Abstract

Fact projection is realized as a fact noun followed by an appositive clause. In this article, we conducted a corpus-based study of the modality of fact nouns. It is found that proposal facts tend to occur more in formal academic texts than proposition facts because the higher obligation that proposal facts construe does not fit into the interpersonal communication purpose in informal spoken texts. It is also found that modalized proposition facts are more prevalent in formal academic texts than non-modalized proposition facts because modalized proposition facts can lower the negotiability and the risk of rejection from readers in academic texts. These findings reveal how nominalization trigger the reenactment of interpersonal relationship in fact projection so the modality becomes salient and persuasive. The modality realized by fact nouns also contributes to the abstraction, objectification and reliability in academic writing.

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