LINGUIST List 8.93

Thu Jan 23 1997

Sum: _will_ and _shall_ in journal writing

Editor for this issue: Ljuba Veselinova <ljubalinguistlist.org>

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1. M.Shuib, sum: will and shall in journal writing

A few weeks ago I posted the following question:

 **I am doing a study on the use of modals by journal writers. Among 
other things, I found that many of the writers in my data employ
 the modals will and shall in volitional sense interchangeably . 
i.e. One of the writers, for example, at the beginning of his article
 uses volitional will as in :

THE ORGANISATION OF THIS PAPER IS AS FOLLOWS. 
FIRST, WE WILL PROVIDE A GENERAL BACKGROUND TO
 COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES ....

and then, at a later stage of his article, he changes to volitional shall, 
as in:

I SHALL SUGGEST IN THE DISCUSSION OF THE MODEL THAT ...


What I would like to know is whether you yourself adopt this approach 
in your journal or dissertation writing If you do, could you please 
offer some explanation. **


Some of the people who responded said that the use of will/shall in
journal writing is a matter of style and consistency. M. Fryd, for
example , puts down such fluctuations to 'straightforward bad
writing'. others gave the following comment:

1. Sherri Condon (condousl.edu)
Most Americans do not distinguish shall and will

2. Rick Mc Callister (rmccallisunmuv1.MUW.Edu)
In American English the use of shall sounds archaic or pedantic

3. J. DeChicchis ( jedue.ipc.hiroshima-uac.jp)

It is difficult for the reader to perceive a semantic difference for
shall/will. This difficulty is not a reflection of the language
proficiency differences of foreign and native readers. This kind of
inderminacy has been reported for modal usages in cross-dialectal
contact situation.

Some of the people who responded argue that the two examples i gave
above have no volitional overtone at all. They state that the modals
above are simply used to indicate futurity.

While I agree that there is some element of futurity in the examples, 
there is also, in my view, a sense of volition involved. Both of the 
modals above can be paraphrased as '....intend to ...' which I take 
as the chief feature of volitional meaning. For those who think that 
the idea of volition for will and shall is a wishful thinking on the 
part of older grammarians, I would recommmend you to refer to 
1. Coates, J (1983) The semantics of modals and modality
2. Butler, C. (1990) Modals in scientific writing, in Nash (ed) The 
writing scholar

Thank you for everybody who responded to my query