The Use of Hedging in Research Articles on Applied Linguistics

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the analysis of the use of hedging in a corpus of articles from applied linguistics, and in this sense, it is complementary to the previous research of academic persuasion in research articles (Hinkel, 1997; Hyland, 1996, 2004). This study examined the types and frequency of hedges employed by the authors of academic research articles (RAs) in the field of applied linguistics. A corpus consists of 20 research articles, randomly selected from the Open Access Journals on Educational linguistics (5 RAs), Psycholinguistics (5 RAs), Sociolinguistics (5 RAs) and Pragmatics (5 RAs) The data were manually coded according to Hyland’s taxonomy of hedges and hedging devices (Hyland, 1996) and then formatted to calculate the frequency and type of hedges in RAs on Applied Linguistics. Results of the study indicate that reader-oriented hedges constitute the main pragmatic type of hedges in RAs in the field of applied linguistics, recognizing the need for reader’s ratification of the author’s claims and politeness conventions of academic discourse per se. Combination of qualitative and quantitative methods applied to computer readable data proved that hedges in RAs on Applied Linguistics are topic dependent, showing differences in typology, frequency and distribution even within one discipline.

Managing Readers' Impression of Research Article Abstracts Through Metadiscourse

“…Specifically, an individual analysis also reveals statistically a significant difference among the markers in each discipline across the five moves. The present results confirm previous findings of Nelson and Castello (2012 as cited in Livytska, 2019) who claimed that metadiscourse shows significant differences across disciplines.…”

Hedging in English business discourse: the liguopragmatic aspect

“…Б. Фрейзер, в свою очередь, рассматривает хеджирование, как «риторическую стратегию» и определяет «хеджи» как лингвистические средства (лексические единицы, синтаксические структуры, просодические инструменты), которые используются с целью смягчения значения высказывания (Fraser, 2010, p. 16 (Миколайчик, 2019). Следовательно, с точки зрения учета прагматических факторов любая лингвистическая единица может рассматриваться в качестве «хеджа» (Livytska, 2019).…”

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“…Отсюда следует, что хеджирование является прагматическим феноменом, приемом речевого воздействия, а интерпретация того или иного примера использования «хеджей» зависит от контекста и ситуации коммуникативного взаимодействия (Миколайчик, 2019). Следовательно, с точки зрения учета прагматических факторов любая лингвистическая единица может рассматриваться в качестве «хеджа» (Livytska, 2019).…”