近義情態詞於學術文體之後設論述功能研究

A Metadiscourse Study of Synonymous Modals in the Academic Genre

本文考察臺灣醫學與文學領域的學術論文，對比近義情態詞「可（以）」與「能（夠）」的語意與語用功能。結果指出，兩組詞語在學術文體中皆表達中立可能性的核心語意，實現互動式的後設論述功能；但僅「可（以）」能輔助達成交互式的功能，顯見語意相近的情態詞可能發揮相異之語用效果，而不同學科的詞彙選用趨勢則暗示「可（以）」蘊含較強烈的客觀意義。本文證實語用分析是區辨語意模糊的可行途徑，研究結論期能提昇華語後設論述與情態範疇的研究視野與教學應用價值。

This paper compares the semantic and pragmatic functions between synonymous modals ke/keyi ‘can’ and neng/nengguo ‘can’ by examining academic research papers in the fields of medicine and liberal arts. The results show that, in the academic genre, both modals are most often used in the sense of neutral possibility to fulfill interactional metadiscourse functions. However, only ke/keyi ‘can’ can be used to assist the realization of interactive metadiscourse functions. This shows that modals similar in meaning can achieve different pragmatic functions. The distributions of ke/keyi ‘can’ and neng/nengguo ‘can’ in different disciplines further suggest that ke/keyi ‘can’ carries a stronger sense of objectivity. The pragmatic analysis is shown to be useful to resolve semantic ambiguity. The conclusions may provide new insight into the research and pedagogical application of Mandarin metadiscourse and modality.