A Comparative Study Of Hedges In English And Chinese Academic Literary Book Reviews In Light Of Appraisal Theory

Hedges refer to language means that express uncertainty and fuzziness.They can mitigate the speaker’s tone,negotiate various attitudes and deal with interpersonal relationships.Previous studies of hedges are concerned with both academic and non-academic discourses.The studies of hedges in academic discourse are mainly concerned with research articles,etc.However,there are few studies on academic book reviews,and some related studies on them mainly focus on academic linguistic book reviews.Relatively,academic literary book reviews attract less attention.In addition,studies on academic book reviews mainly focus on monolingual academic book reviews,but the comparative study of hedges in multilingual academic book reviews is less.The comparative study of hedges in multilingual academic book reviews is helpful for people to grasp the similarities and differences of hedges in multilingual academic book reviews.Based on it,this thesis conducts a comparative study of hedges in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews in light of Appraisal Theory.This thesis is intended to conduct a comparative study of hedges in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews in light of Appraisal Theory proposed by Martin and White.According to Prince et al.,hedges can be divided into approximators and shields.Simultaneously,it was found that shields and approximators could be regarded as Engagement resources and Graduation resources respectively.Therefore,this study mainly focused on hedges as Engagement resources and Graduation resources.This study randomly selected 20 English academic literary book reviews and 20 Chinese academic literary book reviews as data.Among them,English academic literary book reviews were collected from two prestigious A&HCI journals: Contemporary Literature and Essays in Criticism.Chinese academic literary book reviews were collected from two authoritative CSSCI journals: Foreign Literature and Contemporary Foreign Literature.And the data was annotated and counted by UAM Corpus Tool.Three research questions were answered by quantitative and qualitative analyses: 1.What are the types and distribution of hedges as appraisal resources in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews? 2.What are the interpersonal meanings realized by hedges as appraisal resources in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews? 3.What are the similarities and differences of hedges as appraisal resources in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews?The research findings mainly include the following three points.1.In English academic literary book reviews,hedges as Engagement resources include Dialogic Contraction and Dialogic Expansion,the proportions of which are 33.08% and66.92% respectively.The subtypes of Engagement resources with the frequencies ranking from high to low are Entertain,Disclaim,Proclaim and Attribute.Hedges as Graduation resources include Focus and Force,which account for 23.49% and76.51% respectively.The subtypes of them with the frequencies ranking from high to low are Intensification,Quantification,Soften and Sharpen.In Chinese academic literary book reviews,hedges as Engagement resources include Dialogic Contraction and Dialogic Expansion,the proportions of which are 46.56% and 53.44%respectively.The subtypes of them with the frequencies ranking from high to low are Entertain,Proclaim,Attribute and Disclaim.Hedges as Graduation resources include Focus and Force,which account for 13.95% and 86.05% respectively.The subtypes of them with the frequencies ranking from high to low are Intensification,Quantification,Soften and Sharpen.2.Through the quantitative and qualitative analysis of interpersonal meanings realized by hedges as appraisal resources,it is found that there are four major kinds of interpersonal meanings realized in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews:(1)Enhancing reliability.(2)Showing politeness.(3)Emphasizing authorial stance.(4)Reducing responsibility.However,the proportions of hedges as appraisal resources realizing the four interpersonal meanings in English and Chinese academic literary book reviews are different.3.The comparative analysis of hedges as appraisal resources in English and Chinese book reviews reveals that:(1)Regarding the types and distribution,the similarity is that the proportion of hedges as Engagement resources is lower than that of hedges as gradation resources in both English and Chinese academic literary book reviews.The difference is that the proportion of hedges as Engagement resources in English academic literary book reviews is much higher than that in Chinese ones,while the proportion of hedges as Graduation resources is far lower than that in Chinese ones.Within hedges as Engagement resources,the similarity is that the proportion of Dialogic Expansion resources is higher than Dialogic Contraction resources in both English and Chinese academic literary book reviews.The difference is that the proportion of hedges as Dialogic Expansion resources in English academic literary book reviews is much higher than that in Chinese ones,while the proportion of hedges as Dialogic Contraction resources is far lower than that in Chinese ones.Within hedges as Graduation resources,the similarity is that hedges as Force resources take a higher proportion than hedges as Focus resources in both English and Chinese academic literary book reviews.The difference is that the proportion of hedges as Force resources in English academic literary book reviews is lower than that in Chinese ones,and the proportion of hedges as Focus resources is higher than that in Chinese ones.(2)Regarding the interpersonal meanings realized by hedges as appraisal resources,the similarity is that the four major kinds of interpersonal meanings can be found in both EALBRs and CALBRs.The difference is that English academic literary book reviews are more inclined to show politeness and emphasize authorial stance,while Chinese academic literary book reviews are more inclined to enhance reliability and reduce responsibility.This study has certain theoretical and practical significance.Theoretically,this study further expands the application scope of Appraisal Theory in the study of academic discourse.Practically,it could help academic book reviewers and other researchers to grasp the similarities and differences of hedges as appraisal resources in different languages.