These three pragmatic features are very helpful to learners of English in daily communication because by using the structure in his/ her utterances the speaker wants to decrease his/ her complaint or admonishment to make conversations more comfortable, give the hearer persuasive advice with his/ her own experience, and reduce boasting so that the hearer feels easy to co-operate. | PRAGMATIC FEATURES OF THE STRUCTURE “I + COGNITIVE NON-FACTIVE VERB AND EPISTEMIC ADVERB COLLOCATIONS” Luu Quy Khuong1*, Tran Thi Minh Giang2 1_ University of Foreign Language Studies, The University of Danang, 131 Luong Nhu Hoc, Khue Trung, Cam Le, Danang, Vietnam 2_ Dak Lak College of Pedagogy, 349 Le Duan, Ea Tam, Buon Ma Thuot, Dak Lak, Vietnam Received 14 May 2018 Revised 28 July 2018; Accepted 30 July 2018 Abstract: With 250 English examples containing the structure “I + cognitive non-factive verb and epistemic adverb collocations” from different sources such as novels, short stories and online materials, in the light of the Speech Act theory three main pragmatic features have been identified including decreasing complaining/ admonishing, giving counselling, and reducing boasting. These three pragmatic features are very helpful to learners of English in daily communication because by using the structure in his/ her utterances the speaker wants to decrease his/ her complaint or admonishment to make conversations more comfortable, give the hearer persuasive advice with his/ her own experience, and reduce boasting so that the hearer feels easy to co-operate. Keywords: modality, pragmatic features, cognitive non-factive verb, epistemic adverb, collocations 1. Introduction 1 Modality has become an interesting aspect to linguists in the world because of its complexity and variety. To investigate modality, we not only concern about the form of the language but also the language in action, . the interpersonal relationship, especially it is subjectivity that receives more attention and it means modality is always involved in all utterances because it is an indispensable factor playing an important role in imparting the speaker’s thoughts and attitude to the hearer. Consequently, Bally says that modality is the soul of the utterance, as cited in Nguyễn Văn Hiệp (2008: 74). As a matter of fact, English possesses a variety of lexical means to express modality .
