The status of seem in the nineteenth-century Corpus of English Philosophy Texts (CEPhiT)

Almeida, Francisco Alonso; Martín, Inés Lareo

doi:10.1075/z.198.08alo

Cited by 3 publications

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“…The instances below show cases of seem that and its Spanish counterpart parecer que . Data indicate that, despite the low frequency of seem that in the scientific and technical literature in present-day English (Alonso Almeida and Lareo, in press), this form with an evidential meaning is well represented in the English corpus analysed. Examples are the following: (19) For if Vision were made in the Retina, it seems that then it should be made whereever the Retina is; and since the same covers the whole Nerve, as well as the rest of the bottom of the Eye, there appears no reason to me, why there should be no Vision in the place of the Optick Nerve where it is.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

The functions of seem and parecer in early medical writing

Almeida

2015

Discourse Studies

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This article studies the function of the verbs seem and parecer with an evidential meaning in early medical writing in a time span of two centuries (1500–1700). The texts for analysis are excerpted from the Corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts in the case of English and the Corpus diacrónico del español (CORDE) in the case of Spanish. My hypothesis is that the forms seem and parecer are mainly evidential rather than epistemic, as suggested in the works of Johansson and Aijmer, since they primarily report on the speaker’s role in the formulation of predication. In this sense, the use of seem shows the way in which information has been obtained. Source of knowledge identification and attribution are important in medical prose because writers tend to make manifest that their information is based on demonstrable grounds, including inferential processes. My notion of evidentiality draws on the work of Cornillie and is essentially disjunctive. This means that the association of mode/source of knowledge with varying degrees of certainty and truth does not always take place. This study also allows for cross-cultural and cross-linguistic conclusions in terms of frequency, motivation and use of these evidential verbs in historical texts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 82%

The functions of seem and parecer in early medical writing

Almeida

2015

Discourse Studies

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“…It has been claimed that scientific writing has evolved over time from being author-centred to object-centred (Atkinson 1999). This view has, however, been challenged, insofar as the supposedly objective register of scientific discourse has been found to involve hedging (Hyland 1998) and elements expressing stance (Moskowich & Crespo 2014;Alonso-Almeida & Lareo 2016;Dossena 2017). This paper aims to describe late Modern English scientific writing by looking specifically at subjectivity and intersubjectivity (López-Couso 2010; Ferrari & de Almeida 2015) in the stance adverbs perhaps and possibly, seen as markers of authorial tentativeness and uncertainty as much as devices that seek the audience's involvement or approval in the presentation of certain ideas.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysing the Coruña Corpus: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity Markers

Crespo

2022

stap

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This paper aims to analyse the concepts of subjectivity and intersubjectivity in scientific writing through the use of stance adverbs perhaps and possibly. These adverbs act as markers of the authors’ presence expressing their views, and a covert relationship between these authors and their corresponding readership. The material used for this study includes four sub-corpora of the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing: CETA (Corpus of English Texts on Astronomy), CEPhiT (Corpus of English Philosophy Texts), CHET (Corpus of English History Texts), and CELiST (Corpus of English Life Sciences Texts). Two of these represent the so-called soft sciences, and the other two the hard sciences, which will allow for comparison. The results might argue against the generally-assumed tendency in the history of scientific writing that this discourse has moved from being author-centred to object-centred. Perhaps it is simply impossible for writers of science to disappear completely from their texts.

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Chapter 15. Spotting register-internal variation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century life sciences

Monaco

2021

“All Families and Genera”

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The status of seem in the nineteenth-century Corpus of English Philosophy Texts (CEPhiT)

Cited by 3 publications

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The functions of seem and parecer in early medical writing

The functions of seem and parecer in early medical writing

Analysing the Coruña Corpus: Subjectivity and Intersubjectivity Markers

Chapter 15. Spotting register-internal variation in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century life sciences

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