Is the textual type of News-related Blogs (NBs) to be bulked under one single category or, in turn, are NBs to be diversified among themselves? And if so, how? More specifically, to what extent does the professional identity of the blogger count in shaping the posts? Do texts posted by professional journalists voicing their media institution differ from those written by independent / freelance professionals or again by citizen-journalism bloggers? Most importantly for the present research, considering that in news-related publications one linguistic aspect diversifying reports from features and commentaries is the presence or absence of modalized utterances, can modality be of help in answering the questions above? How far are modalized constructs present in NBs? Indeed, one might be tempted to hastily conclude that modal verbs in particular are prevalent, but only a deep-down analysis will lead to evidence-grounded conclusions. To address these questions, the present paper investigates a Corpus of News-related Blogs focusing on an international news event occurred in August 2008, that is, the Russo-Georgian war in the Caucasus region. The quantitative study is integrated by an analysis of the corpus data, with special reference to the central modals will/would, can/could, must/should, and may/might. While it is not my aim to discuss the semantic and pragmatic value of each and every modal occurrence, the study primarily intends to foreground those aspects that may help verifying how far, within the superordinate category of NBs, language – and specifically modality – can be diversified on account of the differing professional backgrounds of the bloggers.
Modal verbs in news-related blogs: When the blogger counts
FACCHINETTI, Roberta
2013-01-01
Abstract
Is the textual type of News-related Blogs (NBs) to be bulked under one single category or, in turn, are NBs to be diversified among themselves? And if so, how? More specifically, to what extent does the professional identity of the blogger count in shaping the posts? Do texts posted by professional journalists voicing their media institution differ from those written by independent / freelance professionals or again by citizen-journalism bloggers? Most importantly for the present research, considering that in news-related publications one linguistic aspect diversifying reports from features and commentaries is the presence or absence of modalized utterances, can modality be of help in answering the questions above? How far are modalized constructs present in NBs? Indeed, one might be tempted to hastily conclude that modal verbs in particular are prevalent, but only a deep-down analysis will lead to evidence-grounded conclusions. To address these questions, the present paper investigates a Corpus of News-related Blogs focusing on an international news event occurred in August 2008, that is, the Russo-Georgian war in the Caucasus region. The quantitative study is integrated by an analysis of the corpus data, with special reference to the central modals will/would, can/could, must/should, and may/might. While it is not my aim to discuss the semantic and pragmatic value of each and every modal occurrence, the study primarily intends to foreground those aspects that may help verifying how far, within the superordinate category of NBs, language – and specifically modality – can be diversified on account of the differing professional backgrounds of the bloggers.
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