Evidentiality in a Commencement Address—by J. K. Rowling in Harvard University

摘要

Evidentiality talks about the source of information and the speaker’s commitment to the statement.This paper aims at analyzing the visual,hearsay and inferential evidential markers in the Harvard University commencement address given by J.K.Rowing,and thus explore the interpersonal and evaluative functions of evidentiality based on the speech.If we say that a speech is an interaction between the speaker and the listener,the evidentiality just makes the interaction more fluent,by gaining the credibility from the listeners and influencing them.