Dynamic modality and its relation to politeness in Late Modern English women’sinstructive writing
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17851/2237-2083.33.4.7-32Keywords:
dynamic modality, (im)politeness, 19th-century women’s writing, recipe texts, corpus linguistics, gendered language useAbstract
This study examines how dynamic modality, specifically the auxiliaries may and can, conveys politeness in nineteenth-century English instructive prose. A typology and the semantics of modality in English have been widely described, with particular emphasis on epistemic and deontic readings (Bybee et al., 1994; Coates, 1983; Hoye, 1997; Nuyts, 2016; Palmer, 2001; van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998). Within politeness research, modals figure centrally among mitigation strategies in requests and directives (Blum-Kulka & Olshtain, 1984; Brown & Levinson, 1987; Leech, 2014). In instructive and household-hygiene genres, especially recipe books and manuals, work in the history of discourse shows how gendered and period-specific conventions condition grammatical and relational choices (Alonso-Almeida, 2013; Taavitsainen & Pahta, 2011). In contrast to the prevailing focus on epistemic and deontic meanings, dynamic modality (e.g., can, may as resources of ability/possibility used to soften directives) remains comparatively underexplored in women’s historical writing, a gap the present study addresses. It uses query-driven concordance searches and normalised frequency profiling, followed by full-context manual reading to disambiguate dynamic, deontic, and epistemic uses in the Corpus of Women’s Instructive Texts in English, 1800–1899 (CoWITE19). It finds that may and can routinely soften directives by framing options and capacities rather than commands; in this corpus, can often presents circumstantial ability and procedural affordances, whereas may licenses alternatives for the reader. It concludes that dynamic modals function as a subtle yet powerful resource that enables women authors to manage authorial persona, maintain politeness, and instruct effectively within nineteenth-century social constraints.
References
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F. Stance matrices licensing that–clauses and interpersonal meaning in nineteenth–century women’s instructive writing in English. Language Value, Castelló de la Plana, v. 16, n. 1, p. 116-144, 2023. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6035/languagev.7254.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F. Genre conventions in English recipes 1600–1800. In: DI MEO, M.; PENNELL, S. (orgs.). Reading and writing recipe books 1550–1800. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013. p. 68-92.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F.; ÁLVAREZ-GIL, F. Impoliteness in women’s specialised writing in seventeenth-century English. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Amsterdam, v. 22, n. 1, p. 121–152, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.20004.alo.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F. Los modales dinámicos en textos de historia en lengua inglesa (1700–1900). Revista Signos, Valparaíso, v. 54, n. 106, p. 529-548, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-09342021000200529.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F. ‘As the coke and the phisicion wyll agre & deuyse’: Language cues and potential users of Medieval English medical and culinary recipes. In: GRIFFIN, C.; RYLEY, H. (orgs.). Recipes and book culture in England, 1350–1600. (Exeter Studies in Medieval Europe). Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2024. p. 21-41.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F. Gender-based evidence of modalisation and modulation strategies in nineteenth-century institution English recipes. In: BROOKES, G.; MCENERY, T. (orgs.). Historical medical discourse: corpus linguistic perspectives. London: Routledge, (no prelo).
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F.; ÁLVAREZ-GIL, F.; ORTEGA-BARRERA, I.; QUINTANA-TOLEDO, E.; BATOR, M.; DE LA CRUZ CABANILLAS, I.; SÁNCHEZ-CUERVO, M. E.; GÓMEZ, M. J. Corpus of Women’s Instructive Texts in English (1800–1899) (CoWITE19). Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2025. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15097949.
ALONSO-ALMEIDA, F.; CRUZ-GARCÍA, L. The value of may as an evidential and epistemic marker in English medical abstracts. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, Poznań, v. 46, n. 3, p. 59-73, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/v10121-010-0004-7.
BIBER, D.; CONRAD, S.; LEECH, G. Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Longman, 2002.
BIBER, D.; JOHANSSON, S.; LEECH, G.; CONRAD, S.; FINEGAN, E. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow: Longman, 1999.
BLUM-KULKA, S.; OLSHTAIN, E. Requests and apologies: A cross-cultural study of speech act realisation patterns (CCSARP). Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 5, n. 3, p. 196-213, 1984.
BOYE, K. Epistemic meaning: A crosslinguistic and functional-cognitive study. Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2012.
BROWN, P.; LEVINSON, S. C. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
BYBEE, J. L.; FLEISCHMAN, S. (eds.). Modality in grammar and discourse. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1995. DOI: 10.1075/tsl.32.
BYBEE, J.; PERKINS, R.; PAGLIUCA, W. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
CAMPBELL, H. In foreign kitchens: With choice recipes from England, France, Germany, Italy, and the North. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1893.
COATES, J. The semantics of the modal auxiliaries. London: Croom Helm, 1983.
CULPEPER, J. Towards an anatomy of impoliteness. Journal of Pragmatics, Amsterdam, v. 25, n. 3,
p. 349-367, 1996. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(95)00014-3.
CULPEPER, J. Reflections on impoliteness, relational work, and power. In: BOUSFIELD, D.; LOCHER, M. A. (org.). Impoliteness in language: Studies on its interplay with power in theory and practice. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2008. p. 17-44.
CULPEPER, J. Impoliteness: Using language to cause offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975752.
CURZAN, A. Fixing English: Prescriptivism and language history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
DEPRAETERE, I. Categorization principles of modal meaning categories: A critical assessment. Anglophonia, [s. l.], n. 19, 2015. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/anglophonia.476.
DE PRAETERE, I.; REED, S. Towards a more explicit taxonomy of root possibility in English. English Language and Linguistics, Cambridge, v. 15, n. 1, p. 1-29, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674310000340.
ECKERT, P.; MCCONNELL-GINET, S. New generalizations and explanations in language and gender research. Language in Society, Cambridge, v. 28, n. 2, p. 185-201, 1999. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404599002031.
FAIRCLOUGH, N. Language and power. 3. ed. London: Routledge, 2014.
FITZPATRICK, E. Politeness in nineteenth-century women’s writing: A historical pragmatics approach. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
FLEISCHMAN, S. Politeness, power, and women’s language: Rethinking study in context. Language in Society, Cambridge, v. 28, n. 2, p. 273-290, 1999. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047404599002023.
FRAWLEY, W. Linguistic semantics. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1992.
GIANOLLO, C. Evolution of negative dependencies. In: DÉPREZ, V.; ESPINAL, M. T. (eds.). The Oxford handbook of negation. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. p. 546-562. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198830528.013.31.
GIL-SALOM, L.; SOLER-MONREAL, C. Interacting with the reader: Politeness strategies in engineering research article discussions. International Journal of English Studies, Murcia, v. 9, n. 3, p. 175-189, 2009. DOI: https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.9.3.99581.
GISBORNE, N. Dynamic modality. Skase Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, [s. l.], v. 4, n. 2, p. 44-61, 2007.
HALLIDAY, M. A. K.; MATTHIESSEN, C. M. I. M. Halliday’s introduction to functional grammar. 4. ed. London; New York: Routledge, 2014. DOI: 10.4324/9780203783771
HILPERT, M.; CAPPELLE, B.; DEPRAETERE, I. Modality in diachronic construction grammar: Long-standing questions, new perspectives. In: HILPERT, M.; CAPPELLE, B.; DEPRAETERE, I. (orgs.). Modality and diachronic construction grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2021. p. 1-11.
HOYE, L. F. Adverbs and modality in English. London: Longman, 1997.
HUDDLESTON, R.; PULLUM, G. K. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
HYLAND, K. Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. London: Continuum, 2005.
JUCKER, A. H. Politeness in the history of English: From the Middle Ages to the present day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
KRATZER, A. The notional category of modality. In: EIKMEYER, H. J.; RIESER, H. (eds.). Words, worlds, and contexts: New approaches in word semantics. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1981. p. 38-74.
LAKOFF, R. T. Language and woman’s place. New York: Harper & Row, 1975.
LAKOFF, R. T. The logic of politeness: Or minding your p’s and q’s. In: CORUM, C.; SMITH-STARK, T. C.; WEISER, A. (org.). Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society, 1973. p. 292-305.
LAKOFF, R. T. Introduction: Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness. In: LAKOFF, R. T.; IDE, S. (org.). Broadening the horizon of linguistic politeness. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2005. p. 1-20.
LAVE, J.; WENGER, E. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
LEAPER, C.; ROBNETT, R. D. Women are more likely than men to use tentative language, aren’t they? A meta-analysis testing for gender differences and moderators. Psychology of Women Quarterly, Thousand Oaks, v. 35, n. 1, p. 129-142, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0361684310392728.
LEECH, G. The pragmatics of politeness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
LYONS, J. Semantics. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
MILLS, S. Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
MILLS, S. Gender and impoliteness. Journal of Politeness Research, Berlin, v. 1, n. 2, p. 263-280, 2005. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.2.263.
MYERS, G. The pragmatics of politeness in scientific articles. Applied Linguistics, Oxford, v. 10, n. 1, p. 1-35, 1989. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/10.1.1.
NUYTS, J. Epistemic modality, language, and conceptualization: A cognitive–pragmatic perspective. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2001.
NUYTS, J. (org.). The Oxford handbook of modality and mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
ORTEGA-BARRERA, I. Aubergine or eggplant? Interculturality in 19th-century recipe books written by women. In: ALMEIDA, F. (ed.). Insights in (inter)cultural and cross-cultural communication. Valencia: Tirant lo Blanch, 2024. p. 305-324.
PALMER, F. R. Mood and modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
PALMER, F. R. Mood and modality. 2. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
PETERS, C. Women in early modern Britain, 1450–1640. London: Red Globe Press, 2003.
PIETRANDREA, P. The conceptual structure of irreality: A focus on non-exclusion-of-factuality as a conceptual and a linguistic category. Language Sciences, v. 34, p. 184-199, 2012.
PORTNER, P. Mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
SCHNEIDER, K. P. ‘No problem, you’re welcome, anytime’: Responding to thanks in Ireland, England, and the U.S.A. In: BARRON, A.; SCHNEIDER, K. P. (eds.). The pragmatics of Irish English. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2005. p. 101-139. (Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs, 164).
SWEETSER, E. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
TAAVITSAINEN, I.; PAHTA, P. Medical writing in Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
THOMPSON, G.; THETELA, P. The sound of one hand clapping: The management of interaction in written discourse. Text: Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse, Berlin, v. 15, n. 1, p. 103-127, 1995. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1995.15.1.103.
VAN DER AUWERA, J.; PLUNGIAN, V. A. Modality’s semantic map. Linguistic Typology, Berlin, v. 2, p. 79-124, 1998.
VETTER, B. Multi-track dispositions. The Philosophical Quarterly, Oxford, v. 63, n. 251, p. 330-352, 2013. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9213.12018.
VETTER, B. Potentiality: From dispositions to modality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
VETTER, B. The modality of potentiality. In: HEINE, B.; NARROG, H. (orgs.). The Oxford handbook of modality and mood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. p. 88-104.
WATTS, R. J. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
WERLICH, E. A text grammar of English. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1976.
