Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Rationale of the Thesis

Modality is a complicated topic abundant in literature for one of its researchobjectives is on human thought and emotions. The research content is both abstract andcomplicated. Chinese scholar Li Ji’an (1999) once said that “to explore the meanings ofmodality is to delve into human thought, it renders us into a fuzzy situation.” Perkins(1983) also made the same statement by stating that to make a research on modality issomething like wondering in an amazing river of thought. One key component we canperceive from their utterances is that the semantic modality is closely connected withhuman thought. With the rise of Cognitive Linguistics (shortened as CL), Wang Yin(2007) summarizes the production of language into the following formular：reality ----cognition ---- language. As the formular itself suggests, language is the product ofcognition by interacting with the external world, resulting in image schema. Thought, asa kind of cognitive process, is closely tied to interaction with the outside world.According to Langacker (1991), all grammatical structures are meaningful, butschematic as well (Oakley, T, 2009). Therefore, the study of modal meanings can berealized from the perspective of image schema.

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1.2 Objectives of the Thesis

Taking into consideration the unsatisfactory situation of the previous studies, thisthesis aims to conduct an empirical study on the acquisition of English modal verbs byChinese English Learners, to be more specific, the present study has the following threeobjectives:First, to examine whether students’ English proficiency has an influence on theirperformance on English modal meaning acquisition. Second, to examine the acquisitional sequences of deontic modality and epistemicmodality to see whether there is a degree of acquisitional difficulty between them.Third, to examine the causes of the participants’ misuses from the perspective ofFIS+and PFIS+.In sum, this essay attempts to account for students’ acquisitional features of EMVsfrom the perspective of FIS+and PFIS+with the purpose of filling the gap between theprevious studies and attempting to provide some suggestions for modal verbs instructionand learning by depicting a vivid and clear picture for deontic modal meaning andepistemic modal meaning in terms of force image schema. In view of this, threeresearch questions are proposed in the following.Question one: What is the relationship between the acquisition of EMVs byChinese English Learners and their English proficiency?Question two: What is the degree of difficulty in the acquisition of deonticmodality and epistemic modality?Question three: What are the causes for errors made by Chinese English Learnersin the acquisition of English modal meanings?

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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Though abundant in literature about the research of modality, linguists fromvarious schools have not yet reached a consonance about the definition of modality.As Palmer (2001, p. 6) states “attempts to define the relevant area of meaning formodality have proved illusive and esoteric to apply with any degree of accuracy, andhave not led to clearly distinct categories.”Lyons (1977, pp. 452-823) refers to modality as “the speaker’s opinion or attitudetowards the proposition that the sentence expresses or the situation that the propositiondescribes”. Using von Wright’s terms, Lyons distinguishes two kinds of modality:epistemic modality and deontic modality, the former has something to do with the truthof proposition while the latter is related to the necessity or possibility of acts performedby morally responsible agents.Quirk et al. (1985) define modality as the manner in which the meaning of a clauseis qualified to such an extent as to reflect speaker’s judgment of the likelihood of theproposition it expresses as being true. Saeed (2000, p. 125) thinks modality is animportant semantic category operating at the sentence level and defines it as “a coverterm for devices which allow speakers to express varying degrees of commitment to orbelief in a proposition”.

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2.2 Previous Study on the Meaning of Modal Verbs

Von Wright (1951) classifies three kinds of modality from the perspective of modallogic. One is epistemic modality which can be paraphrased as “it is believed that” or “itis known that”; the second type is deontic modality which can be described as “it isobligatory to” and dynamic modality meaning “X is willing to”.Enlightened by Von Wright’s (1951) description about modality, Lyons (1977) putshis emphasis on discussing epistemic modality and deontic modality, especially theformer, which in Lyon’s terms, shows both objective and subjective features dependingon the propositional content known or believed. He illustrates his opinion with thefollowing example: If we assume that this utterance is made by the speaker based on his subjectivejudgment, it indicates the uncertainty of the speaker’s commitment and this subjectivitywould become more obvious if it is followed by “but I doubt it”. But If we put thisutterance in a community which consists of ninety people, including Alfred, amongthem thirty people are married, but we are ignorant of knowing exactly which of themare married and which are not, under this circumstance, the utterance above is anobjective fact.

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Chapter Three Theoretical Basis....22

3.1 Image Schema Revisited.......22

3.2 Force Image Schema.......24

3.3 Force Image Schema......29

3.4 Prototype Theory.......33

3.5 PFIS+........35

3.6 Summary........36

Chapter Four Methodology.........37

4.1 Research Questions.........37

4.2 Research Design.........37

4.2.1 Participants.........37

4.2.2 Instruments.........38

4.2.3 Procedures.........38

Chapter Five Results and Discussion.........40

5.1 Results.........40

5.2 Discussion.........41

Chapter Five Results and Discussion

5.1 Results

The total score of Multiple Choice is 20 and the number of the titles is 20 as wellwith each title has only one appropriate choice, therefore, each title values 1 point. If theparticipants choose the most appropriate answer, then they would get 1 point, otherwise,they get none. This part, consisting of epistemic modality and deontic modality, aims toinvestigate whether students have mastered all the modal meanings of English modalverbs. Adopting Gap-filling form, this part not only further reveals how well the studentshave learned English modal verbs but also provides a channel for us to know whichmodal verbs students prefer to use when the same modal meaning can be expressed bymany modal verbs. In Gap-filling part, epistemic modality and deontic modality ofcould, can, may, might are included as well. The total score is 40 with 20 gaps in total.Each gap values 2 points. If the students fill each gap with an appropriate answer, thenthey win 2 points, or they get none.

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Conclusion

This thesis is dedicated to discovering the meaning acquisition of English modalverbs, based on previous studies on this issue. It points out the gaps between this paperand the previous ones and puts forwards three research questions in an attempt to fillthese gaps. The first research question is to examine what kind of relationship existsbetween the participants’ English proficiency and their acquisition of English modalverbs; the second research question is to study the acquisitional sequence of epistemicmeaning, deontic meaning; the last one is to investigate what kind of mistakes theparticipants make and how can they be interpreted from the perspective of FIS+andPFIS+in CL. In line with the three research questions, we obtain the following findings:The first finding is the answer to the first research question regarding therelationship between the participants’ English proficiency and their performances on theacquisition of English modal verbs. According to the statistics we have collected fromthe empirical study, the author finds that, generally speaking, they are positivelycorrelated with each other, that is to say, the higher the participants’ English proficiency,the better they have acquired EMVs. Possible reasons for this result may be that higherEnglish level might also be accompanied by more distinct force image schema sincethey have more chances of exposure to EMVs and interact with the external world on amore frequent basis, which are vital to the understanding of English modal verbs fromthe view of FIS+in CL.

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Reference (omitted)