152 Epistemic Parentheticals
We see, therefore, that the use of fi rst- person epistemic parentheticals in
internal discourse, in which the pilgrims are addressing one another or charac-
ters in the tales are addressing one another, as well as in “external discourse,”
in which Chaucer the narrator is addressing an assumed audience, is mimetic
of their use in oral discourse. This linguistic device of oral conversation is a
refl ection of the oral storytelling context in which the teller interacts with the
listeners. The forms are subjectively epistemic and serve the interpersonal uses
of intimacy and politeness. The interpersonal function is particularly evident
when fi rst- person epistemic parentheticals accompany the speaker’s or narra-
tor’s judgments or evaluation; in this context, they call on hearers or readers to
come to their own conclusions, which may differ from those of the speaker/ nar-
rator. However, in external discourse, the device is often used self- consciously
as “a literary motif” introduced to create “the illusion of a lively and mutual
relationship between the fi ctional narrator ... and the fi ctional audience with
which we are asked to identify ourselves” (Mehl 1974 : 174, 175). That is,
Chaucer the narrator’s use of fi rst- person epistemic parentheticals is a pose of
modesty and provides only an apparent freedom for the audience to respond in
a way other than that intended by the narrator.^19
In contrast, uses of fi rst- person epistemic parentheticals in narrative serve
primarily metadiscursive and evaluative functions, in which the narrator com-
ments upon or emphasizes a narrative detail or refers explicitly to the task of
narration itself.
19 Bronson ( 1940 : 33) argues that the Chaucerian persona expresses “a genuine and unaffected
modesty,” but that this modesty is a literary pose: “when [Chaucer] professes ignorance or
inadequacy, he does so usually for humorous or artistic reasons.”
Table 5.4 Contexts of occurrence for fi rst- person epistemic parentheticals in Chaucer
Discourse Narrative
Internal (primary or secondary) Internal (primary or secondary)
personal opinion, evaluation, or
interpretation
general opinion or truth
expected consequence or result of an action
presumed cause of an event
judgment based on appearances
belief or feeling attributed to another
(emphatic) promise or assertion
metacomment on the telling of the tale
inexact or imprecise measurement of time
or space
(emphatic) description of plot detail
narrator’s comment, evaluation, or
judgment
External (see categories of discourse) =
External Direct DiscourseSource: adapted from Laurel J. Brinton, Pragmatic markers in English: Grammaticalization and
discourse functions. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996, p. 227; with permission.