Modality Markers and Shifting Genre Conventions in Dictionary Definitions

Abstract

The paper analyses the entries of Oxford Fowler’s Modern English Usage (2004), building up on our previous research on changes in modality of lexicographic discourse. It is argued that its prescriptivist stance has been toned down not only by the preference for genre-specific epistemic modality markers instead of deontic modality markers, but also by employing in definitions a wide scope of common epistemic modality markers related to probability, certainty or uncertainty as regards the validity of the proposition. The prevailing defining vocabulary is now that of opinion or advice. Recommendations on usage also often refer to register variables singled out by systemic-functional linguistics: tenor (degrees of formality signalled by labels like formal, informal, and by pragmatic labels: offensive, affectionate, etc.), field (legal language, marketing, etc.) and marking the type of discourse and mode (spoken – written). Register variables split the notion of Standard English further and qualify prescriptive statements on usage, making them fully valid for a particular register only. Thus, the analysis reveals a broad range of both non-specific and genre-specific low modality markers employed in the texts of dictionary entries as new genre conventions of both content and form. It shows that these conventions are historically relative and that low modality is a new mode of address to dictionary users.