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This article offers a contrastive analysis of the use of epistemic modal markers in '˜Letters to Shareholders' (i.e. the first part of the Annual Report) from French, US-American and German companies. The study is based on a corpus of around 120,000 words. We have chosen to study the use of epistemic modal markers for two reasons : firstly, their use to mark uncertainty is highly relevant for a genre which has to furnish predictions about future developments. Secondly, previous research (e.g. Hyland 1996, 1998) has indicated that epistemic modal markers may also function as a type of hedging, i.e. they can tone down propositions which might otherwise be perceived as potentially face-threatening. Par-ticularly concerning this latter, more interpersonal use of epistemic expressions, the results of the present study show interesting intercultural differences. Based on the analysis of the overall frequency of epistemic markers and on their different distributions across grammatical and semantic categories, intercultural differences can be established which can be linked to different stylistic ideals as well as to divergent preferences in communicative strategies.