Abstract
AbstractThis paper analyses the adverbscertainlyandgenerallyas stancetaking markers. These adverbial devices are said to show authorial stance and to communicate the author’s commitment or detachment towards the information presented, and so they are classified as epistemic adverbs (Alonso-Almeida 2015). For this study, I have selected a corpus of history texts from the Modern English period (1700-1900), as compiled inThe Corpus of History English Texts(Crespo and Moskowich 2015), on the basis of which the two evidential adverbs are examined using computer corpus tools, although manual inspection is also employed to assess the meaning of the items in context. The findings suggest that, in this type of scientific articles, the two adverbs are used with differing pragmatic functions, in the case ofcertainlyit functions mostly as a booster and, in the specific case ofgenerally, its use seems to primarily suggest a hedging purpose (Hyland 2005a).
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
