The modal characteristics in the communication of Quang Nam people

Abstract

The modality in the Quang Nam dialect clearly reflects the distinctive cultural characteristics and linguistic distinction of the land: ‘hasn’t rained but already soaked’. The use of modal means by Quang Nam people in everyday communication is not merely a matter of word choice, but also a way for them to express attitudes, viewpoints, emotions, and social relationships. In order to understand more deeply about the modality of Quang people, we conducted fieldwork to collect everyday speech of Quang Nam people, while combining the linguistic research methods, including the descriptive linguistic method and the semantic-syntactic analysis method, to study the modal means across two categories: objective modality and subjective modality. The research results show that the modal means in the Quang Nam dialect can be words, phrases, or idiomatic expressions frequently used by local people in daily communication. These linguistic units not only contribute to creating a lively and rich linguistic picture but also play the role of marking the illocutionary force of utterances, helping to express the attitudes, emotions, hesitation, or even opposition of Quang Nam people when communicating. This research holds significance not only academically but also practically, especially in fields such as intercultural communication, the preservation of local languages, and the development of Vietnamese language teaching materials for foreigners.