90 Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen
(11) A: You are essentially a social historian?
B: I’m essentially a social historian, although I sometimes think that if I
wanted to find the right adjective, and I’ve never been too much worried
about adjectives, I would say I’m really a cultural historian. Because I’m
not just interested in society, which can be thought of in a kind of abstract
fashion, but I’m very much interested in the expressions in ordinary ways
of life, in the arts, in literature, in music (...).
(BNC, spoken, broadcast discussion)
Similarly, in (11) the speakers are concerned with the core definition of the term
‘social historian’ and its application to a specific case. Essentially here means that
the speaker accepts that the term applies to himself in the sense that he is first of
all interested in society, even if this is too restricted a way of defining his interests
(see his use of “not just interested in society”).
Example (12) illustrates the collocation with words expressing similarity:
(12) Essentially identical results have come from an experiment by Hall and Honey
(1989a), which used quite different procedures. (BNC, written, academic)
The implication is that there were some minor differences between the results
which are not relevant in the context or which are at least backgrounded. The
exceptions or minor qualifications may also be made explicit, as in (13) and (14):
(13) Thus, with certain limited exceptions, rape remains essentially a crime involv-
ing violence or the threat of it. (BNC, written, academic)
It can be seen that there are obvious parallels between basically and essentially
and in some contexts they are more or less interchangeable. However, there is a
difference in that essentially has not lost semantic content to the extent basically
has and in certain contexts it is therefore preferable because of its core sense of ‘in
essence’, while basically would be too weak a term. Compare Example (14) below:
(14) There were a few people who had private laboratories, and who were like
Lavoisier amateurs of fully professional competence; and there were those
who lived by consultancy. But the advance of the laboratory sciences depended
essentially on stewardship of money: that is, on financial support.
(BNC, written, non-academic).
In (14) the exceptions are mentioned explicitly and so essentially functions to
focus on what is true ‘in principle’. However, although basically would also serve
that function, a good synonym of essentially in this context is crucially: financial
support was essential, i.e. crucial to their development.