(Luận văn thạc sĩ) hedging devices in conversations in the vietnamese high school english textbooks versus those in the new interchange series

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG THỦY HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN THE VIETNAMESE HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH h TEXTBOOKS VERSUS THOSE IN THE NEW INTERCHANGE SERIES FIELD: English Linguistics CODE: 8.22.02.01 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr NGUYỄN QUANG NGOẠN BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TAO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG THỦY PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG ĐÀM THOẠI GIỮA SÁCH GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH TRUNG HỌC PHỔ THÔNG VIỆT NAM VÀ NEW h INTERCHANGE Chuyên ngành: Ngôn Ngữ Anh Mã số: 8.22.02.01 Người hướng dẫn: PGS TS Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I certify my authorship of the master‟s thesis submitted entitled: HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN THE VIETNAMESE HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH TEXTBOOKS VERSUS THOSE IN THE NEW INTERCHANGE SERIES for the degree of Master of Arts, is the result of my own research, except where otherwise acknowledged, and that this thesis has not been submitted for a higher degree at any other institutions To the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by other people except where the reference is made in the h thesis itself Bình Định, 2019 LÊ THỊ PHƯƠNG THỦY ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all the people for their support and contributions to the realization of this thesis First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor, Assoc Prof Dr Nguyễn Quang Ngoạn, whose brilliant ideas, unconditional support and encouragement from the very early day to the final steps have enabled me to develop a better understanding of the subject and to embrace the challenges in every step of the thesis I am greatly indebted for his invaluable contributions and substantial feedback Without him, this study would not have been accomplished I am indebted to the lecturers of Quy Nhon University who have wholeheartedly guided me through each part of the thesis h I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to the Master‟s Thesis Examiners for their valuable feedback, constructive detailed comments and tremendously helpful suggestions for my thesis I am grateful to the leaders of An Nhon High School for their support and valuable help they have provided me during the course Finally and most importantly, my heart-felt gratitude goes to my family, for their unconditional love, infinite patience and enormous emotional support and care throughout this process iii ABSTRACT The study examines conversations in Vietnamese high school English textbooks (VHSET) versus the New Interchange series (NIS) The aim is to analyze hedge forms and functions under Hyland‟s (1998) framework to find the similarities and differences in using hedges in the two series It also suggests some implications for teaching and learning hedges in conversations in the textbooks In order to achieve the aims and objectives, a contrastive analysis of data is conducted on both qualitative and quantitative approaches The findings of the study show the ways that both native and non-native speakers of English use hedge forms and functions in conversations As a whole, they use similar words or expressions to hedge their propositional content Lexical hedges are h more commonly used than non-lexical ones In addition, speakers prefer some forms (modal verbs, lexical verbs and personal attribution) and functions (reliability-oriented and writer-oriented hedges) to others Moreover, speakers tend to employ more than one hedging device in a sentence or an utterance However, the study also points out some differences in using hedges both semantically and functionally Some forms of hedges occur densely in the New Interchange series but rarely in Vietnamese high school English textbooks or vice versa Similarly, the ranking positions of reader-oriented and attributeoriented hedges are interchanged in the two series iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 RATIONALE 1.2 AIM AND OBJECTIVES 1.2.1 Aims h 1.2.2 Objectives 1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY 1.5 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY 1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 DIFFERENT VIEWS OF HEDGES 2.2.1 From Fuzzy logic view 2.2.2 From Semantic view 2.2.3 From Pragmatic view 2.2 HEDGES AND POLITENESS 11 2.3 HEDGES AND MODALITY 15 v 2.4 TAXONOMY OF HEDGES 16 2.4.1 According to Forms 16 2.4.1.1 Lexical Hedges 18 2.4.1.2 Non-lexical Hedges 19 2.4.2 According to Functions 20 2.4.2.1 Salager-Mayer‟s model 20 2.4.2.2 Hyland‟s model 21 2.5 PREVIOUS STUDIES ON HEDGES 26 CHAPTER 3: METHODS AND PROCEDURES 29 3.1 RESEARCH METHODS 29 3.2 SAMPLING 30 3.3 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS 30 3.3.1 Data Sources 30 h 3.3.2 Criteria for Data Collection 31 3.3 RESEARCH PROCEDURES 31 3.4 VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY 33 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 34 4.1 FORMS OF HEDGES 34 4.1.1 Lexical Hedges 35 4.1.2 Non-lexical Hedges 36 4.2 FUNCTIONS OF HEDGES 37 4.2.1 Attribute-oriented Hedges 38 4.2.1.1 Downtoners 39 4.2.1.2 Style disjuncts 41 4.2.2 Reliability-oriented Hedges 42 4.2.2.1 Modal Verbs 43 4.2.2.2 Epistemic Adjectives 48 vi 4.2.2.3 Content disjuncts 49 4.2.2.4 Limited Knowledge 51 4.2.3 Writer-oriented Hedges 52 4.2.3.1 Epistemic Lexical Verbs 53 4.2.3.2 Agentless passive constructions 57 4.2.3.3 Empty Subjects with Lexical Verbs 58 4.2.3.4 Attribution to the Source 59 4.2.4 Reader-oriented Hedges 61 4.2.4.1 Personal Attribution 62 4.2.4.2 Hypothetical Conditionals 63 4.2.4.3 Questions 64 4.2.4.4 Claim as one possibility among many 65 4.3 SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES 66 h 4.3.1 The Similarities 66 4.3.2 The Differences 68 4.4 SUMMARY 68 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS 71 5.1 CONCLUSIONS 71 5.2 IMPLICATIONS 73 5.3 LIMITATIONS 73 5.4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTHER STUDY 74 REFERENCES 75 vii ABBREVIATIONS CEFR : Common European Framework of Reference for Languages CP : Cooperative Principle Freq : Frequency HD (s) : Hedging Device (s) NIS : New Interchange Series Per : Percentage RAs : Research Articles VHSET : Vietnamese High School English Textbooks h viii LIST OF TABLES Table name Page Table 2.1 Types of hedges according the four maxims 15 Table 2.2 Varttala‟s (2001) Classification of hedging forms 17 Table 3.1 Interchange 4th edition and the CEFR 31 Table 4.1 The distributions of hedge forms 34 Table 4.2 The frequency of lexical hedges 35 Table 4.3 The frequency of non-lexical hedges 36 Table 4.4 The frequency of hedge functions 37 Table 4.5 The frequency of attribute-oriented hedges 38 Table 4.6 The frequency of adjuncts 40 Table 4.7 The frequency of reliability-oriented hedges 42 Table 4.8 The frequency of modal verbs 44 Table 4.9 The frequency of epistemic adjectives 48 h No Table 4.10 The frequency of content disjuncts 51 Table 4.11 The frequency of writer-oriented hedges 53 Table 4.12 The frequency of epistemic lexical verbs 53 Table 4.13 The frequency of judgmental verbs 54 Table 4.14 The frequency of evidential verbs 56 Table 4.15 The frequency of reader-oriented hedges 61 Table 4.16 Detailed distributions of hedge functions 69