Modal Expressions in English and Uzbek Newspaper Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

This study investigates modal expressions in English and Uzbek newspaper discourse through corpus-based analysis.  Parallel corpora were compiled from 100 English newspapers (approximately 50 million words) and 55 Uzbek social-political newspapers (approximately 25 million words) published in 2024.  The English corpus was analysed using AntConc software to extract nine core modal verbs, while the Uzbek corpus focused on analytical modal constructions.  Frequency analysis revealed that will and -sa kerak were the most frequent forms in their respective languages.  Semantic categorisation identified five microfields, with probability expressions constituting the largest category in both languages.  Pragmatic analysis demonstrated that English newspapers employ modals primarily for analytical argumentation and epistemic commitment, whereas Uzbek newspapers use them predominantly for persuasion.  Genre analysis showed reduced modal frequency in news reports and elevated usage in analytical genres.  The findings contribute to cross-linguistic pragmatics, contrastive semantics, and translation studies.