(157）Because they’ve been proven to be BookScan best-sellers, they would all fall into the category...again hard to say whether they would get to the Fruits Basket, phenomenon level, but they will all be incredibly successful because they have a lot of momentum. The original debuts for ‘06 that have that kind of Princess Ai/Warcraft potential would probably be Labyrinth, the first part of the Henson deal that will eventually result in both the Dark Crystal book and the Neil Gaiman MirrorMask book.
The response given by the interviewee (a cartoonist）in Example (157）involves the use of MSAs expressing reaction (incredibly）and valuation (eventually).In fact, in this example there is an element of judgment as well (again and probably).The MSA incredibly indicates great success here in the eyes of the interviewee, so does the MSA eventually, the difference being that the former and the latter are more related to personal feelings and institutionalized perspective respectively.The MSAs again and probably belong to resolute usuality and probability respectively in the system of judgment; while the former deals with somehow a negative side, the latter predicts a bright future.Therefore, the general picture of attitude that the interviewee conveys in this example is positive belief, praise, and optimism about the industry involved.
In Example (157）the principles of attitudinal signaling and dialogicality function simultaneously in order to reflect the evaluation pattern of assumption + prediction.In a fashion similar to Examples (153)-(156), the underlying mechanisms of perspectivization and intersubjectivity are assumed to play an equal role.
4.2.3 Prominence of generic features
MSAs can perform the function of foregrounding generic features.Halliday (1984: 112-120）holds that foregrounding is prominence that is motivated.Halliday (ibid）states:
…a feature that is brought into prominence will be ‘foregorunded’ only if it relates to the meaning of the text as a whole.This relationship is a functional one…I have used the term PROMINENCE as a general name for the phenomenon of linguistic highlighting, whereby some feature of the language of a text stand out in some way…The notion that prominence may be defined statistically is still not always accepted…Thus if a style cannot be reduced to counting, this is because it cannot be reduced to a simple question of prominence…
Halliday (ibid）seems to support the view that prominence is a matter of both statistics and function.In Chapter 3, it was mentioned that genre is equivalent to text type in many cases, and that tenor, discourse community and rhetorical features should be considered in combination.
The following part will illustrate how MSAs can make generic features prominent to some extent.
Consider the following:
(158）For example, in (3）the propositional content of the fourth text unit will normally ① be taken to be relevant to that of the preceding three.In particular ②, ‘she’ will be understood to refer to Mary (by virtue of the kind of cohesion that is called anaphora）and the general statement that the speaker is making about Mary will be understood as a comment upon her absence at that time, rather than as the expression of some totally unconnected passing thought.Similarly, if one heard or read the following sequence of two text-sentences…, one would normally ③ assume that Veronica was one of the family and presumably ④ the mother; that she bought the dress in town; and that the toy-shop was also in town.None of these propositions has been explicitly formulated, still less asserted; and any one of them might be contradicted, in specific contexts of utterance, by other propositions that are part of the speaker’s and hearer’s background beliefs and assumptions.
In Example (158), the MVs are italicized, and the MSAs are highlighted in bold.If the first MSA normally were removed from the clause, it would seem that the writer is sure about his/her prediction, and the dialogical nature of the writing would be lost.Thus, the evaluative function of the MV will would be reduced.With the MSA normally (in the category of probability & usuality), the writer could negotiate with the others in a better way, and the median value of the MV will is retained conditionally.In another word, the MSA normally has the function of disambiguating the modal sense of the MV will.
If the second MSA in particular (in the category of clarification）were removed, the sense of intertextuality would be lost, and the reader might have to spend more time in locating the target of the judgment indicated by the MV will.Hence, the use of this MSA is pragmatically and cognitively motivated.
The situation of the third MSA normally is the same as the first MSA.This section will not spend more time explaining its use.The fourth MSA presumably (in the category of reasoning）acts as an evidential marker, and presents the judgment conveyed by the MV would as negotiable.
The MSAs in Example (158）highlight generic features in the following way:
A.rhetorical features: probability + clarification + reasoning;
B.discourse community: negotiation academic community;
C.tenor: writer + reader; writer + other writers; writer himself.
Consider another example:
