A Diachronic Corpus-based Analysis of Modal Verb Usage in Pakistani English Business Speeches
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The current study is a diachronic investigation on the use of modal verbs in Pakistani business speeches between the years 2001 and 2020. The methodology used in this research paper involves the approach of corpus-based study, which is aimed at identifying the frequency and distribution of nine modal verbs (will, would, can, could, may, might, must, should, and shall). The data for this research paper have been extracted from a specially made corpus consisting of speeches delivered by Pakistani business persons. In order to conduct the quantitative and qualitative analyses of modal verbs, AntConc (Version 3.5.9) software was used. The diachronic approach shows that there is an increasing occurrence of epistemic modals such as ‘may’ and ‘would’ throughout the subsequent eras, indicating an increased sense of uncertainty and risk management among professionals. The functional approach demonstrates how the modal verbs are used as important instruments in stance construction, persuading management, and institution identification. These trends identify recurring patterns in the present corpus and demonstrate how the use of modal verbs is influenced by different purposes of communication throughout time. Rather than making comparisons across varieties, the study situates itself in corpus linguistics research and empirically illustrates changes in the use of modality in Pakistani business discourse.
Institution: University of South Asia
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7217447458