A Corpus-Based Study Of Modal Verbs In Academic Writing Of English Native Speakers And Saudis

Arab World English Journal www.awej.org
ISSN: 2229-9327
Arab World English Journal (January 2020) Theses ID 243 Pp. 1-71
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/th.243
A corpus-based study of modal verbs in academic writing of English native speakers and
Saudis
Eman Saleh Akeel
English Language Institute
University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Author: Eman Saleh Akeel
Thesis Title: A corpus-based study of modal verbs in academic writing of English native
speakers and Saudis
Subject/major: Applied Linguistics
Institution: University of Reading, Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics
Year of award: 2014
Degree: MA
Supervisor: Dr. Sylvia Jaworska
Keywords: academic writing, corpus, English native speakers, frequency, function, modal verbs,
Saudi learners
Abstract
This study is a corpus-based analysis of modal verbs in the English academic writing of Saudi
Arabian advanced learners whose mother tongue is Arabic. The aim of this study is to develop a
better understanding of the uses of modal verbs in academic writing by non-native speakers of
English as compared with native speakers. The writing analyzed is a corpus created from Master of
Arts (MA) dissertations. The study compares the use of modal verbs by these writers with that of
the writing of native speakers of British English using the British Academic Written English
(BAWE) corpus. The results show that the category of modal verbs is generally underused by Saudi
writers when compared with native speaker writers. An exception occurs with the modal should
which was the only modal verb found to be considerably overused by Saudi writers. The modal
verbs would, could and may are significantly underused. The absence of an organized modal verbs
system in the Arabic language may influence Arabic speakers’ use of modal verbs. The overall
analysis has demonstrated that Saudi writers use a restricted repertoire of modal verbs. The analysis
also points to some pedagogical implications that needs to be taken into consideration by English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) material writers, particularly for Saudi learners.
Cite as: Akeel, E.S. (2020). A corpus-based study of modal verbs in academic writing of English
native speakers and Saudis. University of Reading, Department of English Language and Applied
Linguistics Retrieved from Arab World English Journal (ID Number: 243, January 2020, 1-71.
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awej/th.243

A corpus-based study of modal verbs in academic writing of
English native speakers and Saudis
Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Literature and Languages, University of Reading
By: Eman Saleh Akeel
Supervisor: Dr. Sylvia Jaworska
Date of submission: 12 / September / 2014

Dedication
This dissertation is dedicated to the soul of my late father
To my precious mother
To my loving husband
To my caring sister and brother
And to my darling children Dimah and Sanad

Table of Contents
List of Tables - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - v
List of Figures - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - vi
Abstract - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - vii
Acknowledgments - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - viii
Chapter one: Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1
1.1 Background - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -1
1.2 Structure of the dissertation - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2
1.3 Rationale for the study- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -3
1.4 Significance of the study - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4
1.5 Definition of terms - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5
Chapter two: Review of the literature - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6
2.1 Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6
2.2 Forms and meanings of modal verbs in British English - - - - - - - - - - 7
2.3 Modal verbs in classic Arabic language - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10
2.4 Use of modal verbs by native vs. non-native speakers of English across
registers - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12
2.5 Modal verbs in academic writing - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 15
2.6 Research questions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 18
Chapter three: Corpus and methodology - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20
3.1 Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -20

3.2 The data - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 20
3.2.1 The genre - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21
3.2.2 The field - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21
3.3 Data collection - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 22
3.3.1 Procedures - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 22
3.3.2 Ethical considerations - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 22
3.4 The corpus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23
3.4.1 Compilation procedures - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23
3.4.2 Corpus size - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 24
3.5 Methodology - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 24
3.5.1 Data analysis - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 24
3.5.2 Procedures - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 24
Chapter four: Data analysis - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 29
4.1 Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 29
4.2 Frequencies - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30
4.2.1 Frequencies in the Saudi corpus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30
4.2.2 Frequencies in the BAWE corpus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 31
4.2.3 Comparison - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 31
4.3 Functional analysis - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 34
4.3.1 The modal verb can - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 34
4.3.2 The modal verb will - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 36
4.3.3 The modal verb should - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 38

4.3.4 The modal verb may - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 41
4.3.5 The modal verb could - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 42
4.3.6 The modal verb would - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 43
4.3.7 The modal verb must - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 44
4.3.8 The modal verb might - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 45
4.3.9 The modal verb shall - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 46
4.3.10 Summary - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 47
4.4 Conclusions - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 48
Chapter five: Discussion and implications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 52
5.1 Introduction - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 52
5.2 Discussion - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 52
5.3 Practical and pedagogical Implications - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 53
5.4 Limitations of the study - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 55
Chapter six: Conclusion - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 57
References - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 59
Appendices - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 62
Appendix I: Consent form - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 62

List of Tables
Table 2.1 Meanings of modal verbs in British English - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 9
Table 2.2 Modal verbs in classic Arabic language - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 11
Table 3.1 Functions of modal verbs according to Thompson's classification - - - 27
Table 4.1 Modal verbs positions in the first hundred most frequent words in the
Saudi corpus, the BAWE corpus, and Thompson's (2001) theses corpus - - - - - 33
Table 4.2 Typical modal verbs for each function in the Saudi and in Thompson's
corpus (2001) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 49

List of Figures
Figure 3.1 frequency distribution of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus - - - - - - - -25
Figure 3.2 frequency distribution of modal verbs in BAWE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 26
Figure 4.1 Frequencies of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus (normalized per 100,000)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 30
Figure 4.2 Frequencies of modal verbs in the BAWE corpus (normalized per
100,000) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 31
Figure 4.3 Comparison of frequencies of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus and in the
BAWE corpus (normalized per 100,000) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -32
Figure 4.4 Functions of can in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus - - - - - - 35
Figure 4.5 Functions of will in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus - - - - - - 37
Figure 4.6 Functions of should in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus - - - - 39
Figure 4.7 Functions of would in the Saudi corpus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 43
Figure 4.8 Functions of might in the Saudi corpus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 45

Acknowledgements
First and foremost, all thanks are due to Allah Almighty for giving me strength
and guidance during this challenging journey, and for providing me with health and
patience to complete this work.
I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Sylvia Jaworska, my supervisor, who
provided me with valuable advice and constructive feedback. Thank you for being
patient, supportive and encouraging.
Special thanks to the Ministry of Higher Education and to King Abdul Aziz
University in Saudi Arabia who granted me this scholarship.
My sincere appreciation goes to my dear family and friends who supported me
throughout this year. I owe special thanks to my precious mother for her sincere prayers
and for her emotional and spiritual support. I also would like to express my gratitude to
my husband for his continuous support and encouragement and for his tolerance during
this challenging year.
Finally, I am extremely grateful to the participants, my Saudi colleagues who
provided me with their papers, without which it would have been impossible to
complete this work.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Chapter One
Introduction
1.1 Background
In academic writing, writers encounter many challenges and difficulties. One of
these difficulties is using modal verbs to convey meaning accurately. The meaning of
a main verb is qualified by modal auxiliaries (Biber et al. 2002), and accurate use of
modal verbs is essential in academic writing. However, deciding which modal verb to
use in order to convey the desired meaning can be a major obstacle for language
learners.
The English modal verbs are: can, could, shall, should, may, might, must, will,
and would. This paper will look at the variation in the use of modal verbs between
native and non-native speakers of English in the academic writing prose. It is important
to note that by natives, I refer to native speakers of British English, and non-natives I
refer to English learners from Saudi Arabia whose mother tongue is Arabic.
This study is comparative as authentic learners' output is compared with
authentic natives' output of a similar genre and level. It is a corpus-based study where
the analysis is based on tools and methods used within the field of corpus linguistics.
1.2 Structure of the dissertation

The overall structure of the research consists of six chapters: (1) introduction;
(2) review of the literature; (3) corpus and methodology; (4) data analysis; (5)
discussion and implications; and (6) conclusion.
This introductory chapter outlines the context of the paper and explains the
contents of each chapter. It includes the rationale for the study, presents why it is
significant, and provides brief definitions of terms that are used in the paper.
Chapter two begins by laying out the theoretical background of the research and
looks at four different dimensions in four separate sections: forms and meanings of
modal verbs in British English, modality in Arabic language, use of modal verbs in
native versus non-native speakers of English across registers, and the functions of the
modal verbs in academic writing. The first section presents the forms and meanings
that are conveyed by the core modal auxiliaries. The second section explains the system
of modal verbs in standard Arabic language. The third part presents previous studies
that provide evidence in the variation between native and non-native speakers in
relation to their use of modal verbs in writing. The last section of the chapter focuses
on the functions of modal verbs in academic writing.
Chapter three provides a detailed description of how the research was
conducted. It presents clear and precise information about the data, the genre and the
text type of the data. It continues with a description of the process of data collection,
and ethical considerations. In addition, it provides a full description of the corpus under
investigation, the compilation procedure and corpus size. It ends with a detailed
explanation of research methodology, the procedure of data analysis and the corpus
tools and methods that are used in the study.

Chapter four presents the findings and data analysis. The first section discusses
all findings in relation to the frequency of modal verbs in the Saudi and the British
corpus. The second section provides interpretations and critically examines the
functional analysis in relation to relevant literature. It compares the findings of this
study with other studies that have been conducted on modal verbs and also provides
analysis of modal verbs on both levels: frequency and function. The chapter concludes
with a summary of results and answers the research questions.
Chapter five examines the main findings and provides a detailed explanation. In
addition, the chapter illustrates how the findings of the study could impact languages
learners or material designers. It presents some practical and pedagogical implications.
Finally, the chapter presents the limitations of the present study.
Chapter six presents the main conclusions of the study and areas for further
research.
1.3 Rationale for the study
The aim of this study is to develop a better understanding of the uses of modal
verbs in academic writing by non-native speakers of English as compared with native
speakers. The reason for choosing modal auxiliaries for this research is that they are
essential elements of any piece of academic writing and they perform different
significant functions in texts. There is also evidence that they are a stumbling block for
English language learners even at advanced levels (Aijmer, 2002).
By comparing language samples of the academic writing of native speakers of
English and Saudis using the tools and methods of corpus linguistics, this study sheds
light on differences and similarities in use of modal verbs between native and non-

native speakers of English, and the main grammatical and functional aspects of modal
verbs in academic writing. In doing so, this study illustrates that the use of modal verbs
that are problematic for advanced learners of English with Arabic as a first language.
This in turn could be used for the development of teaching materials that tackle the
difficulties in using modal verbs.
Corpus-based research has many advantages. As pointed out by Conrad (1999),
it enables researchers to study collections of naturally-occurring texts. In addition,
corpus-based studies rely on computers in the analysis of data. This helps explore
aspects and patterns of a language that have been extremely difficult to investigate
without the use of technology.
1.4 Significance of the study
Non-corpus-based research in the area of modal verbs has yielded some
variation between non-native and native speakers of English and has shown that non-
natives often have difficulties using modal verbs (e.g. Hinkel 1995 and DeCarrico
1986). There have also been a number of corpus-based studies which compare the use
of modal verbs by natives and non-native speakers of English from a variety of mother
tongue backgrounds (e.g. Aijmer, 2002). In addition, some studies have highlighted the
gap between authentic use of modal verbs and the language found in teaching materials
(e.g. Römer, 2004). However, the present study is one of the few studies that examine
the use of modal verbs by Arabic speakers in academic prose. Therefore, it is hoped,
that this study will fill in this gap in the literature and help developing a better
understanding of the functions that can be expressed by modal verbs especially in the
field of academic writing. As such, the present study can be used to inform English for
Academic Purposes (EAP) pedagogy.

1.5 Definition of terms
This section provides a brief definition of some important terms that are used
throughout the paper:
BAWE: an abbreviation of British Academic Written English. In this paper, BAWE
refers to a subset of this corpus which includes texts from Arts and Humanities at
postgraduate level.
Concordance: a list of all occurrences of a search item in a corpus along with its right
and left surroundings. McEnery and Hardie describe the concordance as "the most
important tool available to the corpus linguist" (2012: 35)
Corpus: A large collection of texts (plural – corpora). The term corpus is usually used
to refer to a principled collection of texts (i.e. it represents a specific genre or a language
variety or level, etc.). (McEnery and Hardie, 2012).
Corpus-based study: A study that use corpus tools and methods to explore a theory or
hypothesis (McEnery and Hardie, 2012).
The next chapter describes the current state of research in the area of modal
verbs in academic writing. It also includes research that studied the variation between
native and non-native speakers of English in terms of academic writing. Moreover, it
identifies a gap in the literature that the current study is trying to fill. Finally, two
research questions will be established at the end of the chapter.

Chapter Two
Review of the Literature
2.1 Introduction
This chapter reviews previous studies in the domain of modal verbs and their
use by English native and non-native speakers in academic writing. The chapter is
divided into four main sections. The first section presents the forms and meanings of
modal verbs in British English. The second section describes the system of modal verbs
in classic Arabic language. The third part is concerned with the variation in the use of
modal verbs by native and non-native speakers of English. The fourth section explains
the functions of modal verbs in academic writing. The chapter ends with three research
questions which this study aims to answer.
Modality in English refers to speakers' opinions and attitudes (Lyons, 1977:
452). It is concerned with expressing the message in terms of subjective meaning, and
it can be expressed through different lexical ways. It can be expressed through
adjectives such as possible, likely, or adverbs like perhaps, or verbs such as believe,
and think. The category of verbs involves full verbs, modal auxiliary verbs, and semi-
modal verbs.
There are nine modal auxiliaries in English: can, could, may, might, must, shall,
should, will, and would. In addition, modality can be expressed through semi-modals
that share the same functions as modal verbs. These include: have to, (have) got to,
(had) better, ought to, be supposed to, be going to, and used to (Biber et al., 2002). For

the purpose of this paper, I will investigate one kind of modal expression: modal
auxiliary verbs.
This paper looks at the variation in the use of modal verbs between native and
non-native speakers of English in terms of academic writing. The literature concerning
the uses of modal verbs in academic writing by native and non-native speakers of
English will be divided into four parts: forms and meanings that are conveyed by modal
auxiliaries, modal verbs in Arabic language, the variation between native and non-
native speakers in terms of writing, and the functions of the modal verbs in the academic
prose.
2.2 Forms and meanings of modal verbs in British English
This study will consider one aspect of modality: the modal auxiliary verbs. An
auxiliary verb is a helping verb that occurs before a main verb and qualifies its meaning
(Biber et al., 2002: 103). Some basic features of modal verbs include the following:
▪ They do not show tense.
▪ They do not show subject-verb agreement.
▪ The verb after them is always infinitive.
▪ They express stance.
The majority of scholars agree that each modal verb has two different types of
meaning (Palmer 1990; Greenbaum and Quirk 1990; and Biber et al. 2002). The first
type is referred to as deontic (or intrinsic) and the second is termed epistemic (or
extrinsic). Deontic modality refers to the speaker's intervention through permission,
obligation, and volition. It involves some intrinsic human control over events.
Epistemic modality expresses one's level of certainty about the world. It involves

human judgment of what is or what is not likely to happen. For example, must can be
used to indicate a deontic obligation (you must be careful) or epistemic necessity (you
must be careless, said after noticing an irresponsible behaviour). Lyons (1977: 452)
explains the distinction between these two types and refers to deontic modality as 'the
speaker's opinion or attitude towards the proposition that the sentence expresses or the
situation that the proposition describes'. He defines epistemic modality as modality
'concerned with matters of knowledge or belief' (1977: 793).
However, some meanings that are expressed by the modal verbs can and will
are neither deontic nor epistemic (Palmer 1990). For example, the 'ability' meaning
which is conveyed by the modal verb can and 'volition' that is expressed by the modal
will are not purely a matter of modality, but rather a characteristic of the subject of the
sentence. In addition, the modal verb will is sometimes used to refer to future events,
which is again a matter of tense more than modality. Therefore, a third type of modality
is identified which is dynamic modality. Palmer (1990) points out that the future will is
usually associated with some element of conditionality (she will be twenty on my forty-
sixth birthday). In addition to that, he suggests that will is used in statements where
"there is reference to a general envisaged, planned, intended, hoped for, etc state of
affairs, as opposed to a statement that a specific event or specific events will in fact take
place. It is in this sense that it indicates a 'modal' rather than a real ('tense') future."
(Palmer, 1990: 140). Thus, all of the nine modal verbs are used to express modality,
including will as a marker of the future tense, can for ability and will for volition.
Biber et al. (2002) classify the modal verbs and put them into three categories
based on their meaning either intrinsic or extrinsic (the first meaning in each of the
following pairs is intrinsic and the second one is extrinsic):

(i) permission/possibility involves the modals can, could, may, and might;
(ii) obligation/necessity involves must and should; and
(iii) volition/prediction involves will, would and shall.
Most of the modal verbs, as mentioned earlier, have more than one meaning.
Table 2.1 summarizes the different meanings that can be conveyed by every modal verb
and provides examples of each meaning (the classification of meanings here are based
on Greenbaum and Quirk, 1999).
Table 2.1 Meanings of modal verbs in British English
Modal verb Meaning Example
Can
(a) Possibility
(b) Ability
(c) Permission
(a) Skiing can be dangerous.
(b) I cannot remember where I put the keys.
(c) You can sleepover at your friend's house.
Could
(a) Possibility
(b) Ability
(c) Permission
(a) She could have been suitable for that job.
(b) She could speak two languages by the age of
four.
(c) Could we use your car?
May
(a) Possibility
(b) Permission
(a) They may find it a bit challenging.
(b) You may borrow this book.
Might
(a) Possibility
(b) Permission
(a) There might be some problems.
(b)Hotel guests might ask for a late checkout.
Must
(a) Necessity
(b) Obligation
(a) He lives in a big house. He must be rich.
(b)You must wake up early
Shall
(a) Prediction
(b) Volition
(a) We shall know the results next week.
(b)I shall transfer the money today
Should Obligation You should see the doctor.

Will
(a) Prediction
(b) Volition
(a) This will take a long time.
(b)Will you help me with this?
Would
(a) Prediction
(b) Volition
(a) I believe this would help.
(b)She would like to attend the seminar.
As can be seen, the system of modal verbs in English is rather complex as most
of the modal verbs have more than one meaning. Because they are polysemous verbs,
they can comprise a serious challenge to non-native speakers of English. In this study,
a comparison will be made between the use of modal verbs by English native speakers
and non-native speakers with Arabic as a mother tongue. Therefore, it is important to
illustrate how modality is expressed in the Arabic language. The following section
describes the system of modal verbs in Arabic.
2.3 Modal verbs in classic Arabic language
It is important to note that there are no direct Arabic counterparts to English
modal verbs. There are, however, some verbs and phrases that can be considered
equivalent in meaning to the English modal verbs (Mitchell and El-Hasan, 1994).
In English, modal verbs include can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will
and would. Classic Arabic does not have exact equivalents of these verbs, but the
following table represents how the meanings of English modal verbs are expressed in
Arabic:
Table 2.2 Modal verbs in classic Arabic language
English modal verb Arabic expression Transcription

Can
‫أن‬ ‫يمكن‬
‫أن‬ ‫يستطيع‬
Yumkin Ann
Yastatia Ann
Could
‫أن‬ ‫يستطيع‬
Yumkin Ann
Yastatia Ann
May
‫قد‬
Yumkin Ann
Qadd
Might
‫قد‬
Yumkin Ann
Qadd
Must ‫أن‬ ‫يجب‬ Yajib Ann
Shall ‫سوف‬ Sawfa
Should ‫أن‬ ‫ينبغي‬ Yanbaghi Ann
Will ‫سوف‬ Sawfa
Would ‫سوف‬ Sawfa
As shown in table 2.2, some modal verbs that have different meanings in
English have only one meaning in Arabic. For instance, can, could, may and might have
the same Arabic equivalent (Yumkin Ann) which is closest in meaning to the modal
can in its epistemic meaning of possibility. The same applies to shall, will and would
which have the same meaning in Arabic (Sawfa) and is closest in meaning to the modal
will in its epistemic meaning of prediction. It is important to note that not all of the
Arabic words are verbs. Some of them are particles (sawfa and qadd), while others are

verbs (Yumkin, Yastatia, Yajib, and Yanbaghi). To illustrate how modal verbs are used
in Arabic, consider the following sentence:
Arabic: 'Yajib Ann tastayqeth bakeran'
English: 'You must wake up early'
In most cases, the modal verb in Arabic is followed by the accusative particle Ann which
is close in meaning to the English preposition to. The Arabic particle Ann is always
followed by the infinitive of the verb, a feature that is also found in the case of the
English preposition to. Thus, a potential error that is caused by L1 negative transfer
may occur with the insertion of to after the modal verb (you must to wake up early).
In order to study and compare the use of modal verbs by Arabic speakers and
English native speakers, it is important to note how English learners from other mother
tongue backgrounds use them to see whether or not a variation is found among all ESL
learners. The following section provides some studies that were conducted in the field
of modal verbs by native and native speakers of English.
2.4 Use of modal verbs by native vs. non-native speakers of English across
registers

Many researchers have argued that there is variation between academic writing
of non-native speakers as compared to natives, especially with regard to the use of
modal verbs.
A considerable amount of studies have been conducted to investigate the use of
modal verbs in English non-natives' writing. Aijmer (2002) for example, states that
there is a global overuse of modal verbs by Swedish, French and German writers. In
her study, Aijmer compared two corpora: non-native and native. Her main corpus
involves samples of argumentative essays by Swedish learners, whereas the second was
the Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS). This consists of non-
professional writings by native speakers. The size of both corpora was approximately
52,000 words. Her study which focuses mainly on advanced Swedish learners revealed
that the modal verbs will, should, must and might are significantly overused by non-
natives.
Kasper (1979) proposes that German learners of English have difficulties in the
modal usage because they often translate the meaning of the modal from their first
language to English without considering the difference in their contexts. By comparing
a number of essays written by Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Vietnamese
learners of English to essays by native speakers of American English, Hinkel (1995)
suggests that the use of modal verbs in native and non-native writing is culture and
context dependent.
A study by Vethamani et al. (2008) investigated the use of modal verbs by
Malaysian ESL learners. Their corpus consists of 210 narrative compositions by
Malaysian students in secondary schools. They concluded that Malaysian students are
aware of the grammatical structure of modal verbs (i.e. they are helping verbs that are

followed by infinitive). However, students often had problems in relation to the
semantic use of the modals. They were found to use a very limited range of modal verbs
to convey various meanings instead of using different modal verbs.
It is no surprise that language learners are confused by modal verbs meanings.
In a study that investigated the distribution and contexts of modal verbs in a language
teaching material, Römer (2004) found some variation in the uses of modal verbs
between the authentic language in the spoken part of the British National Corpus (BNC)
and an EFL textbook. She found that the modals will and can are overused in the
textbook, whereas would, could, should and might are underused. She has also found
that the modal shall is never used to make predictions in the teaching material, but
according to the BNC it is often used for this purpose. Moreover, her study revealed a
variation in the distribution of meanings of modal verbs. For instance, can and could
are significantly overused for expressing ability more than possibility and permission.
Together, these studies indicate that language learners have problems in using
the modals appropriately in writing and the conventional teaching materials are not
well-aligned with the ways in which modal verbs are used by native speakers.
In terms of spoken academic prose, a number of studies highlighted the use of
modal verbs by non-native speakers. Dafouz et al. (2007), for instance, analysed a
corpus of academic lectures in a Spanish university. They studied the cluster of personal
pronouns (I, we, and you) with modals and semi-modals and found that can and have
are the most recurrent verbs used by Spanish learners of English and are used to
minimize the speaker's authority when used in a problem-solving situation. Further
research on modality in academic discourse was conducted by Crawford Camiciottoli
(2004) who compared natives and non-natives' lectures. She found that the most

frequent modal verbs used by natives were may and would, whereas can was the most
frequent one used by non-natives.
When comparing written to spoken register, modal verbs appear to be more
commonly used within the spoken register (Keck and Biber, 2004). This variation has
also been noted by Biber et al. who state "modals and semi-modals are most common
in conversation and least common in news and academic prose" (2002:177). This
indicates that the overuse of modals in written language is a characteristic of non-
natives' writing as Aijmer's (2002) study suggested.
2.5 Modal verbs in academic writing
In academic registers, modal verbs play a significant role by performing a wide
range of functions in texts. In addition to their deontic, epistemic and dynamic
meanings, they can be used to perform some functions that are typical for academic
writing. Thompson (2001) proposes a list of modal verbs functions in academic writing
which will be discussed later in this section.
One of the most significant features of modality in academic writing is hedging.
A study by Hyland (1994) focused on this particular function in English for specific
purposes (ESP) and English for academic purposes (EAP) textbooks. Among five
different hedging devices (including modal verbs, lexical verbs, modal adverbs, modal
adjectives, and modal nouns), he found that modal verbs are the most frequent means
of expressing epistemic mitigation in ESP and EAP textbooks. However, he states that
the range of modals in these textbooks is inadequate, and in most cases, exercises fail
to highlight the importance or function of the modal verbs.

Early studies focusing on the functions of a variety of modal verbs include
Huddleston (1971) and Ewer (1979). Whereas Huddleston quantified the uses of the
modal verbs in several senses, Ewer divided the meanings of the modals into primary
meanings and sub-meanings. Huddleston (1971) studied the use of modal auxiliaries in
scientific texts and summarised the meanings of the modals as the following:
• May, might, can and could indicate the meanings of uncertainty, legitimacy,
ability, possibility, qualified generalisation, and concession.
• Will indicates the meaning of futurity, induction, deduction.
• Would indicates tentativeness and prediction.
• Should and must mean obligation and logical necessity.
Ewer (1979) analysed the uses of modal auxiliaries in scientific writing and
distinguished a range of meanings. He identified sixteen primary meanings of the
modals: capability; possibility; probability; impossibility; choices / alternatives;
concession; condition; prediction / expectation; inference / deduction; requirement /
necessity; arrangement / intention; willingness; permission / enablement; directive /
attention pointing; and counter-prediction. According to him, most of these primary
meanings involve two sub-meanings: realizable and hypothetical, a distinction which
shows the difference between sentences which describes what is achievable, and
sentences that include hypotheses.
A study by Butler (1990) investigated the frequencies of modal verbs in a corpus
of 12 texts including textbooks and journal articles, and compared them to the findings
of Huddleston. He used the same classification as Huddleston in his analysis and found
some variation in terms of the number of occurrences of the modals between his corpus
and Huddleston's texts

In a more recent study, Thompson (2001) examined the uses of modal verbs in
two sets of PhD theses. He has identified eleven functional categories of modal verbs
that are developed from his qualitative analysis of different sections of the theses:
1. Describing properties of subjects of enquiry: to indicate what is typical of a
phenomena or a subject. This function involve the modals may and will.
2. Considering alternatives: when the writer deems different strategies. Would, can
and may are the typical modals used for this function.
3. Hedging: the mitigation of the writer's proposition. This is indicated by the
modals may, might, could and would.
4. Metadiscourse: signposting and guiding the reader throughout the text. This
function is conveyed by the modals will, can and should.
5. What is possible or necessary, given the circumstances: determining what
inferences or results are likely to happen. The typical modals for this category are can
and would.
6. Indicating legitimacy: suggesting claims that are based on reasoned argument.
May, might, can and could are the typical modals for this use.
7. Expressing enabling functions: to express what is or what is not possible. This
is indicated by the modals can and could.
8. Referring to required actions or conditions: to indicate necessary actions or
required conditions by the modals should and must.
9. Stating expectations and making predictions: Will, would, should and may are
used to make predictions.
10. Suggesting the potential: to indicate potential benefits and/or limitations. The
typical modals for this function are can and could.
11. Stating principles: to express principles by the modals will and would.

Thompson's categorization is specific to academic prose, and it provides a
functional description of the modals. Therefore, this classification will form the
framework for the analysis in this study. When assigning functions for the modals in
both corpora, I will be referring to this functional framework.
Existing research on the variation between English native and non-native
speakers has mainly focused on learners of general English by comparing samples of
students' essays (e.g. Aijmer 2002; Kasper 1979; Vethamani et al. 2008; and Hyland
and Milton 1997). In addition, studies on the uses of modal auxiliaries have mainly
considered their use in teaching materials or in academic writing (e.g. Römer 2004;
Hyland 1994; Thompson 2001 and 2002). However, these studies did not compare
natives' and non-natives' uses of modal verbs. So far, there has been little discussion
about the variance between native and non-native speakers of English in the use of
modal verbs across a specific genre. The current study will investigate the variation
between advanced English learners from Saudi Arabia whose mother tongue is Arabic
and native speakers of British English. The main concern in this study is the use of
modal verbs in the genre of MA dissertation.
2.6 Research Questions
This research seeks to address the following questions:
1. Is there any variation in the use of modal verbs in academic writing
between native speakers of English and non-natives from Saudi Arabia whose
mother tongue is Arabic?

2. What are the differences between native and non-native speakers
regarding the functions of modal verbs?
The following chapter will discuss the research design and methodology that
was employed in the study.

Chapter Three
Corpus and Methodology
3.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the aspects of how the study was conducted. It starts by
describing the data that is used for this research, including the genre and field which
was chosen for the study. Then, it explains the procedure of data collection and ethical
considerations. Next, it provides essential information about the corpus that is involved
in the study. This includes information about the reference corpus as well as the corpus
under investigation, how it was compiled and the size of the corpus. Finally, it provides
a full description of the methodology, how the data is analysed and what corpus tools
and methods are used.
3.2 The Data
The current study investigates the use of modal auxiliaries in academic writing
and compares two sources of texts: the first is academic writing that is written by native
speakers of English, and the second is academic writing by non-native speakers from
Saudi Arabia. Before the data collection process took place, selection criteria were set
in order to ensure that both sets of data would be comparable. The first criterion is to
have the same genre in both texts. The second criterion is that the field in which the
texts are produced should also be similar. Finally, with regards to authenticity of data,
all samples involved in this study were written by Saudi writers for the purpose of
achieving a Masters degree.

3.2.1 The genre
Academic writing involves many different text types and genres and may
include essays, assignments or research papers at any academic level (e.g.
undergraduate, postgraduate, etc.). The genre which has been chosen for this study is
Masters Dissertations, a 15,000 words document that is normally submitted for the
fulfillment of an academic degree. The main reason for choosing dissertations is to
ensure that the participants, especially the non-natives, are at an advanced level of
English. Having written a master dissertation in English language indicates that the
participant has at least a level of 6.0 in the International English Language Testing
System (IELTS) because this is usually the minimum score that is required to enter any
university for a masters programme, although some universities may accept students at
the level 5.0 in the cases of majors that are not taught in English.
3.2.2 The field
The second criterion that was identified before collecting data was that all the
pieces of academic writing should be from the same field. There are four different areas
of written texts in the British Academic Written English (BAWE), the corpus used as a
reference corpus in the analysis. These include Arts and Humanities, Life Sciences,
Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences. For the purpose of this study, the field of Arts
and Humanities was selected. Thus in the process of data collection of Saudi papers,
only the documents that were submitted for the degree of Master of Arts were included.
3.3 Data collection

3.3.1 Procedures
The data involved in this study is a collection of MA Dissertations written by
Saudi writers. The number of dissertations that were collected is 14. The data was
collected using two different approaches: the first was through emails and the second
was through different Saudi universities' websites.
The papers that were collected via email belong to Saudi instructors who teach
English as second language in the English Language Institute at King Abdulaziz
University. The participants sent a soft copy of their MA dissertation to the researcher's
email address. They also signed a consent form, which is discussed in more detail below
(a copy of the consent form can be found in appendix I).
The second source of data is published papers by Saudis who belong to other
Saudi universities. These papers are available through the online library of these
universities with no restrictions on access. Therefore, the participants were not asked
to provide their consent in this case.
3.3.2 Ethical considerations
All the data was collected via email, and the researcher has securely kept the
data on a password-protected computer. Only the researcher and her supervisor have
access to the data, and it will be used for academic purposes only. The participants were
given a consent form to sign, and were informed that they have the right to withdraw
from the study at any time they wish to. Their privacy and confidentiality is carefully
observed. The data is anonymous and will be destroyed immediately after the
completion of this study.
3.4 The corpus

3.4.1 Compilation procedures
After the data was collected, they were combined into one document and saved
in a txt. format. Before uploading the document into the corpus, all cover pages,
abstracts, acknowledgements, tables of contents, and lists of references were removed
from the texts, so that only the main text remained for analysis.
Using the Sketch Engine website, the document was uploaded by choosing
create corpus option. After uploading the document, it was given the name Saudi MA
Dissertations. This formed the main corpus for analysis in this study, and is referred to
as Saudi corpus hereafter.
For the purpose of this study, the Saudi corpus is compared to another corpus in
order to study the similarities and differences in the use and functions of modal verbs
between the two corpora. The second corpus is the British Academic Written English
(BAWE). This corpus functions as the reference corpus in which all the analysis is
based on and will refer to.
McCarten pointed out that corpora which involve a collection of different genres
will provide misleading results (2010: 414), and as such it was necessary to build a
corpus that only consists of samples of Masters dissertation that are written by Saudis
in order to ensure the representativeness of the data. Moreover, Oostdijk (1991: 50)
stated that 'a sample size of 20,000 words would yield samples that are large enough to
be representative of a given variety'. Since the number of words in the corpus is over
200,000, it can be said that the data in this study is representative of the genre of MA
Dissertations.
3.4.2 Corpus size

This study examines two sets of data. The first and the main data is the Saudi
corpus which consists of 284,659 tokens. The second set of data is the subset corpus in
BAWE (Arts and Humanities, level 4) which consists of 234,206 tokens.
3.5 Methodology
The study is exploratory research that aims at ascertaining the variation in modal
verbs use between English native and non-natives speakers from Saudi Arabia. It
combines both a quantitative and qualitative analysis. The quantitative part of the
analysis is concerned with the frequency of modal verbs, whereas the qualitative part
deals with the functions of the modals in academic texts.
3.5.1 Data analysis
The study adopts a corpus-based analysis, which is based on corpus tools and
methods. According to Römer, using corpus tools refers to "the actual text collections
and software packages for corpus access" (2011: p. 206). Corpus methods, on the other
hand, refer to "the analytic techniques that are used when we work with corpus data"
(2011: p. 206). In terms of tools, the study looks at two collections of text as described
above. As for the methods, the study utilizes corpus techniques such as generating
concordances, frequency, word sketches and so on.
3.5.2 Procedures
There are two main areas of analysis for this study. The first focuses on
frequency, and the second focuses on functions. Given that interpreting the meanings
and functions of modal verbs requires extremely time-consuming analyses, this study
focuses mainly on the top three frequent modal verbs in the Saudi corpus to provide an
in-depth analysis.

The BAWE is used as the reference corpus. When a certain modal verb is used
more frequently in the Saudi corpus than in the BAWE, then this will be described as
an overuse. Modal verbs that are less frequent in the Saudi corpus will be regarded as
an underuse.
First, a frequency analysis of the modal verbs was made for both corpora using
the frequency function in Sketch Engine. This was achieved by using the tag set that
is used for the corpus. By formulating a query in accordance with CQL, the following
formula was used to find all instances of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus:
[tag="MD"]
The main reason for using this formula was to ensure that only modal auxiliaries
appear in the concordance lines. That is, all instances of the noun 'can' or 'will', or the
month 'May' would be entirely absent in the search. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show the
frequency distribution of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus and in BAWE.
Figure 3.1 frequency distribution of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus

Figure 3.2 frequency distribution of modal verbs in BAWE
As can be seen from the graphs, some modal verbs occurred more than once.
These were added to the corresponding modal. In Figure 3.2 for example, could occured
331 times, and Could 6 times. Therefore, the total number of occurrences for the modal
could was 337. Moreover, all contracted forms like 'll were added to the modal will,
and 'd will be added to would.
In addition, because the size of the two corpora is quite different, it was
necessary to obtain the normalised frequencies. In order to know the exact proportional
frequency, the following calculation was made for each modal verb in both corpora:
NF = (number of examples of the word in the whole corpus ÷ size of corpus)
˟ (base of normalisation)
Data regarding the number each modal verb in both corpora and the size of each
corpus (Saudi corpus is 284,659 and BAWE is 234,206) was already established.

Therefore it was necessary to select a number to be used as a base of normalisation,
which was 100,000. Therefore, all numbers of occurrence were per 100,000 words.
The second part of the analysis is concerned with the functions of modal verbs.
After calculating the frequency of the modals in both corpora, the analysis focuses on
the top three frequent modal verbs in the Saudi corpus. Each concordance line that
involves these top frequent modals was read and analysed in order to assign a function
for that modal verb. As mentioned earlier in chapter two, during the analysis,
Thompson's categorization of modal verbs was used as framework (see table 3.1 for
Thompson's classification). Therefore, each modal verb in each concordance line was
given a function based on this classification.
Table 3.1 Functions of modal verbs according to Thompson's classification
Modal verb Function in the text
Can
- Considering alternatives
- Metadiscourse
- Possibility or necessity
- Indicating legitimacy
- Expressing enabling functions
- Suggesting the potential
Could
- Hedging
- Expressing enabling functions
- Suggesting the potential
May
- Describing properties of subject of
enquiry
- Hedging
- Stating expectations and making
predictions
Might
- Hedging
Must
- Referring to required actions or
conditions
Should - Metadiscourse

- Referring to required actions or
conditions
predictions
Will
- Describing properties of subject of
enquiry
- Metadiscourse
predictions
- Stating principles
Would
- Hedging
- Possibility or necessity
predictions
- Stating principles
The next chapter presents the findings of the study and analysis of data, which
focuses on two main aspects: frequency and functions of modal verbs.

Chapter Four
Data Analysis
4.1 Introduction
This chapter highlights the findings of the study, provides an in-depth analysis
of the data and answers the research questions. The first section of the chapter presents
all findings from the study in relation to the frequencies of modal verbs in the Saudi
and BAWE corpora. Next, interpretations of the most significant findings are provided
relating to the functional analysis which focuses on the functions of modal verbs in the
Saudi corpus as compared to BAWE corpus. The chapter concludes with a discussion
of how this analysis relates to the research questions that were posed in chapter two.
Two fundamental goals drove the analysis of the data: the first was to study the
variation in the use of modal verbs between non-native and native speakers of English
in the written genre of MA Dissertations, and the second was to develop a better
understanding of the functions of modal verbs in academic writing. Data were analysed
to identify and explore the functions of modal verbs that are problematic for non-native
speakers at an advanced level of English. A discussion of how these findings could have
practical and pedagogical implications is presented in chapter five.
4.2 Frequencies

This section is divided into three parts: the first part highlights the findings in
relation to the frequency of all modal verbs in the Saudi corpus. The second part deals
with frequencies of the modal verbs in the BAWE corpus. Finally, a comparison
between both corpora is conducted in relation to the number of occurrences of the
modal verbs.
4.2.1 Frequencies in the Saudi corpus
Using the frequency function in Sketch Engine, it was possible to obtain
frequency counts of all the modal verbs used in the corpus texts. Figure 4.1 shows the
frequency distribution of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus.
Figure 4.1 Frequencies of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus (normalized per 100,000)
The first observation is that there is no balance in the use of modal verbs. The
number of occurrences for the modals is either very high (as for can) or low (as for
may, could, would, must, might, and shall). The most frequent modal verb is can with
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
can will should may could would must might shall
276.4
146.8
116.9
80
70 63.9
46
33.3
0.7

276.4 occurrences. Will and should are commonly used by non-natives in this genre.
Shall is very rare.
4.2.2 Frequencies in the BAWE corpus
The most frequent modal verb is can (318 occurrences), whereas shall is the
least (9.8 occurrences). Should, must and might are not very commonly used by native
speakers in this genre. Figure 4.2 shows the distribution of frequencies of modal verbs.
Figure 4.2 Frequencies of modal verbs in the BAWE corpus (normalized per 100,000)
4.2.3 Comparison
This section provides a comparison in relation to the number of occurrences for
each modal verb between both corpora.
Overall, non-natives tend to underuse most of the modal verbs, except for
should which is the only modal verb that is overused by non-natives. Some modal verbs
are found to be considerably underused. These include would (198.9 in the BAWE
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
can would will may could should must might shall
318
198.9
166.9 161.3
143.8
81.5
50.3 41.4
9.8

corpus and 63.9 in the Saudi corpus), could (143.8 in the BAWE corpus and 70 in the
Saudi corpus), and may (161.3 in the BAWE corpus and 80 in the Saudi corpus).
However, this contradicts the use of modal verbs by learners from different mother
tongues in Aijmer's (2002) results, which found that there is a global overuse of modal
verbs by Swedish, French and German learners of English. She found that the modals
will, might, should, must and might are particularly frequent. The data here clearly
shows that almost all modal verbs were underused by non-natives with Arabic as their
mother tongue in this particular genre.
As shown in figure 4.3, the most frequently used modal verb by non-natives, as
well as natives, is can (276.4 in the Saudi corpus and 318 in the BAWE corpus). Shall
has the least number of occurrences in both corpora (0.7 in the Saudi corpus and 9.8 in
the BAWE corpus). The other modal verbs vary in frequency. Should is used more
frequently by non-natives than native speakers, whereas would, could, and may are used
less by non-natives than natives. The modals must and might share a quite similar
number of occurrences and they are both not very frequently used in either corpus.
Figure 4.3 Comparison of frequencies of modal verbs in the Saudi corpus and in the
BAWE corpus (normalized per 100,000)
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
350
Saudi corpus
BAWE

The category of modal auxiliaries is frequently used in the BAWE corpus. In
the word list for this corpus, five modal verbs occur within the top 100 most frequent
words. This has also been noted by Thompson (2001) who found a similar result in his
corpus of PhD theses. However, this is not the case in the Saudi corpus. Only two modal
verbs appear among the first 100 frequent words. Table 4.1 compares the positions of
the top modal verbs in the Saudi corpus, in the BAWE corpus, and in the theses in
Thompson's study.
Table 4.1 Modal verbs positions in the first hundred most frequent words in the Saudi
corpus, the BAWE corpus, and Thompson's (2001) theses corpus.
Saudi Corpus BAWE Corpus
Thompson's Theses
Corpus
Can (31) Can (27) May (38)
Will (59) Would (43) Can (46)
Will (51) Would (51)
May (56) Could (73)
Could (62) Will (81)
It is evident from the table above that the top five most frequent modal verbs
are the same in both British corpora (BAWE and Thompson's). Two of these modal
verbs occur in the Saudi corpus (can and will), but the rest are not among the top
hundred frequent words. This confirms the concept that modal verbs, in general, are
underused by Saudis.

4.3 Functional analysis
In this section, a functional analysis of modal verbs is presented. Due to the
scope of this paper, the top three most frequent modal verbs in the Saudi corpus are
studied and analysed in depth and compared with their uses in the BAWE corpus. These
modal verbs are: can, will, and should.
There were several sentences in both corpora where there was no specific
function for the modals as shown in example 1, or the meaning of the modal was not
clear as in example 2. Such instances will be referred to as unclear use of the modal
verb.
( Ex. 1 ) "Modal auxiliaries, e.g., may, might, can, could, must, ought to, shall,
should, will, would and need (characterised by no 3rd person singular inflection,
interrogative and negative not do-supported, no passive voice)." (BAWE-8-txt)
( Ex. 2 ) "As a result, one single assessment instrument will not enough to meet such
diversity and judge students' progress." (Saudi Corpus)
4.3.1 The modal verb can
Can is the most frequent modal verb in both the Saudi corpus (relative
frequency: 276) and in the BAWE corpus (relative frequency: 318). In terms of
functions, can is mainly used to indicate possibility or necessity in both corpora (see
figure 4.4). It is also frequently used to express potentiality as example 3 shows.

( Ex. 3 ) "Santos (1997) adds that alternative assessment can be used within the context
of instruction and can be easily integrated to the daily classroom activities." (Saudi
Corpus)
However, as figure 4.4 illustrates, there is a considerable variation between
native and non-native speakers in the functions of metadiscourse, indicating legitimacy
and suggesting the potential.
Figure 4.4 Functions of can in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus
There were only minimal instances of can being used in metadiscourse, and usually
these occurred when referring to a diagram or a table as example 4 illustrates.
( Ex. 4 ) "As can be seen from the table 3.1 above the followings general observations.."
(Saudi Corpus)
On the other hand, native speakers used can for metadiscourse in various ways and for
different purposes, including referring to diagrams as shown in examples 5, 6 and 7.
0.00%
5.00%
10.00%
15.00%
20.00%
25.00%
30.00%
35.00%
40.00%
45.00%
3.80% 3.80%
40%
1.90%
16.90%
32.60%
7%
11%
42%
9%
18%
13%
Saudi corpus
BAWE

( Ex. 5 ) "Herodotus' accounts related to the Osiris myth can be summarized as
follows.." (BAWE-10.txt)
( Ex. 6 ) "In terms of American historical practices, we can interpret two facts stated
by Novick as being essential in the foundation of 'objectivity,' as we will understand
it." (BAWE-4.txt)
( Ex. 7 ) "These findings can be seen in more detail in appendix 3." (BAWE-7.txt)
In example 5, the writer uses the modal verb can to notify readers about the points
he/she has summarised. Moreover, in example 6, can is also used to guide the readers
and draw their attention to the facts and how they are interpreted. Example 7 illustrates
the use of can that is quite similar to its use by non-natives, which is referring to a
specific figure in the paper.
It is also worth mentioning that Saudi writers used the modal verb can more
often to indicate potentiality. Over 30% of the occurrences of can were used for this
function, whereas it was only 13% in the BAWE corpus, which indicates that this
function is overused by Saudis. Example 8 shows how the modal verb can is used in
suggesting the potential.
( Ex. 8 ) "Approaches to Grammar Teaching Explicit grammar instruction can involve
two methods of encouraging learners to notice grammar." (Saudi Corpus)
4.3.2 The modal verb will
Will is second in terms of frequency (relative frequency: 146), and has four main
functions in texts: (1) describing properties, (2) metadiscourse, (3) stating expectations
and making predictions, and (4) stating principles. The analysis shows that the function

that is used most by Saudis is stating expectations and making predictions (around 50%
of the occurrences of will are used for expecting and predicting), as shown in figure 4.5.
Figure 4.5 Functions of will in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus
The graph illustrated a variation between non-native and native speakers in the
use of will for describing properties of subjects. An average percentage is allocated to
this function in the BAWE corpus (17.90%), whereas in the Saudi corpus it is very low
(6.60%).
In addition, there is a noticeable variation in stating principles. A small
percentage is found in the BAWE corpus for this particular function (1.90%), whereas
in the Saudi corpus it is entirely absent. Native speakers used the modal will to express
principles and standards as shown in example 9.
( Ex. 9 ) "Hegel will not tell us what consciousness is, nor will he advance preliminary
criteria for the knowledge that is 'absolute' or 'scientific'." (BAWE-4.txt)
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
6.60%
39%
52.40%
0%
17.90%
32.20%
43%
1.90%
Saudi corpus
BAWE

However, this particular function appears to be problematic for non-native speakers
because there was no single instance of this function in the Saudi corpus.
Metadiscourse is also a common function for the modal verb will. It is a typical
feature of academic writing to guide readers throughout the text. There was no
significant variation between non-native and native speakers in this particular function.
Both used will in a similar domain as shown in examples 10 and 11.
( Ex. 10 ) "The next chapter, chapter III, will discuss the research methods of this
thesis." (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 11 ) "The next area of our paper will examine the immediate pre-war years."
(BAWE-1.txt)
4.3.3 The modal verb should
Should is the third most frequent verb in the Saudi corpus (relative frequency:
116). According to Thompson's (2001) functional framework for modal verbs, three
functions of the modal should are identified in academic writing: the first is
metadiscourse, the second is referring to required actions or conditions, and the third is
stating expectations and making predictions. As figure 4.6 shows, about 90% of the
uses of should are for the second function (referring to actions or conditions), whereas
only 9% of the uses was for expecting and predicting. This indicates that only a small
percentage of Saudi learners are familiar with using should in future contexts. Another
striking phenomenon is that the first function of should (metadiscourse) in the Saudi
corpus is extremely rare. There were only two instances of signposting using the modal
should.

Figure 4.6 Functions of should in the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus
A quite similar distribution of uses is found in the BAWE corpus. Most of the
uses are for referring to required actions. The metadiscourse function is the least used
by native speakers. As can be seen from figure 4.5, a greater percentage of the uses are
for metadiscourse, compared to the Saudi corpus where its use in this context was
extremely rare. Example 12 illustrates how native speakers use the modal verb should
for metadiscourse. Saudi writers tend to use the modal will instead of should when they
want to guide their readers throughout their papers.
( Ex. 12 ) "…but it should be noted that in the context of intonation these terms only
refer to the relative 'height' of pitch within the speaker's individual pitch range."
(BAWE-8.txt)
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
70.00%
80.00%
90.00%
100.00%
Metadiscourse Referring to
required actions
or conditions
Expecting and
predicting
0.60%
90.40%
9%
4.10%
77.50%
17.60%
Saudi corpus
BAWE

As mentioned in chapter two, Biber et al. (2002) divide the meanings of modal
verbs into three groups: (1) permission and possibility, (2) obligation and necessity, and
(3) volition and prediction. Should is allocated within the obligation and necessity
category. By overusing the modal verb should in academic writing, non-native speakers
tend to offer a strong and a direct way of persuasion. This emphatic style is shown in
example 13.
( Ex. 13 ) "Further studies should investigate this issue by including words that have
different types of consonant clusters in the research instrument. Moreover, further
studies should focus on the type of second language input the participants are exposed
to." (Saudi Corpus)
The writer here provides some suggestions for future research. However, the
use of should gave the statement an intensive meaning and offered a strong opinion
about what could be studied in future. The use of should has also indicated the necessity
of adopting the suggested approach (to include words that have different types of
consonant cluster). This strong degree of certainty by non-native speakers is also noted
by Hyland and Milton (1997) who suggest that non-native writers tend to rely on a
limited range of lexical items and are less able to use epistemic devices appropriately,
including the epistemic necessity of the modal verb should.
After studying concordance lines, the following points have been noted with regards
to the modal verb should:
1. All of the instances of should for metadiscourse were collocated with the
auxiliary verb be and followed by the past participle of the verb note as shown
in examples 14 and 15.

( Ex. 14 ) "It should be noted at this stage, however, that this is the perception of the
textbook which teachers and supervisors, not 55 students, have." (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 15 ) "Some important limitations to the study should be noted." (Saudi Corpus)
The collocational pattern of (be + past participle) forms the passive voice in
English (Biber et al., 2002). This construction was also found in all of the sentences
that involve should for metadiscourse. Example 16 provides an instance of this pattern
from the BAWE corpus:
( Ex. 16 ) "It should also be noted that there are two exceptions, as in the cases of 'best'
and 'worst' as a result of their stems (good and bad) being inflectionally irregular."
(BAWE-9.txt)
2. Most of the instances of should for expecting and predicting are in the active
voice as shown in examples 17 and 18.
( Ex. 17 ) "The teachers' role is to guide students on how to use WebQuests, and then
train them on this activity; the results should be really positive." (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 18 ) "… readers can not decide whether John took the stick or the dog did;
nevertheless, it is clear that the white tail should be with the dog…" (BAWE-8.txt)
4.3.4 The modal verb may
Saudi writers used the modal verb may mostly to state their expectations as
shown in example 19 or considering alternatives as in example 20. Hedging is another
important function for this modal verb. This can be seen in example 21. The functions
that are rarely used by this modal are describing properties and indicating legitimacy.

( Ex. 19 ) "teachers can be selective in correcting errors by focusing on one point at a
time instead of focusing on correcting many linguistic forms, which may lead to
confusion." (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 20 ) "Signaling by the instructional assistant when it is about to be over or
termination of the instructional session by the removal of the materials may be one
method that can be injected into the program" (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 21 ) "Therefore, one may propose that teachers must help learners in developing
their fluency." (Saudi Corpus)
A quite similar distribution of functions was found in the BAWE corpus. Native
speakers use the modal verb may mainly for stating expectations and making
predictions as shown in example 22, as well as for considering alternatives as in
example 23. Using may for hedging is also a frequent function by native speakers.
( Ex. 22 ) "Most of these episodes may have been either the result of the merging of
other Egyptian stories or may be based on similar episodes found within the pre-
existing tradition of the Osiris myth." (BAWE-10.txt)
( Ex. 23 ) "It may also be used to punish the characters for their defiance of social
traditions." (BAWE-4.txt)
4.3.5 The modal verb could
Two main functions for could were found in the Saudi corpus: hedging and
suggesting potential. The same applies to the BAWE corpus, but there were also a few
instances of using could in expressing enabling functions as illustrated in example 24.

( Ex. 24 ) "Since Plutarch could not read Egyptian he had to rely on accounts concerning
Egyptian religion written in Greek." (BAWE-10.txt)
It has been noted that about 50% of the instances of could were collocated with
the verb be as shown in examples 25 and 26.
( Ex. 25 ) "The problem could be partly attributed to the EFL learning environment."
(Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 26 ) "This could be because, as stated by some teachers, that consistent correction
of students' oral errors could inhibit students and discourage them from speaking."
(Saudi Corpus)
4.3.6 The modal verb would
Would is a modal verb that can be used to express many different function. As
figure 4.7 shows, the most frequently used function is stating expectations and making
prediction.

Figure 4.7 Functions of would in the Saudi corpus
Saudi writers use would in the future context to express what they expect or
predict as shown in example 27.
( Ex. 27 ) "In addition, it was used to ensure that any differences in the writing
performance would be due the experiment and not preexisting knowledge. The pretest
would also reveal if the all the groups were at the same proficiency level in writing in
EFL." (Saudi Corpus)
In addition, Saudis commonly used the modal verb would to express principles
and hedging. In example 28, the writer uses would to mitigate an opinion that s/he is
expressing.
( Ex. 28 ) "The people who create the curriculum should be more involved in the
implementation of technology in the classroom (Woodward & Cuban, 2001). This
would ensure that the teachers have more understanding of the technological
advancements and how to use them in the classroom." (Saudi Corpus)
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
considering
alternatives
hedging possibility
or necessity
expecting
and
predicting
stating
principles
0%
23%
13%
39%
25%
Saudi corpus

Non-native speakers also frequently use the modal verb would for stating
principles. These principles are often related to the process of data collection in
research. This can be seen in example 29.
( Ex. 29 ) "The participants were assured that the information would be confidential
and that the researcher would be the only one to have access to it." (Saudi Corpus)
4.3.7 The modal verb must
The only function of must in academic writing is referring to required actions
or conditions, which expresses a deontic obligation (Thompson, 2001). However, a few
instances were found in the Saudi corpus where writers use the modal verb must to
indicate an epistemic necessity as shown in example 30.
( Ex. 30 ) "Some of the researchers believe that the phenomenon must be related to a
grammatical account." (Saudi Corpus)
The writer in the previous sentence expresses belief by the use of must in its epistemic
meaning.
4.3.8 The modal verb might
According to Thompson's (2001) classification, two functions are assigned for
might: (1) hedging, and (2) indicating legitimacy. Nevertheless, it has been noticed that
a large percentage (32%) of the uses of might was for the purpose of indicating
possibility, as shown in figure 4.8, a function that was not proposed by Thompson
(2001) for this particular modal verb.
Figure 4.8 Functions of might in the Saudi corpus

The function of possibility is quite prominent in the Saudi corpus. Examples 31
and 32 show how the modal verb might is used for indicating possibility.
( Ex. 31 ) "Most teachers in Saudi Arabia think that they might change their attitudes
about technology and provide an incentive for them to try to learn more about it." (Saudi
Corpus)
( Ex. 32 ) "One of the limitations the author had mentioned is that meaning might be
lost in translating the questionnaire from English to Arabic," (Saudi Corpus)
4.3.9 The modal verb shall
The frequency analysis has shown that shall is the least frequent modal verb in
both corpora. And as pointed out by Greenbaum and Quirk (1990: p. 64), it is a rather
rare auxiliary with only two functions: prediction and volition. Concordance lines for
this modal verb show that 100% of the uses of shall in the Saudi corpus is for volition
as shown in example 33. On the other hand, in the BAWE corpus 60.8% of the uses are
for volition, 30.4% for prediction, and 8.6% of uses were unclear. As shown in
examples 34 and 35, the modal verb shall is used by native speakers to indicate
0.00%
10.00%
20.00%
30.00%
40.00%
50.00%
60.00%
hedging indicating
legitimacy
possibilty
57.80%
9.60%
32.60%
Saudi corpus

prediction. This corresponds with Römer's findings (2004) that there is no single
indication of the prediction function for shall in the textbook that she investigated.
( Ex. 33 ) "However, to explain the process effectively, we shall first consider the
different ways it has been defined by scholars." (Saudi Corpus)
( Ex. 34 ) "Given Manetho's fragmentary state we shall never know how much of the
version is Plutarch's creation." (BAWE-10.txt)
( Ex. 35 ) "Veterans were not the only ones demanding better housing, and as we shall
note later," (BAWE-4.txt)
4.3.10 Summary
According to Thompson's (2001) functional framework that was discussed in
chapter two, each modal auxiliary was designated one or more function in the corpora
texts. Based on this classification, and after reading all concordance lines, all modal
verbs in the Saudi corpus were assigned functions. The following points summarize the
findings:
• Can is the most frequently used modal verb in the Saudi corpus. It used to
express a variety of functions including indicating possibility and necessity,
expressing enabling functions, suggesting the potential, metadiscourse. Can is
rarely used to indicate legitimacy or to consider alternatives.
• Will can be used to convey four different meanings: describing properties of
subject of enquiry, metadiscourse, stating expectations and making predictions,
and for stating principles. However, non-native speakers use this modal for two
main purposes: expecting and predicting, and for metadiscourse. In several

instances, will was used for describing properties, but there was almost no
indication of its use for stating principles.
• Should is mainly used when referring to required actions and 90% of the
occurrences of this modal are for this function. Although it can be used for
metadiscourse or stating expectations and making predictions, these two
meanings were rarely expressed by the modal should.
• May is mainly used to express expectations and for hedging. It is also sometimes
used for considering alternatives. However, some other functions were very rare
like describing properties and indicating legitimacy.
• Could has four functions in academic writing, but only two were found in the
Saudi corpus: hedging and suggesting the potential.
• Would is mainly used for expecting and predicting. It was also found that many
Saudi writers used would for hedging, indicating possibility or necessity, and
for stating principles, but it was never used for considering alternatives.
• Must was mostly used to express obligations and referring to required actions,
but was also used to indicate necessity.
• Might was mostly used for hedging and occasionally for indicating legitimacy.
• Shall was only used for volition. Even though it can be used for prediction, there
was no single instance of using this modal verb to refer to the future.
4.4 Conclusions
Overall, there were some similarities between the usages of modal verbs in some
cases, but there was also a considerable variation between the two corpora. Table 4.2

summarizes the functions that were proposed by Thompson (2001) and their typical
modal verbs and compares them to what was found in the Saudi corpus.
Table 4.2 Typical modal verbs for each function in the Saudi and in Thompson's corpus
(2001)
Function
Typical modal verbs
according to Thompson
Typical modal verbs in
the Saudi corpus
Describing properties of
subjects of enquiry
May, will Will
Considering alternatives Would, can, may Can, may
Hedging May, might, could, would May, might, could, would
Metadiscourse Will, can, should Will, can
Possibility or necessity Can, would Can, would, might, must
(in its epistemic meaning)
Indicating legitimacy May, might, can, could Can, might
Expressing enabling
functions:
Can, could Can

Referring to required
actions or conditions
Should, must Should, must
Stating expectations and
making predictions:
Will, would, should, may Will, would, should, may
Suggesting the potential Can, could Can, could
Stating principles Will, would Would
In chapter two, the following research questions were posed:
3. Is there any variation in the use of modal verbs in academic writing between
native speakers of English and Saudis?
4. What are the differences between native and non-native speakers regarding the
functions of modal verbs?
In terms of the first research question, the analysis shows that there is variation
in the use of modal verbs in academic writing between native speakers of British
English and Saudis who speak English as a second language. This variation occurs at
both frequency and functional levels. All modal verbs, except should, were underused
by Saudi writers with would, could and may particularly standing out.
As for the functional usage of modal verbs in the academic writing of Saudis, it
was found that most of the uses were similar to the functional framework that was
proposed by Thompson (2001). An exception occurs with the modal verb might, where
there was an additional functional category. According to Thompson, might is used
only to express the meaning of hedging and legitimacy. However, it was used frequently
to indicate possibility in the Saudi corpus.

Regarding the second research question, which is concerned with the variation in
functions of modal verbs between native and non-native speakers, the following has
been found:
1. The variation between non-native and native speakers of English in relation to
the functions of the modal verb can occur in suggesting potential, a function
that is considerably overused by Saudis. Another significant variation takes
place in indicating legitimacy and metadiscourse which are both underused by
Saudis.
2. In terms of the modal verb will, a significant variation appears in describing
properties and stating principles. In both cases, the functions were underused by
Saudi writers.
3. As for the modal verb should, the variation occurs in two functions:
metadiscourse and expecting and predicting. Again these two functions were
underused by Saudis.
4. The modal verbs would, could and may are significantly underused in terms of
frequency. However, in terms of functions, there were only slight differences
between the Saudi corpus and the BAWE corpus. Such variation occurs in the
use of could for expressing enabling function. This function in particular was
found more frequently in the BAWE corpus than in the Saudi corpus.
The next chapter reviews the research in relation to the wider context of modal
verbs in academic writing and discusses insights that can be derived from the findings
of the study. It also provides some possible pedagogical implications of the main
findings. In addition, the chapter presents the limitations of this study.

Chapter Five
Discussion and Implications
5.1 Introduction
This chapter consists of three sections: discussion, implications, and limitations.
First, a discussion will be carried out in order to provide some explanations for the main
findings. The second section presents some possible applications of the findings and
discusses how the results of this study can be used to inform language pedagogy for
advanced learners. Finally the chapter ends by discussing the limitations of the study.
5.2 Discussion
The current study has investigated contrasts in the use of modal verbs between
native speakers of British English and non-native speakers of English from Saudi
Arabia in academic writing at an advanced level. The analysis has focused on two
aspects in relation to modal verbs: frequency and function. The first aspect dealt with
number of occurrence of modal verbs in texts, whereas the second aspect considered
the functions that are conveyed by modal verbs.
The overall analysis has demonstrated that Saudi writers use a restricted
repertoire of modal verbs. On many occasions, they use one or two modal verbs to
convey the meaning whereas it can be expressed by more than one modal verb. For
instance, Saudi writers mainly used the modal verb will, and the modal verb can
occasionally to convey metadiscourse. On the on the other hand, native speakers of
English use will, can and should for metadiscourse. The absence of an organized modal

verbs system in the Arabic language may have to do with this aspect. Because there are
no equivalent counterparts to modal verbs in Arabic, learners may find it difficult to
use varieties of modal verbs in conveying functions.
In addition, the study has shown that there is a significant underuse of some
modal verbs by non-natives in the genre of MA Dissertations. One possible explanation
for this underuse may be due to L1 transfer. The fact that there is no system of modal
verbs in Arabic could have influenced the way Arabic speakers write their papers.
The high number of occurrences for the modal verb should might be due to
transfer from Arabic language. The difference between must (yajib ann) and should
(yanbaghi ann) in Arabic makes should a good choice for the context of referring to
future research. However, in English they both provide a clear meaning of obligation.
5.3 Practical and pedagogical implications
The study of modal verbs in academic writing has various teaching implications for
advanced learners of English. The functions of modal verbs in academic writing should
be a concern of EAP materials writers as well. From a pedagogical perspective, the
following observations are derived from the comparison of the two corpora:
1. Saudi writers should note that modal verb are polysemous, thus each modal verb
can have many different functions, and one function can be expressed via
different modal verbs.
2. The tendency for should to collocate with passive constructions in expressing
metadiscourse is important information for EAP materials writers. The
collocation of 'should be noted' is very common in this particular function.

3. Saudi writers should note the strong impact of using the modal verb should in
the context of recommendations for future research. In this particular context,
hedging is preferred in order to avoid an emphatic way of persuasion. It is
important to note that hedging devices include the following modal verbs: may,
might, could and would.
4. Emphasis should be placed on the function of metadiscourse and the modal
verbs that are used for this particular function. It is important to highlight that
there are three modal verbs which can be used to guide the readers through a
text: can, will and should. Special attention should be paid to the modal verb
can as it can be used for metadiscourse in a variety of contexts.
5. All findings from this study are based on the analysis of concordance lines. As
suggested by Thompson (2002), it can be useful to provide concordance lines-
based writing instruction where learners are exposed to samples of concordance
lines which represent the grammatical patterns of the target modal verb. This
approach in learning has also been adopted by Thurstun and Candlin (1997)
who based their EAP textbook on concordance lines.
5.4 Limitations of the study
Even though this study has achieved its main aims and answered the research
questions, it does have some limitations that might have a potential impact on the
results.
One limitation of this study is that it provides a detailed analysis for only three
modal verbs (can, will and should). These modal verbs were chosen because of their
frequency in the main corpus. Studying concordance lines and analysing the functions
for each modal verb is a very time-consuming process, bearing in mind the large size

of both corpora (approximately 200,000 words each). Additionally, space does not
permit an extensive analysis of all nine modal verbs across the two corpora. Thus, this
research undertook an in-depth analysis of the top three modal verbs in addition to the
basic analysis for the rest of the modals. For the top three modal verbs in the Saudi
corpus, the functions were analysed and compared to BAWE, whereas no comparisons
have been made for the rest of the modal verbs.
In terms of procedures, the study compared the use of modal verbs between
Saudis who speak English as a second language and native speakers of British English.
As discussed in chapter three, there were two main sources from which the data was
gathered. The first was from Saudi instructors who work at King Abdulaziz University.
The participants are all non-natives of English. The second source was from other Saudi
universities and the data was collected from Saudis whose background was unknown
to the researcher. Therefore, there is a possibility that some of the texts in the main
corpus were produced by Saudis who speak a native-like language. The main reason
for collecting data from different Saudi universities was to have a variety of papers from
different regions in the country, which would enable the study to make a broader
generalisation from the results. In future research, this could be overcome by avoiding
the use of published papers and using data collection criteria which enable the
researcher to know for certain whether the author speaks a native-like or a non-native
language.
In addition, corpus-based analysis can bring some unavoidable flaws. Because
the data involved in this study consisted of academic writing, it is possible that
occasional statements may not have been produced by the authors of the paper
themselves. This may have occurred when the author included direct quotes in his/her

text. Therefore, there might be some instances of modal verbs that are not used by the
original author of the text.
The final chapter which follows, reports the main conclusions derived from the
study, and suggests some areas for future investigations.

Chapter Six
Conclusion
This paper has examined the uses of modal verbs in MA Dissertations by Saudi
writers by comparing the uses with those of native speaker writers. The key findings
show that by comparison Saudi writers tend to underuse the category of modal verbs in
general. Some modal verbs were found to be significantly underused (would, could, and
may). In addition, variations were found in some functions of modal verbs such as
metadiscourse, describing properties of subjects, and possibility or necessity. Taken
together, these results suggest that Saudi writers' use of modal verbs varies from that of
native speakers'. There were also similarities in terms of the frequency of some modal
verbs (might and must) as well as some functions.
The area of modal verbs in academic writing is a rich and promising field that
is worth further investigation. This study dealt with advanced Saudi learners only.
Therefore, one potential area that requires further research is the use of modal verbs
between Saudi writers on different academic levels. For example, the results from this
study could be compared with more advanced learners, like in the genre of PhD theses
for instance. They could be also compared with learners in undergraduate levels to
compare and contrast the frequencies and functions of modal verbs by Saudi writers
from different levels.
Another possible area for investigation is the collocational aspects of modal
verbs by Saudi writers. This study has mainly focused on the analysis of frequencies
and functions of modal verbs. However, it is also important to study collocations and

compare them with collocational patterns by native speakers. This would help develop
a clearer view of the aspects related to the modal verbs.
There have been some studies which discussed the representation of modal
verbs in textbooks (e.g. Mindt, 1995; Römer, 2004). Thus, it would be fruitful to
investigate the distribution and patterns of modal verbs found in teaching materials that
are used in Saudi Arabia and compare them to an actual language use by native
speakers. This in turn would help informing and improving teaching syllabi in Saudi
Arabia.

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Appendices
Appendix I: Consent Form
ETHICS COMMITTEE
Consent Form
Project title: A corpus-based study of modal verbs in academic writing of English native and
non-native speakers from Saudi Arabia
I understand the purpose of this research and understand what is required of me; I have read
and understood the Information Sheet relating to this project, which has been explained to me
by Eman Akeel. I agree to the arrangements described in the Information Sheet in so far as
they relate to my participation.
I understand that my participation is entirely voluntary and that I have the right to withdraw
from the project at any time.
I have received a copy of this Consent Form and of the accompanying Information Sheet.
Name:
Signed:
Date:
School of Literature and Languages
Department of English Language and Applied Linguistics

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