Dámaso Izquierdo (Navarra): "Trying to escape liability? The role of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in potentially defamatory texts in Spanish and French"

Dámaso Izquierdo from Navarra University in Spain will give a talk "Trying to escape liability? The role of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in potentially defamatory texts in Spanish and French" on October 18 at 4 PM. All are welcome to come to the talk at Jakobi 2, room 427. Read the thesis below. Find this semester's TÜling schedule here.

Languages possess a vast array of devices that modulate in very different ways the responsibility we assume when we talk, such as supposedly, allegedly, visibly, obviously, in my opinion or I guess, among many others. Most of them have been semantically analysed within the linguistic categories of evidentiality and epistemic modality (Nuyts, 2001; Aikhenvald, 2004; among others), and have been pragmatically included among hedges and boosters (Hyland, 2019). Markers of evidentiality and epistemic modality may have a significant impact in potentially defamatory texts: whereas boosting strategies might be seen by lawyers and judges as unambiguous linguistic evidence of the defendants’ commitment towards punishable statements, hedging strategies may help them escape liability.

Previous studies in the field of Forensic Linguistics have not focused on the strategic role of markers of epistemic modality and evidentiality in cases involving defamation and related language crimes, such as hate discourse or threats, even if there are some notable exceptions, such as the mentions to such items in the judgments analysed by Shuy (2010) or the mitigating strategies identified in threatening discourse by Gales (2011).

The aim of this paper is to transfer specialized knowledge about markers of epistemic modality, evidentiality and related notions to a sample of defamation cases in Spanish and French in order to clarify their role in potentially defamatory discourse and show how useful this linguistic expertise might be to elucidate this type of judgements.