Chapter One: Introduction
1.1 Background Information
The language of academic writing has been considered being objective andprecise for a long time. Behnam et al. (2012:20) points out that for a long time, it hasbeen commonly approved that the language of academic writing has been inevitablyassociated with 'exactness'. The writers are supposed to convey information in anexplicit and precise way. But, Salager-Meyer (1994:150) puts forth the opposite viewthat "Today's scientists are urged to use a style of writing which projects bothpersonal modesty and honesty". "Personal modesty and honesty" is related to the facethreatening act as presented by Brown & Levinson (1987). Even if the writer is utterlycertain about the claims he or she put forward, still fu2ziness and uncertainty areapplied in his or her actual writing in order to save his or her face and leave space forthe readers. Toning down the statement is necessary for scientific writing. Therefore,"Authors of scientific discourse often structure their messages by using specificlinguistic strategies when engaging in processes of negotiation and persuasion inconveying their scientific findings" (Hidayati et al. 2008:27). These 'specificlinguistic strategies' include hedging. "Hedging is an important means by whichwriters express their judgments and press their claims, intruding into the text andinitiating a dialogue with the reader" (Hyland, 1998:56), "allowing writers to presenttheir statements with appropriate accuracy, caution and humility" (Hyland,1996b:434). Therefore, instead of putting forward our opinions in a straight way, wecan adopt a moderate manner for that purpose.
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1.2 Research Questions
The present study attempts to explore the differences and similarities of hedgesin social science (hereafter SS) and natural science (hereafter NS) research articles(hereafter RAs), and how they are different and why they are different. It ishypothesized that some hedging devices are different in the two fields and morehedging devices are used in SS RAs due to the natural difference between the twocategories. NS exploits the law of nature and it is independent of human cognition,while SS studies the social phenomenon and it is closely related to human activities.Thus, NS should be more objective than SS, resulting in using fewer hedges.This paper is going to answer the following questions:
1) What is the overall difference in the use of hedges in SS-RAs and NS-RAs?
2) What are the specific differences of the same type of hedges in the twodisciplines?
3) Beside differences, what are the similarities in the use of hedging between thetwo disciplines?
4) What are the pragmatic functions of hedges in these two disciplines?
5) What are the implications of the findings for academic writing teaching andsecond language acquisition?
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Chapter Two: Literature Review
2.1 Fuzziness and Hedging
Fuzziness is an essential attribute of natural language and is relative to accuracy.Linguistic fuzziness research dates to the mid-twentieth century, closely related to theInformation Age. Language is the carrier of information and the computer is the mostimportant tool for information processing, storing, transmitting and exchanging in theInformation Age. The computer has to deal with the fuzziness at first when it workson natural language. The development of NLP urges people to study fuzzy languagewhile the deeper study of fuzzy language also promotes the further development ofcomputer science. In 1965, L.A. Zadeh published his paper "Fuzzy Set" inInformation and Control, which marked the foundation of fiizzy linguistics. He pointsout that "a fuzzy set is a class of objects with a continuum of grades of membership"(1965:338). Each object of a grade of membership has a membership function rangingbetween zero and one.Before fuzzy linguistics became popular, many people believed that "sentences ofnatural language (at least declarative sentences) are either true or false or, at worst,lack a truth value, or have a third value often interpreted as ‘nonsense’，’(Lakoff，1973:458). But, in human language, the concepts that many words express have nodefinite extension, which is "fiizzy concept" (Wu Tieping, 1979). Many people areinterested in such a new way of understanding language.
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2.2 Hedging Research Abroad
These sentences are about category membership, which is not simply a yes-or-nomatter, but rather a matter of degree.However there are some words whose meaning implicitly involves fiizziness andthey have effect on truth condition, the degree of truth. Lakofif refers to such words ashedges "whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy" (1973:471). These words,such as sort of, typical, regular, technically speaking etc. are hedges. Zadeh (1965: 338) developed the fuzzy set theory which is capable of dealingwith degree of set membership. "Such a set is characterized by a membership(characteristic) function which assigns to each object a grade of membership ragingfrom zero and one". In 1972’ Zadeh followed Lakoff in using the new designation'hedge' and analyzed English hedges (such as simple ones like very, much, more orless, essentially, and slightly and more complex ones like technically and practically)from the point of view of semantics and logics. The autitior assumes that hedges areoperators that act on the fuzzy set representing the meaning of their operands(Schroder, H. & Zimmer, D.1997).McCawIey (1980) assumes LakoflTs conclusion that a multi-valued logic isessential for an adequate treatment of the semantics of a large amount of naturallanguage vocabulary, particularly adjectives, nouns and many hedges. Moreover，hetake truth values to be real numbers in the interval from 0 to 1, with 0 correspondingto unqualified falsehood, 1 to unqualified truth, and intermediate numbers tointermediate degrees of truth to thich such terms such as 'fairly true', 'pretty wellfalse', and the like could be applied.
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Chapter Three: Research Methodology...... 15
3.1 Corpus Used ......... 15
3.2 Data Collection and Correction......... 18
3.2.1 Operational Definition of Hedges......... 18
3.2.2 Searching and Collecting......... 19
3.3 Methods of Data Analysis......... 22
Chapter Four: Results and Discussions......... 25
4.1 Overall Occurrences of Hedges in SS and NS RAs Corpus......... 25
4.2 Specific Categories of Hedges in Two RAs Corpora......... 35
4.3 Major Findings ......... 39
4.3.1 Similarities......... 39
4.3.2 Differences......... 40
4.4 Pragmatics Discussion......... 41
4.4.1 The Use of Hedges in SSRAs.........41
4.4.2 The Use of Hedges inNSRAs.........44
4.5 Summary 46Chapter Five: Conclusion.........48
5.1 Major Findings .........48
5.2 Implications for Pedagogy of Hedging in ESL......... 49
5.2.1 Hedging Awareness .........49
5.2.2 Use of Hedging in Writing......... 50
5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Study......... 51
Chapter Four: Results and Discussions
4.1 Overall Occurrences of Hedges in SS and NS RAs Corpus
Table 4.1 shows the frequencies of all the 20 hedges in both corpora. Thereappear altogether 4，562 times in these two corpora，and it means that in 515,309words，the 20 hedges appear approximately 4，600，that is，in about every 112 words，there will be a hedge. And Figure 4.1 pictures the hedges used in SS RAs corpus inoverall are more than the hedges in NS RAs corpus. Thus，we may make a conclusion that the hedges used in SS RAs corpus are more than the hedges used in NS RAscorpus. And the conclusion is coincident with tfie first research questions we listbefore in chapter one. Natural sciences value precision，so they will use less vagueexpression, and instead use more specific data to make their points. Therefore, thedisciplines of social science employ many more hedges than those of natural sciences.Also, we can see from the Table 4.1 that the most frequently used hedge in NSRAs corpus is possible (277), and seem (455) is the most frequently used hedge in SSRAs corpus. While I guess and so-called is the least frequently used hedges in NSRAs corpus with only 2 and 3 occurrences, and I guess and approximately are theleast used hedges in SS RAs corpus respectable 9 and 10 occurrences. In total, I guessis the least frequently used hedge.
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Conclusion
This study, based on two corpora respectively of social science and naturalscience research articles, has investigated and compared 20 typical hedges in bothcorpora. Similarities and differences in the different use of hedging device in the twodisciplines are found.First of all, the hedges play a very important role in both disciplines. Althoughthe hedges make the statements fuzzy, it is acceptable in academic discourse becausethey make the proposition more cautious, objective and plausible. They can show theauthor's attitudes and opinions，and leave a space for the readers to discuss. Using thehedges reflects that the respect of the author on science.Secondly, the differences that exist between the two disciplines are many. Firstly,the amounts of hedging devices that the two disciplines used are different. Apparently,the hedges in social science are more than the hedges in natural science. The reason iseasy to figure out. Social sciences take social phenomena and social laws as theresearch objects, and many findings are based on the researcher's judgments, so h; isoften difficult to quantify the social phenomenon in social science. Subjectivity issalient in social sciences. While expressing views，the researcher must use hedges. Onthe other hand, natural science studies the nature's forms, structure and the movementrules, and is based on strict experiments, and its conclusion is grounded on specificdata, so natural science use less hedges.
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