Evidentiality In Russian And English Ras: A Comparative Study
Abstract
The paper is devoted to a comparative study of evidential constructions in RAs (research articles) in English and Russian. Evidentiality in this paper is regarded as a pragmatic category that manifests itself in both English and Russian in a variety of lexical means indexing a source of information. From the range of lexical means that function as evidentials, only the constructions that include verbs in both of the two languages are analysed. The paper presents some findings in the differences and similarities in evidentials occurrences in research articles determined by discourse factors and stylistic features of both English and Russian. Duplication of evidential constructions within a sentence and in adjacent sentences, semantics of evidential verbs, the phenomenon of extending the modus perspective and other features of evidentials in English and Russian RAs are considered. A conclusion is made that evidentials in Russian and English academic discourse have both similarities and differences that result from a variety of factors.
Keywords: Academic discourse, evidentials, research papers
Introduction
Although evidentiality has already been covered in linguistic literature in various aspects (Aijmer 2009; Cornillie 2009; Carretero & Zamorano-Mansilla, 2013; Fox, 2001; Ifantidou 2001; Mushin, 2001; Whitt, 2011), works on discourse aspects of this phenomenon are still rare. Chafe (1986) was probably the first among linguists who investigated differences between spoken and written English in the expression of evidentiality and studied the proportion of evidential markers in conversational English and academic writing. Fetzer and Oishi (2014) contributed to the description of evidentials occurring in different discourse domains (including academic discourse), focusing on their anaphoric and cataphoric use. Dehkordi and Allami (2012) proposed a taxonomy of evidentials used in academic writing and classified them into categories. Alonso Almeida and Adams (2012) focused on sentential evidentials, i.e. evidentials affecting a complete proposition. They showed that this type of evidentials are more frequent in English than in Spanish. Yang (2014) investigated evidentiality from the metadiscourse perspective in a number of English research articles of applied linguistics, and showed how different evidential types and linguistic realizations function as metadiscourse devices, and described roles they play in expressing persuasion. A number of issues related to the use of evidentials in academic texts in Russian were touched upon in Grichin and Demeshkina (2016). An attempt to reveal the author’s intention in a research article based on evidential markers was made by Grichin (2019).
Evidentiality in English is not a grammatical category and is always optional. It is manifested semantically or pragmatically and is expressed by a variety of expressions, which index the source of information. The linguistic forms of evidentiality include cognitive verbs such as or, adverbs with inferential meaning (like), verbs referring to senses (like) or report (like) in the form of predicate constructions. Evidential forms may also include verbs that convey unspecified evidential basis (), modal verbs and an open set of non-linguistic devices, such as implicitly represented references, etc.
Problem Statement
Because Russian has no grammatical category of evidentiality either, it is impossible to carry out comparative analyses of the two languages in terms of structural characteristics of evidentiality. This makes it necessary to abstract from the structural features of evidentiality in each of the languages and focus on their occurrences in discourse.
A comparison of the methods of nomination and functioning of the subjects of evidentiality (sources of information) in English and Russian research papers cannot reveal any significant differences because they follow a universal pattern in any language. The existing insignificant differences are due to the structure of the compared languages. For example, the fact that gender is not an inflectional category in English, the gender of the author (as a source of information) can often be determined only from the context (Wade, 1992, p. 45), while in Russian this category is expressed grammatically.
Research Questions
Comparing the occurrences of evidentials in English and Russian RAs can provide answers to a number of questions. First, it can reveal some peculiarities of the compared languages related to the variety of evidential constructions both within a sentence and in adjacent sentences. Another important issue is the extent of modus perspective and the ways of expressing it. Verb phasing in evidential constructions is one more aspect of evidentials functioning that has not been covered in linguistic literature yet.
Purpose of the Study
The present paper describes an attempt to conduct a comparative study of evidential constructions occurring in research articles published in English and Russian. It is also aimed at determining parameters that can distinguish similarities and differences in the use of evidentials in these languages.
Research Methods
The method of comparative analysis was used to identify the features of evidentials in the compared languages. The descriptive method with such techniques as observation and interpretation made it possible to explain the similarities and differences in the use of evidentials. Complex analysis, which consists in combining various methods and research techniques, contributed to determining the role of evidentiality in RAs.
Findings
Duplication of evidential constructions
Even a quick glance at the occurrence of evidential constructions in research papers in English is enough to notice some features that they share with evidentials in the Russian language. First of all, it is a phenomenon that can be called duplication of evidential constructions. It consists in repeating evidential constructions or verbs with evidential meaning in two consecutive sentences. They can be repeated as they are or with some minimum transformations, for example:; . (David J. Chalmers. The Nature of Epistemic Space);. (David J. Chalmers. The Nature of Epistemic Space);. <…> (Michael Thompson. Modals in English language teaching).
A variety of evidential constructions duplication is when the predicate of some sentence in a sequence becomes negative, as in the following example:. (David J. Buller. Confirmation and the Computational Paradigm).
Another type of evidential constructions duplication is the use of synonymous evidential constructions in the subsequent sentences.… (Solang Moras. Teaching Vocabulary To Advanced Students);. (Michael Thompson. Modals in English language teaching). A variation of the duplication is when words of the same root are repeated: (Martin Fowler. The New Methodology).
Sometimes parts of evidential constructions can be repeated. Duplication of a possessive pronoun with related nouns can be observed in the following example: (Robert Woods. Did Montaigne Love His Children?).
Observations show that such anaphoric use of evidential constructions occurs if the source of information is represented by just one author. Such repetition does not occur if the source of information in the subsequent sentence is new.” (Dimitros Thanasoulas. What is Learner Autonomy and How Can it be Fostered).
On the contrary, RAs in Russian demonstrate a variety of evidential constructions when indexing a source of information.. (Translation form Russian).
Such a repetition of evidential constructions in English RAs can be explained by the principle of shifting, which consists in limiting the variety of evidentials in order to mark (or determine) unified speech behavior of the author within a limited stretch of text. Shifting consists not only in changing the source of information, but is accompanied by employing a different evidential construction to index it. Thus, English scientific language, in contrast to Russian, is characterized by a more distinct shift marking.
In Russian RAs, the shifting is marked by other means, namely the words like(), (), and various discourse markers, which makes narration flowing: ( – Translation from Russian).
Extending the modus perspective
Another feature of evidential constructions in RAs in English is extension of the modus perspective of a sentence semantic structure. It occurs by including another modus, mainly the modus of speech, in the sentence. When the modus of speech is added, the former modus becomes the dictum of the sentence:.; (Dupré, J. Review of Brandon's "Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology"); (Don Dedrick. Сolour categorization and the space between perception and language).
A combination of discourse markers and evidential constructions is also rather frequent: (Dimitros Thanasoulas. What is Learner Autonomy and How Can it be Fostered).
The phenomenon of extending the modus perspective in Russian RAs takes place mainly in cases when a qualifying subject is introduced into a sentence: – Translated from Russian).
A characteristic feature of modus perspective extension in Russian RAs is inclusion of an adverbial participle in the evidential construction:( – Translated form Russian).
This feature of evidentiality in English RAs can be accounted for by the authors’ intent to shift the readers’ attention from one source of information to another and makes the academic discourse of English similar to conversational discourse in this respect. The tendency of evidential constructions in Russian RAs towards employing various evidential verbs may imply a different approach in shift marking.
Evidential verb phases
Another feature of evidentiality that manifests itself differently in English and Russian RAs consists in how it is connected with the expression of verb phasing in evidential constructions. Verb phasing is the meaning of a phase expressed in the semantic structure of verbs. Such meanings include commencing, proceeding and completing of an action. The corpus of RAs in English demonstrates regular co-occurrences of evidential and phase verbs: (Andy Clark & David Chalmers. The extended Mind); one particular habit of thought which market these colonial census takers and that still characterizes many of those who analyze history or recent foreign policy. (Gregory Crane. The Case of Plataia). (David J. Buller. Confirmation and the Computational Paradigm).
It is noteworthy that most of the English verbs acting as evidentials and somehow related to the expression of a phase of an action actualize only one aspect of a phase, namely the proceeding of an action (not its beginning or end). It seems that the expression of a phase in the meaning of verbs in evidential constructions serves the purpose of shifting also, but this shifting is of a peculiar kind. It is not a shift to a new source of information, but a return the previous one, its reiteration. The pragmatic meaning of this phenomenon is focusing the attention of the reader on a particular object or its properties.
The corpus of the Russian RAs shows that the reiteration of the source of information described above is expressed lexically by means of the words such asand the like , and discourse markers expressing text coherence and cohesion. ( ... – Translated form Russian).
Cognitive verbs in evidential constructions, which include a phase meaning, do not require the use of verbs of speech, which is a feature of evidentials in English RAs: (– translated from Russian).
Conclusion
The comparison of evidential constructions in English and Russian RAs reveals some differences and similarities in their use. When the same source of information is indexed, evidentials in English RAs tend to be duplicated, which can be expressed by different variations of such duplication. In Russian RAs, when indexing the same source of information, evidentials tend not to duplicate, but to vary. The study of modus perspective in both English and Russian RAs shows that these languages have much in common in its expression, though English academic language resembles conversational discourse in this respect. Phasing though evidentials in English is a means of returning the previous source of information, its reiteration. Evidential constructions in Russian RAs tend not to include verbs with a phasing meaning in evidential constructions, phasing is expressed lexically by introducing more evidentials.
References
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Grichin, S., & Ulyanova, O. (2021). Evidentiality In Russian And English Ras: A Comparative Study. In O. Kolmakova, O. Boginskaya, & S. Grichin (Eds.), Language and Technology in the Interdisciplinary Paradigm, vol 118. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 213-220). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.12.27