Semantic and Pragmatic Differences in the Use of Modal Verbs Between British and American English

This paper explores the semantic and pragmatic differences in the use of modal verbs in British and American English. While both varieties share the same core modal system, their functions diverge significantly due to cultural norms, communicative preferences, and ongoing grammatical change. The analysis demonstrates that British English generally favors more indirect and mitigated modal constructions, whereas American English tends toward directness, clarity, and a greater reliance on semi-modals. The study also highlights how epistemic, deontic, and dynamic meanings interact with pragmatic factors to shape modal interpretation in real discourse. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of cross-variety variation in English modality and offer valuable insights for linguistics, language teaching, and corpus-based research.