Pragmatics of Truth and Modality in Newspaper Editorials: An Example of the Punch and the Tribune Lawal, Olarewaju Adesina Department of English and Literary Studies, Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria Abstract—In the contemporary newspapers, a large amount of report is based on speeches, statements, replies to questions and interviews. These formats therefore provide rich sources of personal utterance from the people who are perceived important in the society. The press represents what they say as news. Among the methods used by newspapers is modality. Modality has the insistence of a speaker who assumes the position of authority, including a claim to know what is inevitably going to happen. The modal auxiliary ‘must’; is a crucial word in editorials for instance, used to claim that the source has the right to specify obligations. However, because newspaper editors are steeped in the ideology of ownership and power, the modals used are not neutral or devoid of the subjective learning of the writer. Thus the writer may not be truly committed to the preposition made. This paper examines the pragmatic relationship between what can be termed truth and modality in language use, employing the Grice’s Co-operative principles for the analysis. Index Terms—modality, newspaper reports, editorials, ownership ideology, truth value and pragmatics I. INTRODUCTION This centres on the background knowledge of language in use vis-à-vis the editorial house style which allows it to communicate with its readers, using the institutional power to influence attitudes of readers rather than projecting truth in most cases. Linguistic communication is successful if the hearer recognizes the speaker’s communicative intention. But the speaker always faces the problem of getting the hearer to recognize that intention. This is perhaps why (Akmajian et.al, 2003, p.216) opines that in order to accommodate this basic problem, the speaker must choose an expression that will facilitate such recognition, given the context of utterance. The contents of newspaper have been held to wield a lot of influence over the mind and imagination, just as literature does. The press is seen as representation of the world in language, because, as (Fowler, 1991, p. 64)) observes, language is a semiotic code which imposes structure of values on whatever is represented. And so, news like every discourse, constructively patterns that of which it speaks. A newspaper assumes that there is always only one reasonable point of view on any matter presented to the public. Editorial seems to affirm this point of view. This editorial represents the opinion of every newspaper. (Fowler, 1991, p.64) points out that what is even about newspaper editorial, apart from offering values and beliefs, is that they employ textual strategies which foreground the speech act of offering values and beliefs. It is of course these textual strategies adopted by the editorial that concern this study. And notable among these strategies is modality. II. METHODOLOGY In this section, we have attempted to analyse the extracts of two selected Nigerian newspapers’ editorial comments. The pragmatic analysis of truth and modality is the focus. In doing this, the researcher has made the extracts from the Punch and the Tribune. In the analysis, attempts have been made to determine the extent to which propositions of the editorials are true, especially when modality is employed as a linguistic device. Particularly, we have sought to analyse the text along the dimension of H.P Grice’s co-operative principles. According to Grice’ (1975; p.45), the word ‘true’ and ‘truth’ refer to properties of utterance, not state of affairs. This illustrates the view that writer’s proposition based on this study, is just to influence, not the belief, but the attitudes of his/her readers towards the reliability of whatever is expressed. In addition to these features of true and untrue propositions, the attempt is shown in every text examined, the attitudes of readers towards the verifiability of the editor’s comments. Added to this, the pragmatic effects of the propositions on readers are explicated therein. III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS Modal expressions signify judgment as to truth (correct) likelihood (certainty) and (might). Other modal usages stipulate obligations (should, ought to) and grant permission (‘may’). This linguistic device (modality) is an important means by editorial writers to have the insistence of a speaker who has assumed a position of authority, the authority here includes a claim to know what is inevitably going to happen. (Herndon, 1976, p.205) shares this view when she ISSN 1799-2591 Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 688-693, April 2015 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0504.03 © 2015 ACADEMY PUBLICATION