The symbiosis of choices and control: Toward a discourse-based account of can

“Can do!” Teacher Promotion of Optimism in Response to Student Failure Expectation Expressions in Classroom Discourse

“…Failure expectation expressions and other negative verbalisations of learning such as 'I don't understand', 'I can't get it' or 'I don't know' occur frequently in classroom interactions (Lindwall & Lymer, 2011). However, although these constructions are literally concerned with the students' ability or their level of understanding, the functions of these formulations vary (Beach & Metzger, 1997;He & Tsoneva, 1998;Lindwall & Lymer, 2011). In addition to showing non-understanding, claiming insufficient knowledge or asking for guidance from a teacher (Lindwall & Lymer, 2011), the formulations may be used for introducing a complaint (Depperman & Schmitt, 2008;Lindwall, & Lymer, 2011), resisting or avoiding on-going activity (Beach & Metzger, 1997;Hutchby, 2002;Lynch & Bogen, 2005;Metzger & Beach, 1996), implementing topic transition (Beach & Metzger, 1997) and expressing frustration over or criticising tasks (Deppermann, 2012;Lindwall & Lymer, 2011).…”

Evidentiality in Chinese newspaper reports: subjectivity/objectivity as a factor

“…Nuyts, 2001a;Papafragou, 2000) to empirical approaches to the use of modality as contextual and sociocultural reflections (e.g. Dunmire, 2005;He, 1993;He and Tsoneva, 1998;Hinkel, 1995;King and Nadasdi, 1999;Klinge, 1995;Precht, 2003;Reilly et al, 2005;Simon-Vandenbergen, 1997;Turnbull and Saxton, 1997). The patterns of evidential use have also been attributed to the discourse pragmatics dependent on individual languages (e.g.…”