Hedging strategies in academic discourse: A comparative analysis of Turkish writers and native writers of English

Abstract

Given the use of appropriate uncertainty, the right strength of claim for the data, politeness and proper positioning oneself, though hedging is an important component of western academic discourse there appears inadequate awareness. The present study aims to reveal the tendency and preferences of Turkish and Anglo-sphere scholars in terms of using hedging strategies, and frequency of hedges and whether any differences exist in their published articles. Data corpus was composed of 100 articles published in English that equally belong to Non-native writers (Turkish) and native writers of English (Anglo-sphere). Three main parts of the articles i.e. Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion, where hedging devices are commonly used will be analyzed through a concordance program to get the hedge frequencies. The outputs will be categorized according to a framework included 9 hedge types (Adverbs of Frequency, Quantifiers, Modal Auxiliary Verbs, Epistemic Verbs, Adjectives & Adverbs, Nouns, Conversational & Informal, Introductory phrases, Vague References). The categorized outputs will be analyzed by means of MANOVA and Mann-Whitney tests to compare Non-native writers (NNW) and Native writers (NW) in terms of the hedge frequency. Having completed statistical analyses, the function of hedges used in both groups was examined so as to interpret hedging strategies. The results will provide important insights about using tentative language strategies of NNWs and NWs of English. Further, as for nine hedging types, the results will reveal each group's hedging tendencies and differences. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.