Attitudinal signaling involves whether the writers/speakers indicate either a positive or negative assessment of people, places, things, happenings and states of affairs.This is assumed to be much related to how consensus and agreement are achieved in discursive construction.Edwards (1997: 130-131）holds that consensus and agreement cut across three types of shared knowledge: cultural knowledge, mutual knowledge and intersubjectivity.To a large extent, MSAs as a means of modality supplementing contribute to activating the three types of shared knowledge, and in the process of activation attitudinal signaling is achieved.
First, cultural background leads to the positioning of attitude.MSAs such as on a de facto basis, legally, and strategically are culturally loaded.In LR on a de facto basis has much to do with liabilities and responsibilities; thus, this MSA is used in connection with what people should do.It could be said that this MSA activates consensus and agreement on its own.It is also true of legally.The word strategically as an MSA can be used in AW or other genres.Similarly, it has a positive sense by itself or activates consensus and agreement in the English language.Carroll (1999: 174-177）points out that discourse processing has much to do with genres in that genres provide people with general expectations regarding the way information in a discourse will be arranged.Seen in this way, on a de facto basis and legally in LR naturally remind readers of what attitudinal signaling they have.Wang (2002）refers to such usages of adverbs as projection of field, holding that the attitudes or judgments hence resulting are universally acknowledged in communication or discourse and are undeniable.This is a way of engagement, specifically a seemingly objective way of attitude expression.
Second, mutual (background）knowledge helps to position attitude implicitly.For instance, there is an introduction expressing the good market of a certain cartoon series, and following is a prediction of what would probably happen to another cartoon series being created.In this situation, probably evokes a positive attitude, or consensus and agreement.
Third, rhetorical structure shapes attitudinal positioning to some extent.Hoey (1994: 26-45）proposes a revised model: Situation + Problem + Response + Evaluation to substitute for the old model of Problem + Solution in the analysis of argumentative contexts.A rhetorical structure could then be derived from this new model: If + Then + Suggestion.With reference to this rhetorical structure it could be found that such MSAs as presumably, reasonably, and actually are widely used in many situations.Readers or listeners could easily decode the writers’ or speakers’ attitudinal signaling through this rhetorical structure; writers or speakers could encode their targets’ attitudinal signaling likewise.This is what is termed as intersubjectivity.
Dialogicality is related to the interactions between speakers/writers and audience/readers.Discourse can be more monoglossic or heteroglossic.Monoglossic discourse is generally objective or factual, while heteroglossic discourse integrates other voices and alternative viewpoints.Therefore, heteroglossic discourse is of dialogicality.In argumentative contexts other voices or alternative viewpoints are likely to be presented or mentioned in order to negotiate the writers’ or speakers’ opinions.Van Eemeren et al.(1997: 208）indicate that arguments do not occur only as monologic packages but may also be built in the interactions between someone who puts forward a standpoint and someone who challenges it.
White (2005）classifies dialogicality into two types: dialogistic expansion and contraction.Wang (2002）mentions the concept of free direct projection, arguing that it can contribute to the engagement of the writers’ or speakers’ attitude.Here, the free direct projection involves the projection of both the addresser’s and addressee’s views.Such a phenomenon appears in both dialogistic expansion and dialogistic contraction, with the difference being which area of opinion is involved in a greater percentage, the addressers’ (including the speakers’ and writers’）or addressees’ (including the audience’s and readers’）or others’.The distinction between the two types of dialogicality lies in the degree to which an utterance, by dint of the use of one or more of the engagement options, actively makes allowances for dialogically alternative positions and voices (dialogistic expansion), or alternatively, acts to challenge, fend off or restrict the scope of such (dialogistic contraction).
The linguistic resources of dialogistic expansion include epistemic modality (e.g.probably), evidentials (e.g.legally), adjuncts (e.g.in my view), hearsay (e.g.reportedly), various types of attribution (e.g.it is assumed that）and some types of rhetorical questions (e.g.we wonder why we do that).In terms of MSAs, such expressions as probably, possibly, even, supposedly, generally, to some extent, and so to speak contribute to the construction of dialogistic expansion.
In contrast, by dialogistic contraction the speakers/writers are presented as anticipating that the information about to be conveyed will have already been known by the audience/readers, or that the views about to be expressed are what the audience/readers will inevitably agree on and share with the speakers/writers.The linguistic resources for dialogistic contraction include expressions like of course, naturally, obviously, as you know, needless to say, and it goes without saying.Consider the following: