Hedging in English Academic Papers in Linguistics Written by Chinese Authors

作     者：林妹妹 

作者机构：Concord University CollegeFujian Normal University 

出 版 物：《海外英语》 (Overseas English)

年 卷 期：2010年第11X期

页      面：359-360页

学科分类：0502[文学-外国语言文学] 050201[文学-英语语言文学] 05[文学] 

主　　题：hedging devices English linguistic academic articles Chinese scholars 

摘      要：Hedges in academic writing are drawn attention by scholars. Hedging devices enable writers to express their uncertainty con-cerning the factuality of their statements or to indicate deference to their readers. In this paper,ten English linguistic academic articles written by Chinese scholars were chosen for the study. Hedges were categorized to four types. The analysis showed the total number of hedges per category in all articles. The results indicated that modals/probabilities and semi-auxiliaries or epistemic verbs were preferred by Chinese linguists. It is suggested that for non-native English speakers mastery of hedging devices is requisite in their graduate programs.