An Investigation of Learners’ Use of CAN and COULD in an English Language Classroom - Investigating modal auxiliaries usage and corpus findings

Oct 15, 2026

CAN and COULD have multiple uses and interpretations that can be challenging for English language learners. This paper investigates learners’ use of the modal auxiliaries CAN and COULD, including negative forms (cannot/can’t, could not/couldn’t), in an English Proficiency Program classroom in New Zealand. Learner data are examined in both spoken and written contexts and compared with patterns in the British National Corpus to identify areas where learners’ use could be strengthened.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

The complexity of modal auxiliaries

Previous corpus-based studies

| | OPEN ACCESS
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics
ISSN 2209-0959
[https://journals.castledown-publishers.com/ajal/](https://journals.castledown-publishers.com/ajal/) | | | --- | --- | --- | | Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2 (1), 32-46 (2019) [https://dx.doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v2n1.116](https://dx.doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v2n1.116) | | | | An Investigation of Learners’ Use of CAN and COULD in an English Language Classroom | | | | Lauren Whitty a
a Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand
Email: [lauren.whitty@yahoo.com](lauren.whitty@yahoo.com) | | | Abstract CAN and COULD have multiple uses and multiple interpretations, which can be difficult for learners of English to understand. For example, the difference of Can you help me? and Could you help me? may go unnoticed to an English language learner, but a native speaker of English would recognise a difference in politeness. The current paper reports on an investigation of learners’ use of the modal auxiliaries CAN and COULD, including their negative counterparts (cannot/can’t and could not/couldn’t), in an English Proficiency Program (EPP) classroom at a New Zealand University. Through first examining the learners’ use ofCAN and COULD in spoken and written contexts, comparisons are made to their use in the British National Corpus, which results in the identification of areas in which learners’ use could be strengthened. Keywords: language acquisition; English modal auxiliaries; corpus analysis Introduction CAN and COULD have a wide range of uses, which are not always addressed and can cause English language learners difficulty. Studies of modal auxiliaries usually employ three to four main categories of meaning for CAN and COULD. These categories include “ability”(I could run fast),“possibility”(It cannot break),“permission”(You can submit it late) and sometimes “epistemic”(He couldn ’t have been tired). As a result, these are the meanings commonly referred to in English language coursebooks and focused on in a classroom environment. However, in this paper, I show how the uses ofCAN and COULD expand beyond the above, revealing levels of complexity that English language learners should be made aware of, with the purpose of improving their English proficiency. The complexity of modal auxiliaries Borrowing from Perkins (1983, p. 6) , modal auxiliaries aid us in our communication by allowing us to talk about “things being otherwise.” Perkins (ibid.) elaborates on “things being otherwise” by stating,“it would appear that such notions [necessity, possibility and impossibility] are conceptually grounded in the fact that human beings often think and behave as though things might be, or might have been, other than they actually are, or were.” One function of modal auxiliaries is as a grammatical tool we choose to use, or not use, to mark, or not mark, modality, and signal with our language that our viewpoint is being expressed, which is not necessarily reality, but “conceivably real” as Hoye (1997, p. 40) puts it. Palmer (1986, p. 84) complements the above by stating,“Hearers do not expect the truth, or what is known to be true, but only what the speaker believes to be true.” Though expression of our viewpoints is one reason to use modality, there are many more. Perkins (1983, p. 19) attributes using modality to further reasons such as “uncertainty, tact, or politeness.” Stubbs (1996, p. 202) encapsulates the idea of modality in the following passage: When we speak or write, we are often vague, indirect and unclear about just what we are committed to. This might appear, superficially, to be an inadequacy of human language: but only to those who hold a rather crude view of the purposes of communication. Vagueness and indirection have many uses. Politeness is one obvious reason for deviating from superficially clear or rational behaviour, and claiming precision is done appropriately only in certain situations. What Stubbs do

FAQs

What modal auxiliaries does the study focus on?

The study focuses on CAN and COULD, including their negative counterparts cannot/can’t and could not/couldn’t.

Where is the investigation conducted?

The investigation is carried out in an English Proficiency Program (EPP) classroom at a New Zealand university.

How are the findings supported?

Learners’ use is examined in spoken and written contexts and then compared with the British National Corpus to identify where learners’ usage could be strengthened.

Oct 15, 2026

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