Epistemic Modality in Computer-mediated Discourse: the Case of Wikipedia’s Academic Core

Epistemic modality serves to indicate how confident language users are about the truth of the ideational material they convey; it is often subdivided into two types of markers, hedges and boosters. Hedges are linguistic devices like perhaps, I guess, and to a certain extent that speakers employ to reduce the degree of liability or responsibility they might face in expressing the ideational material. Boosters are elements like definitely, I assure that, and of course that speakers use to emphasize what they do really believe—or would like their audiences to think they believe. Epistemic modality has been shown to play an especially significant role in written academic discourses, as scholars use these markers to create research spaces for themselves, construct evidence, politely refute others’ claims, etc. As far as we know, however, no research has investigated the employment of epistemic modality in computer-mediated discourse (CMD). Since arguments about CMD have sometimes lacked empirical support (e.g., Crystal’s [2001] characterization of ‘Netspeak’ as a third medium of language that is neither speech nor writing), empirical research is needed to target the various linguistic features of this type of communication and compare it with other modalities.