Hedging and boosting in abstracts of applied linguistics articles: A comparative study of English- and Chinese-medium journals  

Oleh:

Hu, Guangwei

Jenis: Article from Journal - ilmiah internasional
Dalam koleksi: Journal of Pragmatics: An Interdiciplinary Journal of Language Studies vol. 43 no. 11 (2011), page 2795–2809.
Topik: Academic writing Article abstract Booster Epistemological belief Hedge Metadiscourse Rhetorical convention
Fulltext: Hu_G.pdf (339.77KB)

Isi artikel

Hedges and boosters are important metadiscursive resources for writers to mark their epistemic stance and position writer–reader relations. Building on previous research that suggests notable cross-cultural and cross-linguistic differences in the use of hedges and boosters in academic discourse, this comparative study investigates the use of such discourse markers in academic article abstracts. Based on a corpus of 649 abstracts collected from 8 journals of applied linguistics, this study examines if hedging and boosting strategies differ (a) between applied linguists publishing in Chinese- and Englishmedium journals and (b) between authors of empirical and non-empirical academic articles. Quantitative analyses indicated that abstracts published in English-medium journals featured markedly more hedges than those published in Chinese-medium journals and that abstracts of empirical research articles used significantly more boosters than those of non-empirical academic articles. Textual analyses further revealed that the distinct patterning of hedges and boosters in Chinese and English abstracts had a joint, interactive effect on the authorial certainty and confidence conveyed therein. These results are discussed in terms of culturally preferred rhetorical strategies, epistemological beliefs, lack of facility in English as a second/foreign language, and the nature of supporting evidence drawn on for knowledge claims in different types of academic writing.

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