This study was inspired by the needs of teaching translation for academic purposes. The paper discusses epistemic modality and its linguistic manifestations in English and Finnish academic texts. The focus will be on epistemic modality and its rhetorical functions in academic writing rather than the description of epistemic modality as a linguistic category. In order to study epistemic modality contrastively, I have suggested a tripartite classification of epistemically modalized expressions.

By academic texts, I shall in this paper, refer only to texts whose originator and recipient are both members of the academic community. I shall furthermore restrict my discussion to texts in the humanities and the behavioural sciences. Popularized scientific articles and textbooks or other language for specific purposes (LSP) text forms will be excluded from this discussion.

Academic texts are by no means mono-functional even if their primary function is to convey information. The additional functions are at least the following. The scholar claims primary ownership to the scientific innovation or research result or finding, which s/he reports. In addition, the scholar’s foremost aim is to achieve acknowledgement in the academic community, particularly if s/he is at the beginning of his/her career, or maintain the already achieved status (for further discussion of this topic (see Ard 1985. 5; Valle 1986: 168). These points are not necessarily language- or culture-bound, and one might assume like Widdowson (1979: 51-52) that scientific discourse is a universal way of communicating in a certain special field. According to him, in science, a universal style and a secondary culture system dominate. However, as has been convincingly argued by Galtung (1979 and 1983) and Clyne (1981 and 1987), this view can no longer be upheld. Rather, we should say that there are both universal and culture- and language-bound features in academic discourse. Different cultures share the communicative functions, but the linguistic and rhetorical means expressing these functions are language- and culture-bound. A Finnish academic are confronted with a cultural conflict when they write in English because they have to address simultaneously Finnish and international readerships. As the conventions are different, hence the expectations of these two groups are different.

Each scholar is, as a writer, influenced by the socialization process of a certain culture and community irrespective of his/her awareness of this process. Secondly, s/he is influenced by the paradigm, discipline and field of study s/he represents, and thirdly, s/he is a creative personality with his/her own personal way of expression, idiolect. All these have an effect on the writing process and the expectations and interpretation of the reader’s own culture. (cf. also Korhonen & Kusch 1986; Schröder 1986)