Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ...

[A: I’ve got such a friend – one metre forty eight.
E: Has he got a girlfriend? Probably not, does he?]
Example (4)
Context: Two males conversing.
B: Teraz bym coś zjadł, tak?
[B: Now I would eat something, right?]
Both the examples share a common feature, namely, the speakers “precede” the
thoughts of the other interactants and by applying a question tag they hope to be
reassured about the correctness of their assumptions. To be more exact, when
speaker E in example (3) enquires whether A’s acquaintant has a girlfriend, she
does not wait for A to repond, but answers her question herself. However, realising
that she may not be right, she immediately applies a question tag to provoke A to
support her. Similarly in (4), speaker B assumes that the reason for which the other
participant is breathing heavily is his craving for something and yet again, the
assumption is made without any background knowlegde. Realising this fact,
speaker B applies a question tag to be corrected if such a necessity exists. As far as
the above two subtypes of modal tags are used in the sample by both genders, the
distribution of epistemic tags differs when less experienced interactants are
involved in the communication process.
The third and final group of modal tags is applied to enquire about those
aspects that cannot be explained by any of the participants. As it has been already
mentioned, this type appears only in the language of Polish women, for example:
Example (5)
Context: Two females sitting on a porch.
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