A semantic study of modality expressions in Arabic TV news channels

Abstract EN

The aim of the present paper is two-fold.

First, it tries to propose a comprehensive and large-scale classification of modality expressions in Arabic by analyzing a great amount of data.

Second, it uses the proposed classification to test the hypothesis that translated news from English into Arabic tends to use deontic modality expressions more frequently than originally Arabic one does.

For the second objective, news from two leading Arab-world-wide news satellite channels, namely BBC Arabic and Al-Arabiya were analyzed.

It came out clearly that BBC Arabic channel uses deontic modality expressions more frequently than Al-Arabiya.

The latter channel draws more on assertions and on epistemic modality expressions.