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Interpretation of Modalized Utterances Containing CAN/COULD in a Spoken Learner Corpus

Authors: Huschová Petra

Year: 2018

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	Interpretation of Modalized Utterances Containing CAN/COULD in a Spoken Learner Corpus	This paper focuses on the incidence and use of the verbs CAN and COULD in various speech acts produced by Czech learners of English, since these modal verbs are widely used in native spoken English (Biber et al. 1999; Carter and McCarthy 2006). The aim is to investigate syntactic patterns, semantic features and pragmatic functions of utterances containing CAN/COULD in the Corpus of Czech Students’ Spoken English (Ježková, 2015). The analysis attempts to identify, on the basis of context, i.e. the physical setting in which the exchange takes place, the range of speech intentions covered by these verbs. The findings indicate that both verbs are often employed as a modifying device in the expression of directives and that COULD, perceived as a remote representation of CAN, tends to convey polite suggestions and a higher degree of tentativeness. Finally, the paper discusses a possible influence of the learners’ native language and tentatively suggests potential innovations in teaching pragmatic features of modals to support learners’ communicative skills.	spoken learner corpus; modal verbs CAN/COULD; speech acts; non-native speakers of English; pragmatic functions