L1 vs L2 spoken modality use: Theoretical considerations – part 1

This article discusses the place of modality as a pragmalinguistic phenomenon in communication and the implications of such an investigation for contrastive discourse analysis. It proposes an alternative three-dimensional model of modality, the construction of which is possible through the addition of the affective load of an utterance as a separate variable related to speech modalisation and the assumption that dynamic modality is, in fact, correlated with deontic modality, at least on a prepositional level. The article also discusses the problems when contrastively analysing modality realisation. It highlights that the large number of cross-cultural nuances found in modal devices reflects the enormity of analytic difficulties with which a researcher is likely to be faced.