4.20, many of the details have inevitably been
missed out in the description above. What we have focused on have been the broad
factors at work in the area of modality. To help give a fuller picture of how these
factors may operate in text, we will look briefl y at modality in two very diff erent
registers: academic writing and literature.
The following example is a short extract from a journal article by Christopher
Butler on ‘formulaic sequences’ – fi xed and semi-fi xed phrases that often recur and
which speakers probably store in their memory as ready-made units rather than
reconstructing them word by word. Here he is arguing that ‘I don’t know’ is a
formulaic sequence of this kind. You might expect such highly formal written
discourse to be impersonal and therefore to avoid modality; but this is in fact far from
the case. I have highlighted a few of the cases of modality at the start of the extract.
You will fi nd it useful to identify others and consider how they contribute to the
effect that the writer is aiming at.
4.5 Appraisal
In discussing modality, we have moved from strictly grammatical issues (e.g. modal
operators functioning as Finite) towards areas that are more diffi cult to pin down in structural terms – the varied examples of modality in the
extract from Butler illustrates
this. With appraisal (or ‘evaluation’), we are even more on the edge of grammar:
much of appraisal is expressed by lexical choices and there are few grammatical
structures that can be seen as having evolved with a primarily evaluative function.
The discussion here will therefore be briefer; but it is important to note that appraisal
is a central part of the meaning of any text and that any analysis of the interpersonal
meanings of a text must take it into account.
4.6 Interaction and negotiation
Looking at the clause from an interpersonal perspective has naturally led us at several
points to consider the wider context: the idea of the clause as exchange implies a
minimum of two components (giving implies receiving, etc.). Since our approach to
grammar is designed to allow us to look at how the grammar works in use, the next
step is to formalize the links with the wider context as far as possible. This is potentially
a huge undertaking, and it is not possible here to develop anything like a full set of
systems for showing how particular choices at clause level aff ect the on-going
interaction. What I would like to do is just to sketch in the lines of enquiry that can
be followed in making the transition from clause to text in analysis.
4.7 Interaction through text
To explore some of the issues that arise when we examine how interpersonal choices
work together in written text, we can take the extract below. This is from a chapter
by Peter Trudgill on the question of what counts as Standard English. I have
numbered the sentences for ease of reference. What I am particularly interested in is
the linguistic strategies that the writer uses to put his ideas across in a way that might
convince his readers.
(1) Let us then examine lexis. (2) I would like to assert that our sentence
The old man was bloody knackered after his long trip