A discourse-pragmatic functional study of Chinese epistemic markers haoxiang “seem” and keneng “probably”

Abstract

This study investigates the discourse-pragmatic functions of the epistemic markers haoxiang “seem” and keneng “probably” in natural conversations of Mandarin Chinese. By examining 107 cases of haoxiang and 152 cases of keneng in sequential contexts, it demonstrates that both haoxiang and keneng are hedge expressions showing the speaker’s attitude of lack of commitment to the truthfulness of their own utterance, which is often driven by an intersubjective motivation. As epistemic markers, haoxiang tends to mitigate informational certainty that is based on the speaker’s personal but vague experience, while keneng is often used to mitigate the assertiveness of the speaker’s personal speculation deduced from background knowledge, general knowledge or commonly accepted logic. Further, this study claims that both haoxiang and keneng often serve as politeness devices to mitigate various Face Threatening Acts (FTAs) such as disconfirmation, disagreement or negative assessment. In either case, haoxiang and keneng are not merely epistemic markers revealing the speaker’s subjective uncertainty, but also serve as politeness markers for the purpose of intersubjectivity, and their multiple discourse-pragmatic usages are rooted in their semantic meanings, respectively.