THE USE OF ‘HEDGING’ IN RESEARCH BASED
PAPER
By; Tri Edy Kesumo Raharjo
ABSTRACT:
This study is aimed to investigate the use of hedging in introduction of research based paper produced by postgraduate students on the type of hedging they used and their reasons in using the hedging. The data were collected by interview which is based on the Stimulated Recall Methodology (SRM) and observation. Results showed that they had used some type of ‘hedging’ and they have some reasons deal with the use of hedging in their introduction.
I. Introduction.
1.1. Background of Study
This paper will portray a study, which I conducted, about the use of hedging in introductory of research based paper. I want to reveal the reasons deal with the various kinds of hedges employed in those works.
Despite of the popular misconception that scientific discourse embodies impartial account of accurate information, linguists have come to believe that it actually constitutes social constructed ‘rhetorical artifact’ (Hyland, 1998). Thus, instead of structuring information in simple manner authors of scientific discourse often employ in process of negotiation and persuasion or affiliation.
author do not want to say that something is happen, but the may say that something is
possibly happen, or it might be happen.
From the functionalist standpoint, language when used is believed to have the potential to represent the world and decide the nature of social relations represented among social actors (Halliday, 1994). This linguistic occurrence is not only found in texts that are produced in the mass media or literary texts.
Guided by such functional perspectives, I start to think that these might also contain linguistic features that valuable in research. One of the most important characteristic of academic writing is the use of hedging. I was drawn to examine hedges in academic discourse of research based paper because of my curiosity in such a writing style. I want disclose the reason beneath the various kinds of hedges employed in those works. To accomplish the goal I have to collect data and sort them out based on some categories that I formulated. By identifying the types of hedges used, it would be easier for me to analyze and uncover those reasons.
1.2. Research Questions
This study is guided by three research questions, they are: 1. What types of hedging do the writers use?
2. What are their reasons in using hedging?
1.3. Research Objectives
The writer limits this study to the use of hedging in academic writing of introduction in research based paper. The purposes of this study are; to know the types of hedging the writers use and to know the reasons of the writers in using the hedging.
1.4. Signifcance of the Study
discourse with the awareness of the potential effects on the use of hedging, so that, they will be more careful in taking into account who their audience are and what the purposes of their writing are. To sump up, this study is expected to increase with some understanding of the importance of hedges for those wishing to improve their academic writing skills (Hyland, 1998).
II.
Theoretical Review
2.1. An Overview of Hedging
The term “hedging” was introduced by Lakoff (1972). It is a word whose job is to make things more or less fuzzy. As Hyland (1998) states that hedging has been applied to the linguistic devices used to qualify a speaker’s confidence in the truth of a proposition, the kind introduction, methods, results, and discussion of caveats like I think, perhaps,
might, and maybe which we habitually add to our statements to avoid commitment to categorical assertions. Hedges, therefore, express tentativeness and possibility in communication, and their appropriate use in scientific discourse is critical.
In line with Lakoff’s main focus, the term ‘hedge’ has later been defined, like by Brown and Levinson (1987) s “a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it is of the membership that it is partial or true only in a certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps maybe expected”. This is attracted that hedges include both desensitizer and intensifier which was also how Lakoff saw them.
2.2. Hedging in Academic Writing
Stylistic devices, including hedging acquire their meanings through the interaction between the author and the reader interaction, on the basis of hedging is ‘a textual phenomenon’ and ‘a virtual quality’ of a text. Hedges are present at various levels of textualization but are not inherent characteristic of texts (Hyland, 1998).
The interaction between the author and the reader is controlled by culture. Based on Clyne (1994), he states that in an intercultural communication situation, however, cultural differences may cause both the reader and the author do not share the same norm and expectations.
Just the same like others types of communication, in scientific writing, politeness has been deemed as the main motivating factors of hedging. Myers (1989) claims that even in this type of discourse, hedging is used for the shake of negative politeness to make a claim as being provisional, pending acceptance in the literature, acceptance by the community. In line with Myer, Schröder & Zimmer states that 'hedging' is used to refer to the textual strategies of using linguistic means as hedges in a certain context for specific communicative purposes, such as politeness, vagueness, mitigation, etc. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rAkyvD6GGqoC&oi=fnd&pg
2.3. Types of Hedging
There are eight types of hedged statements, they are;
1. Modal Auxiliary (may or might, can or could, shall or should, will or would, ought to, and must)
2. Epistemic Nouns (possibility, probability, a supposition, hypothesis, assumption, conjecture)
3. Epistemic Verbs
a. Epistemic Lexical Verbs (suggest, appear, indicate, predict, believe, conclude, assume, propose, seem)
b. Epistemic Judgment Verbs (feel, think, reckon, guess, estimate, tend, speculate, suspect, calculate, imply)
c. Epistemic Evidential Verbs ( note, report, deduce, show, attempt, and seek)
4. Conditional Sentence (if clause)
5. Epistemic Adverb (adjunct and disjuncts)
6. Epistemic Adjectives (it is to be hoped, it can be stated that, etc.) 7. Passive Infinitives (passive without by)
III. Research Methodology
3.1. Research Design
In relation to the nature, the purposes and research questions above, this study will employ a qualitative research design, implementing characteristics of a case study. A case study has been chosen for several reasons. First, this study will be carried out in “a single case” (Stake as stated in Emi, 2005: 8), that is, the use of hedging in academic research of research based paper.
3.2. Object of Investigation
In this study I investigate three different introductions produced by three different writers. They are postgraduate students who are finishing their study of English program in Indonesia University of Education.
Related to the study conducted by Clyne, I was interested in investigating the hedging phenomena in the academic works written by the three postgraduate students. I examined the development of hedging in the academic paper. These hedging features were analyzed in term of their types and the author’s reasons in their employment of edged words and sentences.
3.3. Topic Selection
The topic of the research based papers and the general description are tabled bellow.
no Initial Paper Topic Introduction
2. SGG Identifying Students’ Responses Toward the Implementation GBC to
data are collected by using interview which is based on the Stimulated Recall Methodology (SRM) and observation.
Interview; it is a conversation between researcher and the respondent to confirm the questions. Merriam (1988:71) said that it is a conversation with a purpose that one gives information to another. In this case, the answers given by the interviewee is the information needed by the researcher as the information data.
Observation; it can range from a highly structure, detail notation of structured by checklists to a more holistic description of events and behavior, Marshall and Rossman (2006).
3.5. Data Analysis
In analyzing data taken from the observations, I use the empirical and theoretical perspective to make sense of what happened, as well as the context that caused it to happen. Than, I interpret the information from the interviews to seek answers for my research questions.
Some steps I used in this study deal with the data analyzing that is by analyzing the type of hedging. The steps are;
a. Identifying hedged words, phrases, and clause based on the indicators, and b. Classifying the hedged words in term of grammatical forms as it provided by
(Hyland, 1998).
c. Tabling the hedges to make it easy to look at the tendency of the paper writer in using hedging.
IV. Data Analysis and Discussion
4.1. Types of Hedging the Writers Use
By applying the stimulated recall method, the researcher tried to discover some hedges in the research based paper. At first, they did not have any basic idea about hedging or hedges. And after they were stimulated by some question using -what, how, and why-they begin to realize it, than, why-they underlined the sentences, phrases, and words consisting of hedges.
The Types of Hedge R1 R2 R3
Modal Auxiliary 7 4 4
Epistemic Noun 0 1 0
Epistemic Verbs 3 0 2
Conditional Sentence 1 0 0
Epistemic Adverb 3 1 0
Epistemic Adjective 0 0 0
Passive Infinitive 0 0 0
Agentless Passive 0 0 2
Number of Hedging 14 6 8
From the table it can be seen that the introduction text written by R1 has the most hedging awareness among the respondents. The R3 than is the second rank in using hedging. And the R2 is the fewest in using hedging from the whole writer.
The phenomenon can be explained in the light of their reading and writing profile (in the appendix). It can be interpreted that the R2 has more exposure to reading and writing among the other two. MSH has started teaching since 1997, and he like to write some articles in some local newspaper in his home town.
While, the SGG is belong to a new teacher who has been a teacher in 2002. He likes reading and writing but he is lack experience of writing.
4.2. The Writers’ Reasons in Using Hedging
Initial Hedging in sentence Type of Hedging
MSH
SGG
KRO
There are some cases which may cause the problem The study could be useful
Students should be aware of their problems It will help them
This study would invite teachers to… This study may also improve other teachers They will be able to do it
This situation creates the problem
If they do not like it
Academic people mostly…..
Generally in Indonesia education …especially in relation to….
Linguistic features may be less significant It will be burden for students
It may become a burden
It could give the description of the students’ responses
Its implementation is considered valuable
GBC has been applied for about two years
The goal may guide me…
It may include the improvement of…
This study provides some information input I provide the explanation…
The curriculum changing can not be avoided
This study can be used as another reference
Modal Auxiliary
From the interview, it was found that R1 was not sure in giving reasons of each word or sentences that he though might contain hedge, but he did not provide any specific reasons. At the end of the interview, he stated that the most of hedging he used was mainly because he had tried to be careful with his writing. More over, he said that the use of hedging is to avoid any mistake. By using hedging he hoped that it can decrease the degree of mistake if any. At the latest interview, he said that the use of hedging to emphasize the important thing that he wanted to say.
R2 had used hedges because of his uncertainty of the accuracy of the statements. With the type of the hedges, he wanted the reader to take his statements as general knowledge. He used of ‘for bout’ in order to safe the statement that he was not sure about. At last, he suggested that it had been her pure impression in such hedges he used.
R3 has used more variation in hedging. His reasons in using the hedges that it is justified in the sense that she used it to tone down his statement; contextually, his reason is commonsensical, as she didn’t to make an affirmative claim. The use of the three hedges makes his statement less precise. Furthermore, he himself did seem to be very confidence about his statements and he engage himself in the process of negotiation and persuasion with the readers to save her position in case of his statements.
V. Conclusion
In this study, I was guided by a functional school of linguistics spawned by Austin, Searle, and Levinson. Throughout the undertaking of the research, however, I did not follow functional grammar as a method of analysis.
5.1. Types of Hedging the Writers Use
The hedge that is not used by the tree respondents is the Passive Infinitive. It is because the length of the introductory which are around two to four pages. But from the whole number of sentences, the sentences which consist of hedging are quite a lot. Of course, there will be more hedging if the introduction is taken from theses, scrip, or handout book of post graduate students.
5.2. Reasons in Using Hedging
There are some similar reasons stated by the respondents deal with the use of hedging in their introduction, because;
a. He was not in giving reason for each word or sentence that he thought might contain hedge, therefore, he did not provide any specific reason.
b. He had tried to be careful with everything he wrote.
c. He tried to avoid making mistake (to protect himself in case of words or statements were proven wrong in the future).
d. He put hedging to put on emphasize that he thinks to be important. e. He has used of hedging for the shake of caution.
f. He was uncertain about the data he presented.
g. He convinced the readers on the significance of the act of showing the social status.
h. He was expressing of expectation on a case.
References
Alwasilah, Chaedar, A. (2002). Pokoknya Kualitatif: Dasar-dasar Merancang dan Melakukan Penelitian Kualitatif. Bandung: Pustaka Jaya.
Bogdan, R. and Biklen, S.. (1992). Qualitative Research for Education. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.
Clyne, Michael, (1994). Intercultural Communication at Work. Cambridge University Press.
Hartmut, S., H., & Zimmer, D., Hedging Research in Pragmatics: A Bibliographical Research Guide to Hedging
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rAkyvD6GGqoC&oi=fnd&pg
Hyland, K. 1998. Hedging in scientific research articles. John Benjamins Publishing.
Levinson, S. C., (1985). Pragmatics. Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics.
Marshall, C. and Rossman, G., (2006). Designing Qualitative Research. United States of America: Sage Publication, Ltd.
Myers, Greg., (1989). The Pragmatic of Politeness in Scientific Articles. Applied Linguistics .
Merriam. (1974). Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. Sringfield, Massachusetts, U.S.A: G.&C. Merriam Company.
