A study of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the wind by Margaret Mitchell. M.A Thesis Linguistics: 60 22 15

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYỀN A STUDY OF HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN GONE WITH THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL (Nghiên cứu phương tiện rào đón hội thoại tác phẩm Cuốn theo chiều gió nhà văn Margaret Mitchell) M.A THESIS Field: Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 HANOI – 2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES -***** - NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYỀN A STUDY OF HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN GONE WITH THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL (Nghiên cứu phương tiện rào đón hội thoại tác phẩm Cuốn theo chiều gió nhà văn Margaret Mitchell) M.A THESIS Field: Linguistics Code: 60.22.15 Supervisor: Assoc Prof Dr TRẦN XUÂN ĐIỆP HANOI – 2012 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents iii List of tables v List of figures vi Abbreviations vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims of the research and research questions Implications of the research Scope of the research Methodology Research design PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER Theoretical Background 1.1 Definitions of hedge 1.2 Classification of hedging devices and hedging functions 1.3 Hedges versus conversational maxims and politeness strategies 11 1.4 About Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 15 1.5 Chapter summary 16 CHAPTER 17 Findings and Discussions 17 2.1 Overview of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 17 2.2 Analysis of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind 19 iv 2.2.1 Analysis of modal hedges 19 2.2.2 Analysis of performative hedges 22 2.2.3 Analysis of quantificational hedges 24 2.2.4 Analysis of pragmatic-marker hedges 28 2.2.5 Analysis of tag questions, subjunctives and depersonalization 32 2.3 Functional analysis of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind 34 2.3.1 Speaker-oriented function of hedges 35 2.3.2 Accuracy-oriented function of hedges 36 2.3.3 Hearer-oriented function of hedges 37 PART 3: CONCLUSION 39 Recapitulation of main ideas of the research 39 Limitations of the study 40 Suggestions for further studies 40 REFERENCES 42 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Taxonomy of hedging devices by Salager-Meyer (1994) Table 2: Summary of hedging functions and the devices used to express them by Hyland (1998) Table 3: Taxonomy of hedging devices by Yu (2009) Table 4: Hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind Table 5: Modal hedges: modal aux., modal adv., modal adj., and epistemic lexical verbs Table 6: Quantificational hedges: approximators of quantity, frequency, degree, and ―negation + intensifier‖ Table 7: Pragmatic-marker hedges: interpersonal and propositional Table 8: Other minor types of hedging devices: subjunctives, tag questions, and depersonalization vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Distribution of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind Figure Distribution of modal hedges Figure Distribution of performative hedges Figure Distribution of quantificational hedges Figure Distribution of pragmatic-marker hedges Figure Distribution of other minor types of hedging devices Figure Distribution of functions of hedging devices vii ABBREVIATIONS Adj Adjectives Adv Adverbs IPM Interpersonal pragmatic markers n Number p Page PPM Proportional pragmatic markers PART 1: INTRODUCTION This part will briefly present the rationale of the research, indicate the research purposes and research questions, and finally outline the organization of the study as a whole Rationale It is widely accepted that making frictions in human beings‘ everyday interaction within a community is almost inevitable In order to reduce such a friction and maintain peace and social harmony, there are certain strategies that should be followed One of these strategies is ―hedging‖ Introduced for the first time by Lakoff in 1972, the term of ―hedge‖ was generally understood as ―words whose job is to make thing fuzzier or less fuzzy‖ Since its appearance, hedges have received a great deal of attention in conversation analysis where such devices are used to create conviviality, facilitate discussion, or show politeness (Holmes, 1984; 1995) Hedging has also been associated with conveying purposive vagueness (Powell, 1985) and as a means of achieving distance between the speaker and what is said (Skelton, 1997) Being an interesting linguistic phenomenon, hedges have been concerned by a number of linguists However, as a matter of fact, Yu (2009: 34) indicated that the majority of hedge studies are found to be concerned with academic or scientific writing, including genres such as economics (Pindi and Bloor, 1986; Channell, 1990), science digests (Fahnestock, 1986), medical discourse (Salager-Meyer, 1991; 1993; 1994; Adams-Smith, 1984), molecular genetics articles (Myers, 1989), and news-writing (Zuck & Zuck, 1986; 1987) The field of spoken discourse, in contrast, seems to receive a comparatively limited number of comprehensive and thorough investigations Hence, with the hope of contributing to enrich the literature of researches on hedging in spoken discourse and to shed some light on the hedging phenomenon in American everyday conversations by investigating linguistic realization of hedging, pragmatic functions and some linguistic features of identified hedges, the author of the present paper decided to carry out the study entitled ―A study of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell‖ In addition to certain theoretical contributions, the study is expected to have certain implications in language teaching when various linguistic expressions would be used to serve as valuable examples for hedging demonstration at work Aims of the research and research questions As mentioned earlier, the present research aimed to investigate linguistic devices of hedging, their linguistic realization and their major pragmatic functions in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell The present study attempts to address the following research questions:  What are main hedging devices employed in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell?  What are major functions of identified hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell? Implications of the research Both theoretical and practical implications may be offered by the findings of the present study From the theoretical perspective, this study may serve as an additional source of empirical studies on hedges in a way that it indicated different types of hedging devices used in everyday conversations to achieve different pragmatic effects and proved the possibility of utilizing the combined polypragmatic functions of hedges to investigate hedging phenomenon in spoken discourse In terms of practical perspective, the present study may serve certain samples as a source of authentic materials in learning and teaching hedging devices and functions of hedges since a text-based approach is believed to be a key dealing with the lack of pragmatic competence of non-native speakers in communication with native ones Scope of the research First, although communication comes with paralinguistic and extra-linguistic factors, the present study is restricted to the verbal mode of hedging That is to say, the prosodic features (speed, tone, loudness, etc.) and the kinesic mode (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) are outside the research scope Adjacency pairs, in addition, are also beyond the scope of the investigation Second, though pragmatic functions of hedging in spoken discourses are believed to be realized through different communicative strategies without using hedging expressions, such as saying sorry, showing regret, expressing interest, and so on, the present paper is restrained to linguistic realization of hedges, from which the pragmatic effects of hedges are expected to be portrayed Methodology The research is based on a detailed contextual analysis of conversations in the novel of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell A comprehensive understanding of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind involves at least two levels of linguistic description: a quantitative analysis and a pragmatic analysis The process of analysis is described as follows - Quantitative analysis: The purpose of quantitative surface-level analysis is to generalize the major forms of hedges in conversations All the indentified items were scrutinized in their context to select those linguistic categories that express hedges At this point, the taxonomy suggested by Yu (2009) was mainly employed to guide the process of identification of hedging devices in the conversations in the novel - Pragmatic analysis: The research then employed a contextual analysis of authentic conversations at the second level of analysis to identify the purposes ... detailed contextual analysis of conversations in the novel of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell A comprehensive understanding of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind involves at least... the Wind by Margaret Mitchell The present study attempts to address the following research questions:  What are main hedging devices employed in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret. .. What are major functions of identified hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell? Implications of the research Both theoretical and practical implications may