My own sex, I hope, will excuse me": Gender Performativity and Modal Verbs in the Corpus of English Philosophy Texts

Gender is a social construction that determines how we behave and, consequently, how we communicate. Even though scientific writing is characterized by its objectivity, it is undeniable that authors use some strategies, consciously or unconsciously, that express their attitude towards their texts. Such strategies include, among others, the use of modal verbs. This paper analyses their use, modality and meaning in eighteenth-century English scientific writing and establishes a comparison between male and female philosophy texts to discover to what extent women contribute to or react against the canon. The data for this small-scale study are taken from the Coruña Corpus of English Scientific Writing, in particular, from the Corpus of English Philosophy Texts. Quantitative and qualitative techniques have been considered for the analysis.