chapter 2 stance adverbs qualifying a standpoint - LOT publications

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CHAPTER 2
of qualifying standpoints does so, as well, but only indirectly. This is because in
the „illocutionary‟ way of qualifying the protagonist appears making a comment
about the way the act is performed, but not directly about the commitment to
the propositional content asserted in that act.
2.4 Concluding remarks
In this chapter, I have presented the adverbs that may constitute the linguistic
realisation of each of the three ways of qualifying standpoints distinguished in
Chapter 1. I have chosen to look into the grammatical class of adverbs in order
to search for the ones that may be used as the linguistic realisation of the three
ways of qualifying standpoints. The reason for this choice is that adverbs unlike
other grammatical classes are the most detached both semantically and
syntactically from the core sentence. Of the three main classes of adverbs that
can be generally distinguished (circumstance adverbs, stance adverbs, linking
adverbs), I have narrowed down my search in the group of what Biber et al.
(1999) describe as „stance adverbs‟. The reason for this is that stance adverbs
are syntactically the most detached (compared to circumstance adverbs), and
that they add a comment that concerns the content of the utterance in which
they appear rather than suggesting a link between this content and that of other
utterances in the discourse (unlike linking adverbs). While the three-part
classification of stance adverbs that Biber et al. propose is a good starting point,
the specifics of it require certain adjustments, given the interest in
argumentative discourse and more specifically in the function that I take these
adverbs to serve as qualifiers of standpoints. By discussing relevant literature on
sentence adverbs and stance adverbs, I provided a motivation for the choices I
have made in listing certain groups of adverbs as the linguistic realisation of one
way of qualifying instead of another as well as for leaving out other groups of
adverbs. In brief:
The stance adverbs that may constitute the linguistic realisation of the
epistemic way of qualifying standpoints come from the groups of adverbs traditionally
known as „modal‟, „evidential‟ and „domain‟ adverbs. The reason for grouping
them all together instead of further distinguishing among them is that criteria
such as degree of commitment, source of evidence or field of reference, on the
basis of which these adverbs are usually distinguished, do not play a role when
it comes to the discourse effect their use has in the context of an argumentative
discussion. In all three cases, I specified the discourse effect of this way of
qualifying as emphasising the quality of the arguments that the protagonist of
the standpoint is ready to forward.
The stance adverbs that may constitute the linguistic realisation of the
evaluative way of qualifying standpoints come from a sub-group of the broad group
of „evaluative‟ adverbs, namely what are called „event-oriented‟ or „clauseoriented‟
evaluatives. It is only adverbs of this group that can be detached both
semantically and syntactically from the utterance in which they appear. I have