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sk-taking decisions 
to capitalize... or, with a single participant, in which 
case they are non-causative: (2) petrol price will 
similarly increase. Restricted processes may be 
restricted to a single participant, and thus be middle: 
(3) When we use the three years at the same time, N in 
that model can be bigger than the N of each year.
Where restricted processes are restricted to two 
participants (effective process), both participants may 
be expressed giving the transitive process: (4)  they 
[insiders] can create an adversarial relationship among 
partnersor only one participant may be expressed 
giving the intransitive process: (5) A negative market 
perception (reaction) may not then increase in the firm’s 
systematic risk level.
Relation processes are either attributive, where a 
qualitative attribute is assigned to the subject: (6) 
 increasing price in may be riskyor identifying, 
where the process serves to define the identity of the 
subject: (7)both financial and non-financial private 
benefits of control which may create incentives for 
corporate insiders
Only four positions in the network introduced by 
Halliday (1985) accept a selection between active 
and passive voice; they are the causative, transitive, 
mental, and identifying processes. Table 1 shows the 
distribution of modal verbs in economic research 
articles from the corpus by process and distinguishes 
between active and passive where appropriate.
Table 1: Distribution by process and active, passive 
voice (data from writer’s research)
Processes and Voices Number of 
modal verbs
Frequency
Causative
Active 3 1%
Passive 3 1%
Non-causative 9 4%
Middle 17 7%
Transitive
Active 21 9%
Passive 26 11%
Intransitive 2 1%
Mental
Active 34 14%
Passive 72 29%
Attributive 49 20%
Identifying
Active 14 6%
Passive 2 1%
From the table 1, it is seen that mental process 
accounts for the largest number of cases (106 or 
43%), followed by the material (81 or 34%). Relational 
process takes up 65 cases (26%). As has been said, 
41% of the modal examples occur in the passive form. 
However, the result shown in the study expresses a 
misleading, in the sense that in four of the process 
types (non-causative, middle, intransitive and 
attributive) the active/passive choice is not available. 
These are processes occurring uniquely in the active 
form; no passive correlate exists. Of the other types, 
causative has few examples, but those that do occur 
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are evenly divided between active and passive. The transitive cases are also fairly evenly divided, with a slight 
bias towards passive (55%). The identifying cases are not many but are more so than causative. Passive is rare in 
this case with only 12% of the cases.
From the results, there seems to be some slight correlation between modality and mental process: 42% of the 
modal verbs in the corpus are mental processes, compared with 33% material and 25% relational processes. 
In the material process category, active and passive examples seem equally probable; in the mental process 
category, there seems to be a strong tendency towards the passive. On the other hand, passive seems extremely 
rare in the relational process.
It is reasonable that there are some links between modality and mental process. According to Halliday (1985), 
mental process deal with the human appreciation of the world, it may be well that this is a situation where 
the normative economists tend to hedge their bets, leaving themselves an escape route rather than making 
unqualified statements. The qualification provided by the modal would then allow the readers to follow the line 
of reasoning suggested. McCloskey (1985) has shown that when talking about the supposed errors of others, 
normative economists tend to do so in a non-specific way when speaking in a formal situation, as opposed 
to the informal situations where they tend to be much more specific and assertive. Therefore, it would seem 
reasonable that such a formal situation as in research articles will lead economists to be less assertive to hedge 
their bets, on points that might be open to disagreement.
Table 2 indicates the distribution of the various modal verbs in the corpus occurring in mental processes. 
Table 2: Distribution of modal verbs in mental processes (data from writer’s research)
Modal 
Verbs
Active Passive Total Mental
Number Frequency Number Frequency Number Frequency
Will 3 9% 5 7% 8 8%
Would 7 21% 3 4% 10 10%
Shall - - - - - -
Should 3 9% 3 4% 6 6%
Can 15 42% 34 47% 49 46%
Could 1 3% 4 6% 5 5%
May 4 12% 15 21% 19 18%
Might - - 6 8% 6 6%
Must 1 3% 2 3% 3 3%
Table 3 shows the frequency of the various modal verbs by process and by voice. The modal verbs are ordered 
according to their high frequency.
Table 3: The distribution of the various modal verbs by process and by voice (data from writer’s research)
Modal Verbs Material Mental Relational
Active Passive Active Passive Active Passive
Can 6 7 15 34 4 -
May 10 5 4 15 20 1
Would 12 4 7 3 15 1
Will 11 1 3 5 7 -
Should 1 4 3 3 8 -
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Could 6 4 1 4 2 -
Must 7 2 1 2 4 -
Might - 1 - 6 3 -
The above tables indicate that can makes up almost half of the modal verbs occurring. This is true for both the 
active and passive cases, with 42% and 47% respectively in mental processes. May is also accounts for a high 
ratio. These two modal verbs can and may will further be considered in the next section.
3.1. Mental process and passive May and Can
Huddleston (1971) claims that there are six uses of the epistemic may as follow:
1. Qualified generalization: x is true for at least some members of the group but not necessarily any particular 
individual.
2. Exhaustive disjunction: x is at least one of the attributes proposed.
3. Uncertainty: the truth of x is not certain (i.e. possibility).
4. Concession: whether x is true or not, y is the case.
5. Legitimacy: x is legitimate, valid.
6. Ability: people are able to do x.
The epistemic can has the same uses as may with the exclusion of the fourth use: concession. Besides, 
Huddleston seems to imply that there is little difference between may and can. Palmer (1974) when mentioning 
English verbs also shares the same idea links can to the notion of non-assertion. Of the notions suggested by 
Huddleston (1971), those of the uncertainly/possibility, legitimacy and ability seem to cover all of the examples 
found in the sample.
The examples of passive can in the mental process are never of a deontic type. All of the examples can be 
classified as epistemic in some forms. To the extent that these can be divided into an ability type and a 
possibility type. For example: (8) Hence, it can be argued that the nature of and changes in corporate governance 
have potential implications for the firm’s riskiness; (9) The differences in securities underwritten by commercial banks 
(or their affiliates) can be neglected.
However, a considerable number of the examples are not easily classified as being one rather than the other, 
and seem to combine aspects of both possible interpretations, or indeed to be neutral as to which one should 
be selected. 
The examples of passive, may in the mental process are also exclusively of the epistemic type, i.e. indicating 
some form of possibility. (10) the present work may be considered an extension of Walter’s analysis
Here the majority of the cases of passive may in mental process (15 out of 17 cases) are examples of the legitimacy 
use: (11) without controlling for other factors that will affect this spread, no strong conclusions may be drawn from 
these univariate results.
The ability category of may can also be seen in the economic research articles (here again some cases are not 
easy to categorize). 
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To the extent that can and may cover similar semantic 
areas in similar proportions, it might seem that the 
“virtually no difference” approach is justified, and it 
is true that in many cases substituting may for can 
or vice versa would make “virtually” no difference. 
However, in this example, “can” does not lend 
themselves to this ploy. (12) it can be shown that 
the procedure is reasonable The substitution of 
may in example (13) in the United States, the capital 
market needs of smaller firms may be ignored places 
the reasonableness much more in the domain of 
possibility. This seems to go against Palmer’s use of 
non-assertion as a distinguishing feature of epistemic 
can. Both may and can express a procedure which 
is considered legitimate. However, in the case of 
can, this legitimacy is considered to be the only one 
available in the present state of our knowledge, and it 
is used until it is shown to be less adequate than some 
other procedures. This interpretation is supported 
by the fact that in many cases there seems to be 
little difference, or at least only marginal difference, 
between the use of can and a non-modal sentence.
3.2. Mental Process and Active May and Can
Mental process, by definition, typically requires an 
intelligent agent. Economic discourse tends to avoid 
the use of human agent subjects. It might expect then 
that active mental process would be rare in this type 
of document. As far as may is concerned, this is true. In 
addition, example with human subject is rarely found. 
Subject in most of the cases might be called “untypical 
animacy” (the term used by Berry (1975)); that is, in this 
case, an inanimate subject occurring where the process 
would normally require an animate one. For example, 
(14) This firm-specific error can control for unobservable firm 
effects not captured in the OLS model; (15) According to our 
hypothesis, a conflict of interest may exist when a firm with a 
loan outstanding issues a security underwritten by the bank
There is a rather higher number of examples of active 
can in the mental process. Furthermore, one might 
add here that the pronoun we as subject, which 
constitutes an unusually high concentration for this 
type of discourse, occurs quite often. Most of the 
examples with the pronoun we as subject express 
legitimacy: (16) We can now statethat there is no 
evidence; (17) The second alternative not only can 
account for the increased productivity
While the other examples express ability, for example: 
(18)lacking suitable data we cannot quantify the loss 
from that economic decision.
Some examples are neutral as to an ability or 
legitimacy interpretation as (19) We can check 
whether the loss Profile B is plausible; (20) We may 
conduct further tests to clarify the effects of time on the 
perception of a conflict of interest.
The above corpus examples then present two basic 
differences between active may and active can in 
mental process. Firstly, may, but not can, occurs 
more frequently with untypical animacy; whereas 
may expresses primarily uncertainty and secondarily 
legitimacy, can expresses primarily legitimacy and 
secondarily ability. The numbers are too small to 
warrant extrapolation, but it would be interesting to 
see if these results are confirmed in a larger sample.
4. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the study presents some observations 
concerning transitivity and modality in economic 
research articles. It can be concluded that there is a 
series of relationships between processes (transitivity) 
and modality. These are manifested in the form of 
tendencies, in some cases particularly strong, for 
particular processes to have strong collocations with 
specific forms of modal choice in economic writing. 
Transitivity is then a significant parameter in the 
analysis of modality in economic research articles.
Because of the scope of a seminar topic, the study is 
only an extrapolative result found for transitivity and 
modality in a small numbers of the sample. It would 
be interesting to see whether the tendencies found 
here are corroborated in a larger sample. Also, further 
research on the other categories of transitivity and 
modality would be useful./.
References:
1. Berry, M. (1975), Introduction to Systemic Linguistics, 
Structures and Systems, 1. U.K: Batsford
2. Coats, J. (1983), The Semantics of the Modal 
Auxiliaries. London and Canberra: Croom Helm.
3. Halliday, M.A.K. (1970), Functional diversity in 
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TRANSITIVITY AND MODALITY IN ENGLISH ECONOMIC RESEARCH ARTICLES
PHAM THI THANH THUY
Abstract: In the linguistics literature, modality is a semantic term concerning the speaker’s attitude 
toward what is being said. Meanwhile, transitivity is the number of objects a verb requires or takes 
in a given instance. Much of the attracted attention has been on theoretical nature, and intuitive and 
de-contextualized examples. The paper, therefore, helps situate the concept within wider strategies 
for modifying illocutionary force basing on an analysis of authentic sources from economic research 
articles. Accordingly, the study attempts to further advance research on modal expressions and 
transitivity by focusing on analyzing modal verbs and transitivity used in selected economic texts. The 
study is based on a corpus of 15 economic research articles drawn from English economic field. The 
corpus contains the whole of the text of the articles, excluding the abstract since the language of an 
abstract is a register in itself, so it is not like an academic article. 
Keywords: economic research articles, modal verb, transitivity, modality
Ngày nhận: 18/7/2016
Ngày phản biện: 02/9/2016
Ngày duyệt đăng: 20/9/2016
language as seen from a consideration of modality 
and mood in English. Foundations of Language, 6, 
322-361.
4. Halliday, M.A.K. (1985), An Introduction to Functional 
Grammar. U.K.: Edward Arnold. Huddleston, R.D.
5. Huddleston, R.D. (1971), The Sentence in Written 
English, a Syntactic Study Based on an Analysis of 
Scientific Texts, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.
6. Lyons, J. (1977), Semantics. Cambridge University 
Press, Cambridge.
7. McCloskey, D.N. 1985, The Rhetoric of Economics. 
Harvester Press.
8. Palmer, F. (1974), The English Verb. U.K.: Longman. 
9. Palmer, F. (1986), Mood and Modality. Cambridge 
University Press, Cambridge.
10. Palmer, F. (1990), Modality and the English Modals. 
Longman, London and New York.
11. Quirk, R. et al. (1972a), A Comprehensive Grammar 
of the English Language. London and New York: 
Longman.
12. Quirk, R. et al. (1972b), A Grammar of Contemporary 
English. London and New York: Lonman.
13. Von Wright, G.H. (1951), An Essay in Modal Logic. 
Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.