Abstrakt
In this paper, we investigate the use of epistemic and deontic modal expressions in Slovenian Facebook comments. Modals are linguistic expressions that can be strategically used to fulfill the face-saving dimension of communication and to linguistically mask discriminatory discourse.
We compile a list of modal expressions that have a tendency towards a single modal reading in order to enable robust corpus searches. Using this set of modals, we first show that deontic, but not epistemic, modals are significantly more frequent in socially unacceptable comments.
In the qualitatve part of the paper, we discuss the use of modals expressing deontic and epistemic necessity from the perspective of discourse pragmatics. We explore how the communicative strategy of face-saving interacts with personal and impersonal syntax in the case deontic modals, and how hedging and boosting interacts with irony in the case of epistemic modals.