A comprehensive analysis of means of expression of epistemic modality in French-language fictional discourse

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of means of expression of epistemic modality in modern French-speaking discourse. The conceptual base of modality manifestations finds its implementation in language, through which a person convey their knowledge, competences and attitude to the world. The results of scientific research led to recognition of the trichotomous nature of the category of modality: aletic, epistemic and deontic. Epistemic modality is directly related to the speaker’s knowledge of the world, his trust or distrust of reality, and to the information provided in the utterance. The epistemic probability of the realization of the fact has such conceptual aspects as availability, predictability, possibility - impossibility (partial or total). Epistemic modality can also be objective or subjective. The objective epistemic modality is conveyed through the grammatical forms of the verb in Conditional I and II. As for subjective epistemic modality, it is found in specific lexical modalizers. In fictional discourse, epistemic modality occurs in communicative situations that manifest themselves on a larger scale, such as context. In the trichotomous division “utterance - situation - context”, each part has its own role and reflects the author’s idea depending on the general content. The means of implementing the author’s ideas, which are modally marked, are analyzed from the point of view of the presence in them of specific modalizers, grammatical forms of verbs in Conditional mode I and II, given the role of the situation and context. Grammatical and lexical language means, through which the speaker’s attitude to reality is reproduced, are not the same in content, they can be divided into four main groups depending on the degree of confidence - uncertainty, probability - improbability. In fictional discourse, through these means, the author reveals his attitude to reality, to the world, as well as the attitude of the characters of the work to them. For this purpose, the writer uses a whole arsenal of modal markers with the value of confidence - uncertainty, probability - improbability.