This study deals with the treatment of modality in SMU English textbooks, one authored by a native speaker and the other authored by a non-native speaker. The aim of this study is to find out the similarities and differences between the two textbooks in presenting modality. Besides, this study aims at finding the extent to which the textbooks cover the lessons of modality recommended by the 1994 English Curriculum, how the textbooks authors perceived modality and the sequences of the presentation.
Firstly, I tried to see the modality suggested by linguists such as: Palmer (1979), Coates (1983), Quirk et al. (1985), Lewis (1986) and Yule (1998) who classify it into the epistemic and deontic notions. I put this classification in a table which I called current semantic theory. Then I also analyzed the lessons of modality in the 1994 English Curriculum, the textbook authored by native English speaker and one by non-native English speaker, and put them into tables. By putting them into tables I could simply make the comparison, to see the extent to which the 1994 English Curriculum covers the modality items suggested by the linguists, the two textbooks cover the modality items recommended by the curriculum and to see the comparison of the two textbooks on how they present the lessons of modality.
The results of this study show that the 1994 English curriculum covers fifty percent of the epistemic modality in the current semantic theory and one hundred percent of the deontic modality. The textbook authored by Indonesian authors covers fifty percent of epistemic and eighty percent of the deontic modality in the curriculum, twenty-five percent epistemic and eighty percent deontic of the current semantic theory, whereas, the textbook authored by a native speaker covers one hundred percent of epistemic though it covers different notions and one hundred percent of deontic modality in the curriculum, thus compared to the current semantic theory, it covers fifty percent of epistemic and eighty percent of deontic modality.
Besides the notions of modality, I also analyzed the extent to which the curriculum and the two textbooks present the devices to express the notions, whether they use central modal auxiliary verbs only or they also use other devices such as semi-modal, modal adverbs, modal adjectives and modal nouns. |