‘Noticeably Better / Visibly Shaken’: The Use of Four Adverbs of High Perceivability with Meanings of Attitude

Abstract

This paper is a study of the use of four adverbs of high perceivability, manifestly, noticeably, patently and visibly (MNP&V), with expressions loaded with evaluative meanings belonging to the Appraisal category of Attitude. The paper starts with a characterization of MNP&V in terms of their meanings of manner and evidentiality and also as devices of Engagement within the Appraisal framework. Next, an analysis is carried out of the occurrences of the adverbs in the British National Corpus, in terms of the Attitude meanings present in the linguistic units of which MNP&V are constituents. The results show that these stretches of language often express Attitude, and that the distribution of the subtypes of Attitude varies across the individual adverbs. All the adverbs except noticeably are strongly associated with negative evaluation, which shows their frequent use for justifying high commitment to the truth of an undesirable proposition on the grounds that this truth is highly perceivable.