A study on syntactic features of linguistic means expressing modality in English-medium research articles
Abstract
The present paper aims to shed light upon the employment of modality markers in the English-medium research articles in the discipline of applied linguistics. The study set out to investigate the syntactic features of the means denoting modality across two groups of authors – the international researchers and the Vietnamese researchers. Data were 30 research papers from English for Specific Purposes and VNU Journal of Foreign Studies. The findings indicate that the most common markers employed in both groups are modal verbs, followed by verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns, in a descending order. Comparatively, the international articles present a wider range of expressions while those by the Vietnamese authors reveal a predominance of modal verbs. It is expected that issues unfolded from this study could theoretically contribute to a better understanding of modality in research papers in general and in those in the discipline of applied linguistics in particular; practically, the study is also hoped to promote the Vietnamese researchers in their endeavor to join the international academic community.