A Study on Modal Verbs in Environmental News Discourse from the Perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics

Zhang Jiaxin

College of Foreign Studies, Jinan Universit

Abstract：

Environmental discourse has increasingly become a focus of linguistic research in recent years. It can reflect public perception, policy agendas, and collective actions through language. In discourse, modal verbs serve as crucial linguistic resources for negotiating truth, responsibility, possibility, and necessity to shape the representation of environmental issues. China Daily, as the most authoritative mainstream media in China, plays a significant role in presenting China’s environmental policies, challenges, and achievements. This study selects environmental news from China Daily, builds a small corpus, and conducts quantitative classification and statistics of modal verbs in the news texts using Antconc; this study also applies qualitative research methods to explain the contextual meanings and rhetorical effects of these modal verbs.

Key Words：

environmental discourse; modal verbs; functional linguistics