A Cross Systemic Functional Grammatical Analysis of Modality in the English Scientific Abstracts of the Researchers in Social Sciences
CUKUROVA 17th INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC RESEARCHES CONFERENCE, Adana, Türkiye, 10 - 12 Temmuz 2026, ss.928-939, (Tam Metin Bildiri)
- Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
- Basıldığı Şehir: Adana
- Basıldığı Ülke: Türkiye
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.928-939
- Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study investigates modality patterns in English scientific abstracts written by the Turkish and the international researchers in social sciences. Abstracts are set to be representative of scientific discourse. In discourse, modality refers to how a speaker or writer expresses his/her attitude, opinion, belief or commitment to the truth of a statement. Therefore, it can be said to reflect subjectivity, determining whether something is stated as an absolute truth, a possibility, a moral duty, or a personal belief through degrees of certainty, obligation, or permission. The study discusses the data collected from the abstracts on language studies from the scientific articles randomly chosen between 2020-2025. The study is limited by 10 English abstracts of Turkish and 10 English abstracts of international researchers. The data are analyzed by Lancsbox. The study adopts Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar (1994) as the theoretical framework for classifying modality types. The study discusses if there is a difference between the abstracts of Turkish and international researchers in terms of the types of modality. Additionally, it discusses how well modalization (probability and usuality) and modulation (obligation and inclination) have been used by the researchers. Last but not least, the study analyzes the frequency of the use of modals, such as may, might, could, probably, certainly for probability; always, usually, often, sometimes, rarely for usuality; must, should, have to, ought to for obligation; will, would, willing to, keen to for inclination are reflected in the scientific abstracts. The findings of the study are of a great help for scholars in showing their subjectivity appropriately layered by modality. By this way, an overall idea of the articles may be reflected by modality supported discourse.
Keywords: Modality, Modality types, Systemic Functional Grammar, Corpus linguistics