Looking beyond the content plane – Modal assessment in Norwegian learners’ texts in German as a foreign language

This article seeks to obtain a better understanding of interpersonal meaning-making in short written responses by Norwegian learners of German as a foreign language by analysing the modal assessment strategies used in four different task settings. Based on the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, the study focuses on how modal verbs, modal adjuncts and corresponding paraphrases are employed, and on the meanings which are realised accordingly. The study identifies several strategies and shows how they contribute to expressing different attitudes and to enacting different social relations. Overall, the study raises awareness of the central role of modal assessment in writing.