Hedging In Research Articles By Native English-speaker Students

Hedges have flexible semantic meanings and variable pragmatic functions. The use of hedging devices reflects people’s pragmatic ability, especially in academic writings. Hedges are mainly used to make comment on the propositions or claims the author presents. Meanwhile, appropriate use of hedging not only shows the author’s attitude on discourse and readers and leave room for future discussion, but also reflects the author’s scientific attitude, his or her merits of modesty and caution.This paper focuses on the interdisciplinary study of hedging in NES writings based on the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP), which is divided into two sub-corpora, the social science corpus and the natural science research articles corpora. Hedges are divided into four categories according to Prince’s (1982) theory, and20commonly used language items functioning as hedges, with5in each category, are chosen in the study. Then those hedges are checked in each of the sub-corpus and their frequencies are recorded. Then SPSS is used to facilitate the analysis of the significance.The study has the following findings:first, about the overall differences, SS RAs use more hedges than NS RAs and SS RAs use more adaptors, plausibilities and attributions. Second, about the specific similarities, hedging devices are commonly used in both disciplines and play important roles. Then, seem, might and possible are the three frequently used hedges, and I guess and so-called are the two that least frequently used hedges in both disciplines. Third, about the specific differences, rounder is the only type of hedge that NA RAs use more than SS RAs; among the five frequently used hedges, actually and indicate belong to different disciplines; in adaptors and attributions, typical and indicate are used more in NS RAs, unlike others used more in SS RAs. Forth, the two disciplines have their own preferences in the pragmatic use of hedging devices. SS RAs use different hedges when they describe social phenomena, draw conclusions and present explanations and evidences; NS RAs employ hedges when they present data, claims and evidences. Five, these findings will expectedly be of great help to the teaching of English academic writing. Teachers should help students distinguish the genre difference of hedges, and improve their pragmatic awareness.