Expressing (un)certainty in a foreign language

Maria Pyykönen
24.6.2019

Although expressions of certainty or uncertainty are fairly frequent in both spoken and written language, it is sometimes surprisingly easy to disregard them or to use them without really even thinking twice – in fact, you might even spot a few such expressions in this very sentence! Native speakers often use these kinds of expressions with ease, as they are already familiar with the norms and expectations of their native language, but for non-native speakers the task is not always as straightforward.

In my MA thesis I examined how Finnish non-native speakers of English use expressions of both certainty (e.g. must, surely) and uncertainty (e.g. might, think, probably). Expressions such as these serve an important role in everyday communication, as they are used for example to distinguish facts from opinions, or to soften statements that might otherwise sound too assertive; I think you might be wrong sends quite a different message than the somewhat more blunt You are wrong, for example. Signaling (un)certainty in an “appropriate” manner is also very much a culture- and context-bound phenomenon and, consequently, it also often proves a challenge for even fairly advanced language learners.

In my study, I examined the expressions of (un)certainty used in argumentative essays written in English by high school or university students whose native language was either Finnish, Swedish, or English. In other words, I wanted to see whether any differences would emerge between learners of English with different native languages or different educational backgrounds. Additionally, including essays written by native speakers of English also made it possible to examine whether native and non-native speakers behave differently in this respect.

Based on my data it seemed that, on average, non-native speakers used expressions of both certainty and uncertainty more frequently than did the native speakers. On the other hand, the use of these expressions seemed to decrease when moving from one educational level to another, as high school students used these expressions more frequently than did the university students. The range of expressions of (un)certainty also seemed to be related to the level of education, as high school students used a much more restricted range of different kinds of expressions of (un)certainty when compared to the university students.

Differences related to the speaker’s first language seemed to surface mostly with regard to the high school student groups. Finnish-speaking high schoolers showed an exceptionally strong tendency of using lexical verbs (e.g. think) to express meanings of (un)certainty, while the Swedish-speaking high schoolers used adverbs of (un)certainty (e.g. usually) more often than did any of the other groups. There did not seem to be any such differences between the university student groups, which suggests that differences stemming from one’s linguistic background can be levelled out with education.

Exploring the patterns of language use in different kinds of learner groups allows us to improve our teaching methods to better suit the needs of different kinds of students. This study focused specifically on the strategies of expressing (un)certainty employed by learners of English with differing linguistic and educational backgrounds, and my results suggest that educational background seems to be one of the key components in explaining how these expressions are used in these groups. It is, nevertheless, also worthwhile noting there was also a substantial amount of variation between writers within the groups examined: in the Finnish-speaking high school student group, for example, some writers used several expressions of (un)certainty in almost every sentence they wrote, while others did not make use of these expressions at all. This suggests that while especially educational background does indeed seem to play a part in how writers express (un)certainty in English, it is perhaps only one piece in a bigger puzzle – it could well be that for example the topic of the essay or even the personality of the writer are also important in how these meanings are expressed. The expression of (un)certainty by learners of English is thus a complicated phenomenon that merits further research.

Navigating the norms of (un)certainty in a foreign language requires a map, sometimes. Picture: Daniel Gonzales/Unsplash.