Курсовая с практикой на тему Analysis of modal verbs in english

Содержание:

Introduction 3
1. Modal verbs as a way to express modality 5
1.1 Modality in language 5
1.2 The system of modal verbs in English today 8
2. Analysis of modal verbs in «Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling 13
2.1 The short analysis of the book 13
2.2 Using of modal verbs in «Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling 16
Conclusion 23
Bibliography 25

Введение:

The relevance of the chosen topic is determined by the fact that the problem of expressing modality in modern linguistics is one of the leading. The English language has a complex but interesting system of modality. Today there are many materials devoted to the study of the use of modal verbs in English sentences. But until now, the modality causes a lot of controversy. In general, modality is those linguistic means that do not mean anything particular, and do not convey any information, but with the help of which a person describes not simply the facts, but his or her attitude to them.
In particular, modal verbs (one of the means of expressing modality) do not themselves describe any actions, but only define other actions as possible, desirable, necessary, etc. Modal verbs do not Express specific processes (actions), but show only the attitude of the speaker to the action, the evaluation of the action, i.e. the possibility, necessity, supposition, permission, etc. Modal verbs are a small group of special verbs that do not express an action or a state, but reflect the speaker’s attitude to the action. The usual verbs are: can, able, must, must, need (to do anything, be anywhere). The action itself is expressed in the usual infinitive verb without the particle «to», which is necessarily used together with the modal verb.
These verbs are defective verbs, as they do not have all forms, what are the other verbs. Modal verbs are never used without a semantic verb. Even if the semantic verb is not used, it is implied (for example, in short answers to questions).
There are no analogues of modal verbs in Russian. However, it is almost impossible to speak English without using modal verbs. As in the Russian language, the English system of modality reflects the point of view of the speaker. Therefore, it is often difficult for a person who speaks Russian to understand the shades of modal meanings in English. That’s why the chosen topic is relevant.
The subject of research: the modal verbs.
The object of study: the modal verbs in modern English.
The aim of this work is to analyze the use of modal verbs in English sentences in «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling.
To achieve this goal, we solve the following tasks:
1) analyze the concept of «modality”,
2) study the main features of the modal verbs in English today,
3) analyze the using of modal verbs in «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling.
We choose this material, because this book is representing modern English. To date, stories about Harry Potter and his struggle with the Dark Lord have become one of the most popular children’s books in the world.
Problems of modality in linguistics are actively studied; in particular, modality is analyzed by O. Ahmanova [1], S. Bully [3], V. Vinogradov [13], M. Epstein [5], Ch. Mair, G. Leech [10], etc.
The practical value of this work is that its results can be used in courses of practical English grammar.
The structure of the work consists of an introduction, two chapters, conclusion and list of references.

Заключение:

Modality has been studied for a long time. But since this is a complex linguistic phenomenon, the views on modality are very different. In the most general terms, modality may be defined as the expression of the speaker his feelings to what he says. As a rule, in any sentence you can find an indication of the attitude of the speaker, because people usually mark in their talk whether the reported information is reliable, or it is only an assumption, etc.
In English, the category of modality can be expressed in a variety of ways. These are morphological categories of mood, time, combinations of modal verbs with infinitive, modal words (maybe), different types of simple and subordinate clauses (imperative sentences, subordinate clauses, introduced by as if/as though, conditional). Even at the syntactic level of the English language modality can be distinguished by means of various constructions (constructions with emphatic «do» and many others).
There are 12 modal verbs in English. In the practical part of the study, we analyzed the novel «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling. This novel has long gained international fame and entered the ranks of bestsellers. The genre of the novel belongs to the fantasy genre, which is quite young in the literature. It was formed only in the early 20th century. The fantasy genre is characterized by the use of mythological motifs. So, in the books about Harry Potter we can meet fairy tales, magical animals, references to mythology, etc.
Harry lives in their family, not knowing about his origins. But the truth is revealed. He happened to be a magician. Now the boy needs to learn in a magic school called «Hogwarts». Harry goes to school and finds new friends – Ron and Hermione. He finds and enemy, Draco Malfoy. Simultaneously, strange events occur, associated with the philosopher’s stone, which can make its owner immortal.
A study conducted in the work showed that 779 modal verbs were used in the novel «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone» by J. Rowling. Among them, the most popular is the modal verb could (39%). Most often it is the verb can, which stands in the form of the Past Tense. The modal verb can makes 20% of the total number of modal verbs in the novel «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone».
Thus, the most important thing for the author of the book was to express the idea of physical and psychological possibility and impossibility of action. The characters of the novel are finding themselves in an unusual and dangerous situation. They live in a world where there is magic. But they only learn to be magicians, and therefore it is so important for them to know what is possible and what is impossible. Hence the huge number of modal verbs can and could.
The second place in popularity is held by the verbs expressing the idea of an obligatory action. These are the modal verb must (9%), the modal verb have to (3.6%), and the modal verb should (7.7%). These verbs in novel often express not ban, but desirability. Magic in the novel «Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone» is taught not through strict prohibitions or commands, but through advice and guidance.
The modal verbs may (2%) and might (7.6%) are also common in the book Harry Potter and the philosopher’s Stone». Both of them express permission and differ only in the category of time..
The modal verb need makes 6.3% of the total number of modal verbs. All other verbs are very rare: dare (1.9%), ought (0.9%), shall (0.9%), will (0.9%).

Фрагмент текста работы:

1. Modal verbs as a way to express modality

1.1 Modality in language

The significant contribution to essence research of the category «modality» from a position of philosophy, logic, psychology, linguistics was introduced by such scientists as: Aristotle [2], O. Ahmanova [1], S. Bully [3], V. Vinogradov [13], M. Epstein [5], etc.
The category «modality» allows to consider multiple, «indistinct» modes of life and judgment: possible and impossible, necessary and casual, all of it cannot be reduced to judgments of truth and lie or to the description of facts, examples, certificates [10, p. 27]. Information provided in [4, 5, 8, 13, 14] allows to draw a conclusion that the essence of category «modality» is beyond philosophy and has continuation in psychology, logic, linguistics, etc.
A. Ahmanova defines modality as the relation of the statement essence towards reality and assessment of this relation by the one who speaks [4].
Similar definition of this category we see in works of V. Vinogradov, Y. Gadzhevskoy and V. Gorpynich in [5, 7, and 13]; they claim that modal value expresses the subject’s attitude towards reality. S. Bully for the first time regarded modality as on object of the linguistic description [3].
In linguistics, the category of modality is analyzed through the subject’s view. As a rule, any statement consists of both a statement of facts and an expression of one’s attitude towards them. Any fact can be seen as desirable, undesirable, possible, impossible, etc.
The analysis of the category of modality can be found in the works of V. V. Vinogradov, who believes that in any sentence it is possible to find an indication of the attitude of the speaking person to reality [14, p. 55].
Indeed, the modality (attitude to what is said) is already at the heart of communication between people. Rarely a person is able to simply convey a message, almost always at the same time he expresses his attitude to this message, defines it as reliable, well-known, etc.
According to the usual view, the modality can be of two types:
1) objective;
2) subjective.
Subjectivity is an individual’s point of view, which depends on how each person experiences their daily life and how it affects how and what they think. For example: the driver may feel a sense of indignation due to the fact that someone cut him off. This is an example of subjective thinking.
A subjective attitude also includes things that a person loves, dislikes, fears, etc. Subjective modality is one of the categories of modality, which generally expresses the attitude of the subject of speech to the content of his statement.
Objective modality expresses the attitude of the content of someone’s statement to reality. The subjective modality is what the speaker himself thinks about the information he provides.
But it is difficult to draw a clear distinction between subjective and objective modality. Subjectivity and objectivity are not mutually exclusive phenomena. A person’s feelings, likes, dislikes and fears can also be objective.
Objectivity is any completely unbiased statement. It is not affected by the previous experience or opinions of the speaker. Subjectivity is a statement colored by the personal experience and personal opinion of the person speaking.
Modern linguistics is characterized by an interest in the role of a speaking person who implements certain communicative goals. Language is currently interesting from the point of view of pragmatics, that is, the purposes of the statement. Therefore, of all types of modality, subjective modality is of particular interest to linguists.
According to [14] modality is a set of relations and actions logically described with a predicate «can» inclusion. Any conjunction «can be» with predicates and a negative particle «no» does not allow to characterize variety of known modalities and their ratio.
In Webster’s dictionary modality is a «qualification of logical judgments according to which they differ as the claiming or disputable opportunity, impossibility, accident or need of the contents» [14]. This definition is tautological as it contains logical circulation as the possible and the necessary are often treated as modality.
M.N. Epstein in [5] provides own his definition: «modality» is defined as: (1) such means of judgment which (2) are characterized by predicate «can», or in connections with predicates «to be» (3) in an independent form and «no», (4) can be expressed both as positive, and as negative (with particle «not»). In other words, the code on which all variety of modal messages is built, consists from: «can», «be», «no» and «not».
In English, one of the obstacles to the definition of «modality» is its ambiguity. The fact is that in the English language the same means of expressing modality can often express completely different modal meanings in different contextual conditions.
Considered examples:
He might come.
In this case, the action is considered by the speaker as possible: it may well be that he will come. There’s no reason this man didn’t come. Maybe he won’t come, we don’t know that. We also do not know whether his arrival is desirable or undesirable.
Come at once!
In this example, using the exclamation form and the verb in the imperative, we understand that the action is considered necessary by the speaker. But we do not know what the interlocutor will do, whether he will come or not. It is also not known whether this action is possible or impossible, whether the addressee of the statement needs to come, or it is just the opinion of the person speaking.
I wish he had come.
In this example, the speaker makes it clear that he or she considers someone’s coming to be desirable. But it is not known whether this action is possible.
These examples show that the category of modality intersects markedly with the category of mood. But the mood associated strictly with the verb, while the modality associated with the entire proposal. So the category of the modality is broader than category of mood.
Linguists distinguish logical and linguistic modality. It is difficult to distinguish between these two types of modality, because there are no marks of it in language.
Considered example:
I am Queen of England (in fact – a fantasy-prone housewife).
From the point of view of logical modality, the judgment is false. The woman is not Queen of England. From the point of view of linguistic modality the sentence with the help of certain linguistic means (verbal forms, neutral syntactic context) is presented to the speaker as real. If she thought this was unrealistic, he would say: I wish I was Queen of England, so the interlocutor would understand that the action is desirable (but unrealistic).
The problem is that it is impossible to distinguish between a false judgment and a true one at the level of language. Therefore, only linguistic modality is studied in linguistics.
T. N. Khomutova believes that linguistic modality can be of two types [8, p. 11]:
— real;
— surreal.
The real modality, for example, is the following sentence: Today is Tuesday. This does not mean that today is really Tuesday. But this kind of statement shows that the person truly believes that today is Tuesday. It may be that today the Monday, or the speaker wants to deceive the interlocutor, but the linguistic modality in this sentence clearly shows that the speaker insists on the truth of what he says: Today is Tuesday.
The surreal modality shows that the message by the speaker himself is regarded as unreal. For example: Go and fetch my things! The speaker describes the desired state (things must be somewhere near), and the associated necessary behavior of the interlocutor (he must go and bring these things). But this kind of statement shows that the things are not where they should be.
Thus, a complete classification of all types of modality has not yet been created in linguistics. Objective and subjective modality is often singled out. Currently, a special interest is attracted by the subjective modality, that is, a person’s attitude to the facts about which he reports.