The facultative modality in Pope Francis’ speeches in Spanish language

Abstract

This work aims to describe and analyze the facultative modality as a discursive resource and argumentative strategy in Pope Francis' speeches in Spanish. To this end, we resorted to studies relating to linguistic functionalism and discourse and studies relating to the facultative modality in the field of Linguistics. In this sense, the 147 speeches given by the Roman Pontiff in Spanish in 2022 were selected to compose the corpus. After analyzing the speeches, it was found that, preferentially, the non-inclusion [-inclusion] of the Holy Father occurs in the establishment of the facultative modality, opting to modalizer the facultative modality in a focusing position and with a modal orientation towards the Event. Finally, the relevance of the facultative modality as a resource and argumentative strategy was concluded, in which it is engendered in the speech considering the intentions and communicative purposes of the speaker (Pope Francis).