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The role of negative-modal synergies in Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species

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This chapter explores the role of negative-modal synergies in the expression of authorial stance and intersubjective positioning in Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species. As markers of stance, both negation and modality contribute to the expression of evaluation in discourse, though little attention has been paid to the co-occurrence of both types of markers. Drawing on corpus-based methods, I first identify the recurrent discourse pattern which gives rise to a semantic prosody of negative-modal meaning throughout The Origin of Species as compared to Voyage of the Beagle. Second, I discuss how this discourse pattern reflects Darwin’s positioning in the presentation of his Theory of Natural Selection. An analysis of the resources which express intersubjective positioning reveals the tension between conflicting goals in Darwin’s presentation of his new theory, namely, the expression of certainty regarding his insights and discoveries and the need to be cautious in communicating them. Thus, the various patterns of (co)-occurrence of negation, modality and personal pronouns construe specific authorial positions against the backdrop of competing scientific theories and in anticipation of readers’ potential disagreement.

References

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    1991 Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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    2010a “Things happen to arise: Natural selection, a story of success or failure?” PG Talk at theUniversity of Birmingham. April 2010.
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    2004 Introducing Functional Grammar (2nd edition). London: Arnold.
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    1991 Negation in English Speech and Writing: A Study in Variation. London: Academic Press.
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    1999 Text Worlds. Representing Conceptual Worlds in Discourse. London: Longman.
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References

  1. Beer, Gillian.
    1983/2009 Darwin’s Plots. Evolutionary Narrative in Darwin, George Eliot and Nineteenth Century Fiction (3rd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Biber, Douglas , Johansson, Stig and Leech, Geoffrey
    1999 The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bondi, Marina and Scott, Michael
    (eds) 2010 Keyness in Texts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/scl.41
     https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.41 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bybee, Joan and Fleischman, Suzanne
    (eds) 1995 Modality in Grammar and Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/tsl.32
     https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.32 [Google Scholar]
  5. Chafe, Wallace L. and Nichols, Joanna
    (eds) 1986 Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Darwin, Charles
    1839 The Voyage of the Beagle. Accessed at The Online Literature Library (literature.org) [accessed1 st May 2010] http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-voyage-of-the-beagle/ .
     [Google Scholar]
  7. 1859 The Origin of Species. London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. Accessed at The Online Literature Library (literature.org) [accessed1 st May 2010] http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/ .
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Downing, Angela and Locke, Philip
    2006 English Grammar: A University Course (2nd edition). London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Du Bois, John.
    2007 “The stance triangle.” InStancetaking in Discourse, Robert Englebretson (ed), 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/pbns.164.07du
     https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.164.07du [Google Scholar]
  10. Givón, Talmy.
    1993 English Grammar. A Functional Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Halliday, M.A.K.
    1994 An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd edition). London: Arnold.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Hidalgo-Downing, Laura.
    2000 Negation, Text Worlds and Discourse: The Pragmatics of Fiction. Stanford: Ablex.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Hoey, Michael , Mahlberg, Michaela , Stubbs, Michael and Teubert, Wolfgang.
    2007 Text, Discourse, Corpora: Theory and Analysis. London: Continuum.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Hoye, Leo.
    1997 Adverbs and Modality in English. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Jordan, Michael. P.
    1998 “The power of negation. Text, context and relevance.” Journal of Pragmatics29 (6): 705–752. doi: 10.1016/S0378‑2166(97)00086‑6
     https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(97)00086-6 [Google Scholar]
  16. Lyons, John.
    1977 Semantics (I and II). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Martin, J.R. and Veel, Robert
    (eds) 1998 Reading Science: Critical and Functional Perspectives on Discourses of Science. London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Martin, J.R. and White, P.R.R.
    2005 The Language of Evaluation. Appraisal in English. London: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9780230511910
     https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910 [Google Scholar]
  19. Myers, Greg.
    1990 Writing Biology. Texts in the Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge. The University of Wisconsin Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. 1994 “Narratives of science and nature in popularizing moleculargenetics.” InAdvances in Written Text Analysis, Malcolm Coulthard (ed), 179–190. London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Pagano, Adriana.
    1994 “Negatives in written text.” InAdvances in Written Text Analysis, Malcolm Coulthard (ed), 250–265. London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Palmer, Frank R.
    1986 Mood and Modality in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Rayson, Paul.
    2008 “Wmatrix: A web-based Corpus Processing Environment”. Lancaster: Computing Department. Lancaster University. http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/wmatrix
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Sinclair, John McH.
    1991 Corpus, Concordance, Collocation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Teubert, Wolfgang.
    2010a “Things happen to arise: Natural selection, a story of success or failure?” PG Talk at theUniversity of Birmingham. April 2010.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. 2010b Meaning, Discourse and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511770852
     https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511770852 [Google Scholar]
  27. Thompson, Geoff and Hunston, Susan.
    2000 “Evaluation: an introduction”. InEvaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Susan Hunston and Geoff Thompson (eds), 1–26. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Thompson, Geoff.
    2004 Introducing Functional Grammar (2nd edition). London: Arnold.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Tottie, Gunnel.
    1991 Negation in English Speech and Writing: A Study in Variation. London: Academic Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Werth, Paul.
    1999 Text Worlds. Representing Conceptual Worlds in Discourse. London: Longman.
     [Google Scholar]

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