What is it about?
This study investigates the discourse-pragmatic functions of the epistemic markers haoxiang “seem” and keneng “probably” in natural conversations of Mandarin Chinese. By examining 107 cases of haoxiang and 152 cases of keneng in sequential contexts, it demonstrates that both haoxiang and keneng are hedge expressions showing the speaker’s attitude of lack of commitment to the truthfulness of their own utterance, which is often driven by an intersubjective motivation.
Why is it important?
This study is resourceful in unraveling the full pictures of the discourse-pragmatic functions of epistemic makers. It would shed some light on epistemic stance, contribute additional evidence to the functional linguistic research on the intersubjectivity of epistemic markers by showing how similar politeness markers are used in conversations with subtle diverse foci that are derived from different semantic meanings. This study also has significant pedagogical implications to offering instructions of synonyms to L2 learners of Chinese.