The Modal Expression of Necessity in English for Tourism

Abstract

This study focuses on the modal notion of necessity expressed by the central modal auxiliaries and other semantically related modal expressions in English for Tourism. The general aim is to offer detailed coverage of the investigated items by placing considerable emphasis on variability in terms of specialised registers. Specifically, I intend to explore the similarities and differences among necessity modals related to modal meaning and their distribution, and observe whether there are any register-induced variations. To this end, the analysis has been conducted on a small-scale specialised corpus which contains texts from one spoken, and two written registers (promotional website and online responses to consumers’ reviews). A conflation of relevant perspectives underpins the qualitative analysis. A descriptive account is based on the distinction between epistemic and root necessity, and the parameters of strength and source in case of root modal uses. Quantitative findings point to a low frequency of identified items as well as to marked variation in their distribution across the registers. Overall, the use of necessity expressions is contingent on the medium of communication, communicative purpose and interactants.