(Luận văn thạc sĩ) hedging devices in english and vietnamese economic research articles (ERAs )

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE _ PHAM THI THANH THUY HEDGING DEVICES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC RESEARCH ARTICLES (ERAs.) (PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO NGHIÊN CỨU KINH TẾ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) PH.D THESIS English Language Hanoi, 2008 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES _ PHAM THI THANH THUY HEDGING DEVICES IN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC RESEARCH ARTICLES (ERAs.) (PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO NGHIÊN CỨU KINH TẾ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT) Field: English Language Code: 62 22 15 01 PH.D Thesis English Language Supervisors: Assoc Prof Dr Le Hung Tien Assoc Prof Nguyen Quang HANOI, 2008 Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS I LIST OF TABLES III LIST OF FIGURES V ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS VI CHAPTER INTRODUCTION .ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 1.1 RATIONALE OF THE STUDY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 1.3 THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 1.4 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY .ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED 1.4.1 Data Collections Error! Bookmark not defined 1.4.2 Procedures for the Analysis of the Corpus Error! Bookmark not defined CHAPTER REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE - 22 2.1 EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF HEDGING .- 22 2.1.1 The Concept of Hedging - 22 2.1.2 Social aspects of hedging - 24 2.1.3 Toward a Working Definition of Hedging - 25 2.2 HEDGING AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE .- 27 2.2.1 The Nature of Scientific Discourse - 27 2.2.2 Hedging in Scientific Research Articles - 37 2.2.3 Hedging in Economic Research Articles - 51 CHAPTER CORPUS ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH RESEARCH ARTICLES ON ECONOMICS - 58 3.1 LEXICAL HEDGES IN THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH ARTICLES (RAS.) .- 58 3.1.1 Comparing Hedging Usage in English RAs with Two other Areas: Applied Linguistics and Physics - 58 3.1.2 Lexical Hedges in the English Corpus - 61 3.1.3 Non-lexical Hedges - 95 3.2 PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF HEDGING DEVICES IN THE ENGLISH CORPUS - 105 3.2.1 Content-oriented Functions of Hedging in the English Corpus - 106 3.2.2 Reader-oriented Functions of Hedging Devices in the English Corpus 119 CHAPTER CORPUS ANALYSIS OF VIETNAMESE RESEARCH ARTICLES ON ECONOMICS - 122 4.1 LEXICAL HEDGES IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC CORPUS - 122 4.1.1 Modality Functions as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus- 123 4.1.2 Lexical Verbs as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus - 135 4.1.3 Nouns and Pronouns Function as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 141 4.1.4 Impersonalizations as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 145 4.1.5 Compound Hedges .150 4.2 PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF HEDGING DEVICES IN THE VIETNAMESE CORPUS 153 I 4.2.1 4.2.2 Corpus Content-oriented Functions of Hedging in the Vietnamese Corpus .154 Reader-oriented Functions of Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese 161 CHAPTER COMPARING HEDGING USAGES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE WRITERS 170 5.1 GENERAL COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 170 5.2 COMPARISON AND CONTRAST IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES 172 5.2.1 Devices in the Two Corpora with No Differences .175 5.2.2 Differences among Hedging Devices in the Two Corpora 179 CHAPTER CONCLUDING REMARKS AND IMPLICATIONS 186 6.1 CONCLUDING REMARKS 186 6.2 IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 190 6.2.1 Implications for Language Awareness 190 6.2.2 Implications for research 191 6.2.3 Implications for language learning 192 6.3 SUGGESTED FOR FURTHER STUDY 194 II List Of Tables Table 1-1 Feature Matrix of Data Base Sections Error! Bookmark not defined Table 2.1 Hedging taxonomy (Salager-Meyer, 1994:56) - 45 Table 3.1 Relative Numbers of Hedging Devices per 100 words in RAs on Economics, Applied linguistics and Physics - 58 Table 3.2 Descriptive Statistics: Economics, Applied Linguistics, Physics - 59 Table 3.3 One-way ANOVA: English Economics, Applied Linguistics and Physics- 60 Table 3.4 Categories of Lexical Devices in the English Corpus - 61 Table 3.5 Distribution of Modal Auxiliaries in the English Corpus - 66 Table 3.6 Distribution of Lexical Verbs in the English Corpus - 83 Table 3.7 Distribution of Adverbs found as Hedges in the English Corpus - 84 Table 3.8 Distribution of Phrasal Hedges in the English Corpus - 90 Table 3.9 Distribution of Adjectives Found as Hedges in the English Corpus - 92 Table 3.10 Distribution of Selected Non-lexical Hedging Devices in the English Corpus - 96 Table 3.11 Distribution of Impersonalizations as Hedging Devices in the English Corpus - 96 Table 3.12 Hedging Constructions with IT in the English Corpus - 98 Table 3.13 Relative Numbers of Hedging Devices per 100 Words in the English Corpus - 103 Table 3.14 Numbers of Compound Hedges in the English Corpus - 104 Table 3.15 Combinations of Hedges in the Same Sentence in the English Corpus - 104 Table 4.1 Number of Lexical and Non-Lexical Hedging Devices per 100 words in Vietnamese and English Corpora - 122 Table 4.2 Modal Adverbs in the Vietnamese Corpus - 123 Table 4.3 Modal Auxiliaries as Hedges in the Vietnamese Corpus - 127 Table 4.4 Whether CẦN or CẦN PHẢI is a Hedging Device - 128 Table 4.5 Reasons for Deciding CẦN or CẦN PHẢI a Hedge or not - 129 Table 4.6 Lexical Verbs as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese corpus 137 Table 4.7 Assessment of Social Factors: Hedging vs Impersonalization 146 Table 4.8 Non-lexical Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 147 Table 4.9 Numbers of Hedging Combinations in the Same Sentence 150 Table 4.10 Harmonic Combinations of Hedges in the Same Sentence in Vietnamese corpus .151 Table 4.11 Mitigating Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 156 Table 4.12 Reasons for Using Hedging of Writers .163 Table 4.13 Number of Hedges per 100 words in RAs on economic, applied linguistics and sociology 167 Table 4.14 Descriptive Statistics: Vietnamese Economics, Vietnamese Applied linguistics, and Vietnamese Sociology .167 Table 4.15: One-way ANOVA Vietnamese Economics, Vietnamese Applied Linguistics and Vietnamese Sociology 169 Table 5.1 Number of Hedging Devices per 100 words in Vietnamese and English Economic Discourses 170 Table 5.2 Descriptive Statistics of Hedging Devices in the English and Vietnamese corpus .171 Table 5.3 ANOVA Hedges in English and Vietnamese Economics 173 III Table 5.4 ANOVA of Phrasal Hedging Devices in the English and Vietnamese Economics .176 Table 5.5 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Lexical Verbs as Hedges 177 Table 5.6 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Adverbs as Hedges 178 Table 5.7 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Adjective as Hedges 178 Table 5.8 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Modalities as Hedges 180 Table 5.9 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Nouns/Pronouns as Hedges .182 Table 5.10 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Compound Hedges 182 Table 5.11 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Non-lexical Devices as Hedges .183 IV List Of Figures Figure 3.1 String Matching of CAN in the English Corpus - 68 Figure 3.2 String Matching of COULD, COULD BE in the English Corpus - 69 Figure 3.3 String Matching MAY in the English Corpus - 71 Figure 3.4 String Matching WILL in the English Corpus - 74 Figure 3.5 String Matching of SUGGEST in the English Corpus - 79 Figure 3.6 String Matching of APPEAR and SEEM in the English Corpus - 82 Figure 3.7 Strings Matching of SOME in the English Corpus - 86 Figure 3.8 String Matching of PERHAPS in the English Corpus - 88 Figure 4.1 Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60) - 131 Figure 4.2 Boxplot of Vietnamese Economic, Applied Linguistics and Sociology .168 Figure 5.1 Histogram of Hedges in the English and Vietnamese Economic Corpus 172 Figure 5.2 Boxplot of Hedges in the English and Vietnamese Economic Corpus .174 Figure 5.3 Boxplot of Phrasal Hedging Devices in English and Vietnamese Economics 177 Figure 5.4 Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Lexical Verbs 177 Figure 5.5 Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Adverbs 179 Figure 5.6 Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Adjectives 179 Figure 6.1 String matching of suggest 193 V ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS & And α Alpha AEA The American Economic Association ANOVA Analysis of Variance BEPress The Berkeley Electronic Press (BEPress) CIEM Ministry of Investment -Central Institute for Economic Management CIEM Institute for Economic Management EA English Applied Linguistics Texts EDR Economic & Development Review EE English Economic Texts EP English Physics Texts ERAs Economic Research Articles ES English Sociology Texts ESP English for Specific Purposes FTA Face Threatening Act H0 Null Hypothesis H1 Alternative Hypothesis IE Institute of Economics JCR Journal of Citation Reports JEL The Journal of Economic Literature JEP The Journal of Economic Perspectives JIEEP The Journal of International Economic and Economic Policy N Number of occurrence P Relative Power R Rating/Raking of imposition RA Research article VI RAs Research articles RePEc Research Papers in Economic Sis Specialist Informants VA Vietnamese Applied Linguistics Texts VE Vietnamese Economic Texts VS Vietnamese Sociology Texts VII Chapter Introduction 1.1 Rationale of the Study The last two decades of research on academic writing have demonstrated that written academic genres are not purely objective, impersonal, and informative as they were once believed to be In fact, many researchers, such as Butler (1990), Crompton (1997, 1998), Hyland (1994, 1996, 1998), Myers (1985, 1989), Salager-Meyer (1994, 2000), Swales (1990), have shown that writers also need to present their claims cautiously, accurately, and persuasively in order to meet academia’s expectations and to enhance acceptance for their propositions One of the means to achieve such goal is the use of hedging Hedging was first introduced by Lakoff (1972) as a linguistic concept referring to linguistic strategies which qualify categorical commitment Hedging is now often known as an expression of tentativeness and possibility and has become a common feature in academic discourse (Hyland, 1996) It is used to qualify the writers’ confidence in the truth of a proposition, and the presence of hedging devices is generally viewed as an indicator of fuzziness However, while hedging in spoken discourse is a well-documented phenomenon, one which plays important interpersonal and facilitative roles, less attention is given to hedging in different disciplines or genres in academic writing This thesis, therefore, provides comprehensive research on this feature in the written discourse of economics with a systematic analysis of (1) linguistic forms and (2) a pragmatic explanation for their use 1.2 Objectives of the Study and Research Questions The main objectives of this thesis are to characterize the common extent, functions and major forms of hedging in one particular genre: economic research articles (RAs) In particular, the study addresses the following primary objectives: To identify the hedging devices used in the discussion sections of the English and the Vietnamese ERAs To identify the communicative functions of hedges in Discussion sections of English and Vietnamese ERAs To compare/contrast hedging expressions in Discussion sections in English ERAs and in Vietnamese ERAs -1- These reasons are likely to lead to a more respected attitude of Vietnamese people toward “super-ordinates”, and a more polite and concessive attitude toward “subordinates” This attitude is witnessed frequently in Vietnamese economic corpus Vietnamese writers use many types of modalities as hedging devices (especially modal verbs) to mitigate their statements In our corpus, Vietnamese writers use more modal verbs than English writers (0.813 devices per 100 words in Vietnamese corpus compared to 0.485 devices per 100 words in English corpus) 197 (4) Cho nên, doanh nghiệp Việt nam nên tăng cường sử dụng biện pháp nhường quyền thương mại, sử dụng biện pháp nhượng quyền thương mại (VE 5) (Therefore, Vietnamese enterprises should strengthen the give-up method in trading right, and use the selling method in trading right) 198 (6) Chúng [tỷ giá giao ngay] khác hoàn toàn với chế tỷ giá “bám theo thị trường” dường thực thời gian qua (VE 12) (They [spot delivery exchange rate] are totally different from exchange rate mechanism “belong to market” as we have probably realized so far) Nên and dường in the examples above were two weak forms of obligation modal If the writers in the two examples above substituted these two modal verbs with other modal verbs (e.g phải (must); cần (need)) or omit them, the statements would become too authoritative which would likely to pose potential threat to the readers’ negative face because in these cases, subjects were clear doanh nghiệp Việt nam and These devices helped the writers show their respect to their interlocutors Two types of hedging devices having the most significant difference between the two languages are Nouns/Pronouns and Compound hedges The p-level of these hedging types are very small (P = 0.000) which is much smaller than α level (0.05) With the low P-value and high degree of F-value (26.69 for nouns/pronouns and 127.90 for compound hedges), we can reject our nullhypothesis that the mean of these types of hedges are almost the same, and our alternative hypotheses are accepted Moreover, the average levels of hedges between English and Vietnamese are also quite different On the average, there are more than compound hedges used in English texts per 100 words, while this number in Vietnamese texts is nearly hedge only The average number of Nouns/Pronouns used as hedges in English is 0.8168 hedges per 100 words, while in Vietnamese is 0.2648 (see Table 5.9 and Table 5.10 for more information.) One-way ANOVA: Nouns/Pronouns in EE, Nouns/Pronouns in VE 181 Source Factor Error Total DF 48 49 S = 0.3778 SS 3.809 6.851 10.660 MS 3.809 0.143 F 26.69 R-Sq = 35.73% Level Noun/Pronoun in Noun/Pronoun in N 25 25 P 0.000 R-Sq(adj) = 34.39% Mean 0.8168 0.2648 StDev 0.4736 0.2474 Individual 95% CIs For Mean Based on Pooled StDev -+ -+ -+ -+ -( -* -) ( -* -) -+ -+ -+ -+ -0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 Table 5.9 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Nouns/Pronouns as Hedges One-way ANOVA: English Compound Hedges, Vietnamese Compound Hedges Source Factor Error Total DF 48 49 S = 1.875 SS 449.42 168.67 618.09 MS 449.42 3.51 R-Sq = 72.71% F 127.90 P 0.000 R-Sq(adj) = 72.14% Individual 95% CIs For Mean Based on Pooled StDev Level N Mean StDev -+ -+ -+ -+ -25 6.512 2.634 ( -* ) English Compound Hedges VN Compound Hedges 25 0.516 0.298 ( -* ) -+ -+ -+ -+ -0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 Table 5.10 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Compound Hedges The same conclusion about difference in hedging usage between English and Vietnamese writers can also be made with Non-lexical devices P-value of this comparison is 0.015 < 0.05 (see Table 5.11), which rejects our null-hypothesis (mean of non-lexical hedges in English = mean of non-lexical hedges in Vietnamese), and accept an alternative hypotheses One-way ANOVA: English Non-Lexical Devices, VN Non-Lexical Devices Source Factor Error Total DF 48 49 S = 0.6254 SS 2.488 18.771 21.260 MS 2.488 0.391 R-Sq = 11.70% F 6.36 P 0.015 R-Sq(adj) = 9.87% 182 Level English Non-Lexi VN Non-Lexical D N 25 25 Mean 0.8020 1.2482 StDev 0.5470 0.6949 Individual 95% CIs For Mean Based on Pooled StDev + -+ -+ -+( -* -) ( -* -) + -+ -+ -+0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 Table 5.11 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Non-lexical Devices as Hedges Vietnamese people prefer the harmony and reconciliation between Jin and Yang elements They are more Jin-oriented and tend to avoid making straight decision (Nguyen, Q.H & Nguyen H.S (2000)) In communication, Vietnamese people are likely to start their talk with unrelated topics, then come closer to the topic, go far again and lastly come to the topic (Nguyen Q., 2003) This is probably the result of the village community where people pay much attention to emotion than to laws This background possibly makes Vietnamese people become less decisive and try to avoid confrontation, try to reconcile with others This point might explain why the percentage of impersonalization used in Vietnamese corpus is three times more than that proportion in English corpus (21.5% in Vietnamese corpus compared with 6.9% in English) Vietnamese writers use non-subject or impersonal structures and passive structures to avoid mentioning directly to any agent realizing the actions in the writers’ suggestions or comments 199 200 (18a) Có thể hiểu phát biểu rằng, (18b) có khả tương lai (Can understand) (can be able to) hay vào lúc nào, Chính phủ tỷ giá biến động rơi tự theo diễn biến thị trường (VE 12) (The statement can be understood that, (18a) it is possible that in the future or at any time, the Government will automatically leave the exchange rate fluctuates and drop freely in accordance with the market change.) (26) Đối với vấn đề này, để chống đầu nhà BĐS, nên áp dụng (should apply) loại thuế luỹ tiến đánh vào chủ dự án nhà đầu tư riêng rẽ cố tình đầu nhà dự án không xây dựng theo tiến độ dự án duyệt (VE 24) (Regarding to this issue, in order to avoid speculating housing floors and real estate, progressive tax on manager of projects should be applied or private investors will purposefully speculate housing floors and will not follow approved project plans in constructing projects.) 183 In example (199), non-subject structures hiểu…; có khả năng… integrated with unidentified phrase hay bất cú lúc (or at any time) assisted the writer to reduce the authority which may appear without assistance of these devices Similarly, the impersonal structure nên áp dụng…(should apply) in example (200) reduced authority of the statement because the impose obligation in the writer’s suggestion was merely a proposal, thereby tentative and left room for the writer’s audience to make their decision to follow the suggestion or not Furthermore, as mentioned above, cần, cần phải are hedges containing power inside them; therefore, Vietnamese writers often try to avoid affecting the audiences’ negative face by using non-subject structures in order not to mention to any particular person realizing actions in the statements To sum up, the investigation of more than 55,000 words corpus reveals that there is a significant difference about hedging usages between English and Vietnamese writers When analyzing the two corpuses, English and Vietnamese, we also find that not all English hedging devices can be applied to Vietnamese corpus Moreover, not only different in quantity of hedges, sometimes the purposes of using hedging devices are also different in two languages We can find the differences in the two following examples 201 (3) Do vậy, để giải vấn đề này, nên kết hợp sử dụng hạn ngạch xuất thuế xuất gạo (VE.11) (Therefore, in order to solve this problem, we should integrate using export quota into using export tax on rice.) 202 (9) We conclude by suggesting an additional propagation mechanism, vertical specialization (10a) We mean the phenomenon (10b) by which countries increasingly specialize in producing only particular stages of a good's production sequence (10c) so that a good crosses multiple borders while in process (EE 2) We was used in both examples (197) and (198) above; however, its purposes were different in the two examples In Vietnamese example, we combined with should assisted the writer to diminish the power of the suggestion The writer in this example indicated that he/she also had certain responsibility in that situation and naturally got the audience involved into what he/she was going to Meanwhile, in English example, we was used with an aim to assert the writer’s ego The writer in example (198) emphasized that what the writer and his/her colleagues (plural pronoun we) were going to conclude was the contribution of the writer to economic field In other word, by using we, the writer wanted his positive face was recognized by professional circle 184 Besides using single hedges to achieve purposes in emphasizing, or downtoning the statements, economic writers also interlaced some linguistic devices to reenforce their statements In this point, English writers also use more devices at the same time than Vietnamese writers 185 Chapter Concluding Remarks and Implications This chapter will summarize what the study has covered and examine some implications especially pedagogical implications from the study Firstly, I will recap principal findings of the study, condense some main contributions of the study to the understanding of features in RAs in general and of hedging phenomenon in particular Then, I will consider the implication of the research for studying hedging usage and for teaching ESP Finally, I also mention to some remaining questions, as well as suggest some directions for further study 6.1 Concluding Remarks This is a corpus-based study of 55, 000 words of English and Vietnamese The study is the combination of both systematic classification of linguistic forms and pragmatic explanations of hedging devices In Vietnam, while other previous researchers only focused on a particular linguistic aspect of hedging usage, or a certain politeness phenomenon in spoken language, this study can be considered the first comprehensive study of hedging devices in written discourse The study summarizes some outstanding forms of English and Vietnamese hedging devices, important functions of hedges and some explanations about the differences between the two languages Besides providing a linguistic system of hedging devices, the study also provides pragmatics analysis which cannot be achieved through intuitive observations by dealing with hedges in certain contexts where accurate purposes of hedging users are expressed By doing this way, the study also implies that in order to fully understand a hedge, it is necessary to analyze that device in its social context The following points are some main findings of the research Hedging is a typical, indispensable, and massive communication device in economic RAs with different functions (Chapter III and IV) On the average, there is more than one hedge in every 100 words in English corpus, and nearly 0.5 hedges per 100 words in Vietnamese corpus This number is much higher when specific devices are analyzed This finding suggests that more theories of language should consider hedging devices seriously Hedging devices can be used to realize writers’ academic 186 expectations of accurately presenting claims, and to confirm their contributions to the academic field Besides that hedges also assist writers to acknowledge limitations and lack in the writers’ capability or in experiment conditions, which makes the writers’ suggestions and ideas be more persuasive Economic research articles both in English and Vietnamese contain various types of hedging expressions (chapter III, IV) Lexical devices make up the highest proportion in two languages (2.062 English hedging devices per 100 words, and 1.836 Vietnamese hedging devices per 100 words) This probably because lexical hedges are very specific in the meanings that they express; therefore, lexical hedges are more suitable to avoid ambiguous meanings in academic discourse In English corpus, Nouns/pronouns functioning as hedges occur the most frequently, followed by modality and lexical verbs While, in Vietnamese corpus, the most frequent hedging device is modality, followed by nouns/pronouns and lexical verbs Besides lexical devices, non-lexical hedging devices are also employed much in the two corpora to distance the writers from their propositional statement, and to avoid negative reactions might appear from the audience because of the writers’ lack of knowledge, limiting experimental conditions, or inadequate research methods Hedging devices are used differently in different fields of study Within the scope of this thesis, three genres in English (economics, applied linguistics and sociology) and three fields of study in Vietnamese (economics, applied linguistics and physics) are compared in the use of hedges A significant difference in hedging usages between the three academic fields in English is identified On the average, the number of hedges per 100 words in English economic discourses is double the number of hedges in the two fields (1.172 hedges per 100 words in English economic RAs compared with 0.540 and 0.487 hedges per 100 words in RAs of applied linguistics and sociology respectively) In general, nouns and pronouns used as hedges in English corpus occur more frequently in economic RAs than in the two other fields In addition, English economists of English corpus also use more compound hedges at the same time than writes in sociology and applied linguistics RAs The difference in hedging usage among three academic fields of study in Vietnamese corpus is not significant in term of quantity The difference is only identified when pragmatic analysis is taken 187 The English corpus and the Vietnamese corpus have many differences in frequent occurrence of each type of hedges, as well as in the quality of the writing (chapter V) The corpus analysis of this thesis indicates a restricted use of modal verbs in English corpus, but a different result is seen in Vietnamese corpus where modal verbs outweigh other types of hedging Nouns or Pronouns functioning as hedges are mostly used in the English corpus, but not frequently used in Vietnamese corpus Another significant difference between the English and Vietnamese discourses in term of hedging usage is the prominence of using more than one hedge at the same time English writers use six times this type of hedges more than Vietnamese writers (6.512 compared with 0.516 devices per 100 words) The harmony of many hedges in the same sentence increases the effect of this shielding device in English corpus Pragmatically, hedging is a versatile resource that writers intentionally use to increase interpersonal meanings (chapter III and IV) Hedging is a good way to design our opinions to maximize the expression of interpersonal emotions as well as to address the need for deference and cooperation when trying to gain agreement during negotiation Hedging not only allows writers to express whether they believe that something is true, but to show how they feel about it, and to allow the writers manage conversation for maximal interpersonal efficiency The relationship between writers and readers is increased when the writers use hedges to avoid loosing their and their audience’s politeness faces Hedges assist the writers to shield them from negative reactions from opposite ideas; therefore, they can increase ratification of claims from the audience Besides that, the writers can also encourage their readers to get involve into the decision making process by giving the audience chances to choose either following the writers’ suggestions or not By doing this way, the writers want to acknowledge the readers’ contribution into the social process of knowledge accreditation Hedging devices should be considered in a certain context (chapter III, IV) The study emphasizes the relationship between a discourse community, standards of knowledge and textual representations with the use of hedges The semantic analysis of hedging usage achieved through corpus analysis in this research may not be fully understood without combination of pragmatic constraints in determining meanings Therefore, the study 188 provides a full profile of hedging usage in RAs with context interpretations of hedging meanings 10 Many types of hedges are often used together (chapter III, IV, V) in one sentence to form compound hedges In the English corpus, there are 37.5% three types of hedges used together, 33.9% two different types of hedges are used at the same time, 28.6% four or more than four types of hedges are used together In Vietnamese RAs, among 122 compound hedges, there are 85 cases two hedges are used together, 31 cases triple hedging devices combine with one another In English RAs, combinations are likely to include a non-lexical device (e.g impersonalization) or a noun co-occurs with another type of hedges The most common groupings were nouns + non-lexical devices (N=126 cases) and non-lexical devices + another nonlexical devices (N= 64 cases) In Vietnamese corpus, the combination between modal verbs and non-lexical devices outweighs other types of combinations (N= 37+ 34= 71 cases) 11 A form of a hedging device does not fix to a limited meaning, while a purpose of the writer can be expressed through various hedging forms (chapter III, IV) A hedging device conveys different categorical meanings Hedging is a poly-pragmatic device conveying a range of functions For example, non-subject structures functioning as effective hedges in (i) avoiding negative reactions which may occur from audience; (ii) avoiding personal involvement when writes impossible or unwilling to reach accuracy; (iii) showing the writers’ consideration and care to their audience when the writers give their audience chances to get involve into the decision making process Besides that, various hedging forms can be used to express one purpose of the writers For example, writer-oriented function of hedging devices can be expressed through three devices: impersonalization, modality, and noun 12 The study has some implications in research, language understanding, and teaching in investigating a popular persuasive device in RAs via comparative approach to help non-native researchers, learners recognize some illegitimate uses of hedging that may render their writing awkward in the eyes of native speakers 189 6.2 Implications of the Study 6.2.1 Implications for Language Awareness From the study, it is clear that since hedging devices are dynamic, flexible and versatile, hedging devices and other linguistic features cannot be fully understand without studying the social and interactional contexts of use, these patterns of usage have shaped the system It seems that writers make meanings through their choice of functions in which they use the lexicon Therefore, the study emphasizes the functional understanding of writing contexts, and a commitment to the notion of language use In other words, in order to understand the hedges, it is necessary to understand Field, Tenor, and Mode (adapted from Collerson, 1994) The Field includes both the object focus (things or ideas), and the activity focus (what is being done) The Field means “what’s going on with references to what” (Gerot, 1995) Two groups of people may view the same hedging device in different ways The writer may consider modality, for example, as the way to get the audience involved into the decision making process; while, the audience might think that the writer is not sure about what she/he is going to say The Tenor refers to the interpersonal relationships of contact, cordiality of relations, and status among the language users (Gerot, 1995) It includes whether people getting involved into the conversation know each other, like each other, and being more or less powerful because of different in their social status This study suggests that writers who are young and holding low-status tend to use more hedges than those who are older and holding a higher social status Mode includes the channel, role of language, and the register or type of language used Language at this moment is only part of the event Hedges in this case are used formally in an academic environment where readers are strict scientists with critical thoughts with an aim to have a better scientific environment The choice of language that the writers make for Field, Tenor and Mode are tied with the usage pattern of culture Therefore, in order to fully understand hedging usages of writers, besides understanding invariant syntactic and semantic meanings of hedges, it is necessary to interpret hedges in a particular context connecting to the writers’ knowledge, goals and typical role hedges play in the RA discourse The fact that hedging usages are directly connected to individual goals and institutional structures is obvious because when writing RAs, the writers are seeking to ratify knowledge, rather than simply reporting it This means the writers are pursuing their personal ambitions 190 through professional channels, interpretation of meaning 6.2.2 institutional and ideological factors in Implications for research As mentioned above, in order to have a full interpretation of hedging usages, it is necessary to understand hedges in different social contexts involving stylistic, pragmatic and rhetorical uses The actual environment where hedges occur naturally will provide more reliable descriptions about this feature, and avoid neglect of hedges in the literature brought by human intuitions which tend to be highly specific and poor in analyzing language in actual use The study implies that a systematic investigation of authentic sources will bring a more reliable integrity of analysis Employing human intuition of the researcher as well as asking opinions from specialist informants are valuable procedures in analyzing language and providing insights of hedging usages However, corpus analysis of the thesis provides objective data about hedging usage These evidences are more reliable than information provided through analyst’s subjective impressions which neither truly reflect how hedges are used in actual context, nor identify reasons hedges are employed The corpus analysis also assists the analyst to avoid oversimplification and generalization on any particular point of hedging devices Another advantage of corpus analysis is that it provides a full sketch of hedging usage in RAs such as frequent hedging forms, harmony among hedges, the meanings hedges express, functions of hedges Besides, the research results also imply for an increase in cross-cultural research To have a better cross-culture communication, it is necessary to “transcend the limits of individual cultures" (Hall 1977) Analyzing only culture of a language unconsciously, the analyst will undoubtedly get unseen differences A critical examination about peculiarities of hedging usages in both English and Vietnamese provides the researcher a better appreciation of reasonable linguistic choices of hedging interactions in the two languages The authentic discourse observations and analyses of this study provide a clear model of native English and Vietnamese speakers of hedging devices which form a standard in a particular economic genre and domain This modal of hedging usage will be a landmark for other researchers when comparing hedging expressions and comprehension among different cultures 191 6.2.3 Implications for language learning The study has important implications for second language teaching in raising the awareness for explicit instruction in hedging, especially for students specializing in language Using hedging devices in academic writing will help new students gain admission into the academic discourse community, then increase their intellectual rigor, their ability in science (Halliday and Martin, 1993), and make them become more scientific, or being better scientists (Schefter, 1996; Hyland, 1996) As students have to prepare to learn in an academic community where hedging is widely used, it will be easier for them if they pay much attention to their literacy requirements which includes an understanding of socio-cultural meanings producing the discourse For example, Vietnamese students who not get benefits from their home or school environment of standard English should get advice about this tentative language in their academic writing Teachers of second language teaching should provide their students reading strategies to recognize schematic structures of RAs, knowledge about how to recognize hedging forms, functions, multi-functions of hedging devices in order to help them remove difficulties caused by tentative language, in understanding scientific contents It is teachers’ responsibility to make hedging outstanding among students, encourage students to develop formal schemata in order to achieve sufficient recognition of their correct use For example, teachers can use Concordance programs while teaching hedging for students A concordance program is an effective tool for searching large amounts of computer-readable text for certain words or phrases Concordance soft-wares for language research is available worldwide, on CD ROM, and easy to use These data-driven learning programs, as Johns and King (1991) named it, both stimulate and encourage language learners to study and their research independently Although there is no concordance program for hedging research, as far as I know, language teachers can use general concordance programs to present their students most frequent forms and hedging related patterns and structures With clear, corpus-based forms, patterns from authentic texts, lessons of teachers about hedging will be more effective, and students will surely be aware of the popularity of hedging, as well as will interpret hedges more properly, use hedging devices more appropriately For example, the following results (Figure 6.1) getting from MonoConc Program (version 2.0) can assist teachers to (1) find out typical collocations of hedge “suggest” in authentic usages, for example, we suggest, the data suggest (that), these results suggest (that), the observations suggest (that), these estimates suggest, empirical studies suggest 192 that, figure suggests,…; (2) check on grammar and usage of this hedge “suggest”; (3) generate exercise and worksheets based on examples drawn from a variety of the corpora, (4) examine the style, word choice of the authors Figure 6.1 String matching of suggest Besides that, concordance programs also assist teachers to design exercises for students to predict missing forms, correct wrong patterns, distinguish statements in a text, determine the differences of hedges in different cultures, compare hedged texts with un-hedged texts, compare and contrast hedging usages with other languages which have not been studied much One powerful means of illustrating the effect of hedges on a text is to examine the same content in different evidential contexts, focusing on the different meanings and degree of certainty expressed Students can be asked to compare a text with all hedges removed with a text with full hedges With the help of concordance programs, students by themselves can also classify hedging meanings according to their forms, grammatical or functional structures, and find the importance of hedges in the texts Besides hedging meanings, tense choices and registers of writers are also identified by students with the help of concordance programs 193 The study results also contribute to the comparison between native and non-native learners for educators The framework created in the study provides basic language modal for educators to examine learner’s pragmatic comprehension of hedges in English and Vietnamese The study results also infer a suggested modal to teach non-native speakers the same context sensitivity and conventionality as native speakers in this field of use While hedges have a variety of observed uses in RAs, this does not automatically mean that similar cases of hedging might be applied in all types of RAs In other words, researchers should take into account the multifunctional nature of hedging phenomena and the possibility that hedges may differ from others in various types of RAs However, besides a wide range of conscious activities teachers design to help students understand hedges, students should practice their writing to raise their natural awareness of hedges, and see the importance of hedging in a large context They should be practiced to understand hedges as both text-based items and discourse-based strategies In teaching process, both reading and writing have to be linked in a complete text where sufficient contexts are provided to show the authors’ assumptions when using a hedge 6.3 Suggested for further study Information concerning the rhetorical features of RAs may be essential for those accommodating scientific information for public wider than the immediate scholarly community Variability of rhetorical situations and the consultant effects on different linguistic phenomena would in all likehood merit further attention in further work A further study which should be made for another function of hedges is to express rhetorical meanings Hedging device might be a signal for audience to predict the changes of the writers’ propositional content Another empirical question such as the relationship between hedging and cohesive elements of rhetorical structures, say parallelism is a topic for further study The study may also take into account of disciplinary variation by investigating effects of genders on hedging expressions Studying hedging devices in other different genres (applied linguistics, physics, and sociology) will probably another suggestion for further study 194 As mentioned previously, as far as I know, there has not been any concordance program specializing in hedging research, especially there is no concordance program allowing texts in Vietnamese, this suggests researchers, particularly Vietnamese researchers should set up a language database about hedging devices in Vietnamese, which were partly mentioned to in this thesis 195 ... later research such as Holmes (199 7), Hyland (199 5), Posteguillo (199 9), Ruiying & Allison (200 3) 2.2.2 Hedging in Scientific Research Articles 2.2.2.1 Studies of Hedging in Scientific Research Articles. .. Hedges in English and Vietnamese Economics 173 III Table 5.4 ANOVA of Phrasal Hedging Devices in the English and Vietnamese Economics .176 Table 5.5 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese. .. Hedges in the English and Vietnamese Economic Corpus .174 Figure 5.3 Boxplot of Phrasal Hedging Devices in English and Vietnamese Economics 177 Figure 5.4 Boxplot of English and Vietnamese