The Expressions of Epistemic Modality in English and Vietnamese: A Contrastive on “thấy” and “nghĩ” in Vietnamese and Mental Verbs in English

Epistemic modality is described as the speaker's judgment, assessing degree of factual proposition, or confidence non-confidence in truth value proposition. The paper focuses on expression “thấy”, “nghĩ” predicates Vietnamese and compares with mental verbs English. To achieve research objectives, uses descriptive, statistical comparative methods to clarify general epistemic particular. initially contributes clarifying definition, category, identification terms grammar vocabulary. Next, points out similarities differences English Vietnamese. results show that nature vocabulary syntax basically exists factuality non-factuality. most important feature subjectivity objectivity. speaker "I/Tôi" clearly expresses implies commitment for what said. Understanding applying particular will help learners acquire language culture better process communication translation.