Nghiên cứu về cách sử dụng và nhận thức về ngôn ngữ rào đón trong bài viết tranh luận của sinh viên khoa tiếng anh trường đại học ngoại ngữ đại học huế

Moreover, this research investigates EFL students’ perceptions of hedges and the representation of hedging elements in academic writing courses.. this study was conducted to investigate

HUE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH

TRAN NGUYEN KHANH NGOC

EFL STUDENTS' USE AND PERCEPTION OF HEDGING

LANGUAGES IN ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAYS:

A STUDY AT UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES,

HUE UNIVERSITY

GRADUATION THESIS SUPERVISOR: TRAN QUANG NGOC THUY, Ph.D

Hue, Academic year: 2017 - 2021

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

This thesis is claimed to be my own work All the data and statistics mentioned in the study are guaranteed to be authentic and not plagiarized from others

All references are duly cited

Hue City, 22nd May 2021

Investigator

Trần Nguyễn Khánh Ngọc

ABSTRACT

The focus of this study is on the use of hedges in argumentative essays of learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) In particular, it aims to discover the frequency of hedging tokens in general and the types of hedges in the corpus of EFL students’ argumentative essays Moreover, this research investigates EFL students’ perceptions of hedges and the representation of hedging elements in academic writing courses To achieve these aims, thirty EFL students’ argumentative essays at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University were collected and examined; five semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed thematically; and the textbook was manually scanned Investigations into the corpus reveal the high frequency of hedges in the corpus, and the diverse distribution of various hedging categories Textbook analysis implies that hedges are included with several functions Responses from the interviews indicate EFL students’ positive attitudes towards hedging language and the real teaching practice in academic writing courses involving hedges The results of this study offer pedagogical implications on the teaching and learning of academic writing

TÓM TẮT

Nghiên cứu này tập trung vào việc sử dụng thành phần rào đón trong bài viết tranh luận của người học Tiếng Anh Cụ thể, nghiên cứu tìm hiểu tần suất sử dụng thành phần rào đón nói chung và của những loại thành phần rào đón trong khối ngữ liệu bài viết tranh luận Thêm vào đó, nghiên cứu phân tích nhận thức của người học Tiếng Anh với hình thức rào đón và biểu hiện của thành phần rào đón trong khóa học viết học thuật Với những mục tiêu này, nghiên cứu thu thập và xử lý dữ liệu về thành phần rào đón trong ba mươi bài viết tranh luận của sinh viên Khoa Tiếng Anh Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Huế; thực hiện và xem xét năm phỏng vấn bán cấu trúc; đồng thời phân tích giáo trình khóa học Việc phân tích khối ngữ liệu cho thấy thành phần rào đón được sử dụng thường xuyên và đa dạng về chủng loại Quá trình phân tích giáo trình chứng minh rằng thành phần rào đón được sử dụng với nhiều công dụng Câu trả lời phỏng vấn thể hiện thái độ tích cực của sinh viên với thành phần rào đón, và chỉ ra thực tiễn giảng dạy viết học thuật có liên quan đến yếu tố siêu ngôn ngữ này Kết quả nghiên cứu đưa ra một số kiến nghị về phương pháp dạy và học kỹ năng viết học thuật

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, I would love to express my deepest gratitude towards my supervisor, Mrs Tran Quang Ngoc Thuy for her wholehearted support and great understanding for me during the course of completing the thesis Without her valuable advice and constructive feedback, this paper would not have completed successfully

Second, I would like to send my sincere thanks to Mrs Nguyen Thi Bao Trang, who permitted me to use the argumentative essays from her Hue University funded research as the corpus of my study But for her generosity, the data collection procedure would have been much more complicated

Third, my special thanks goes the interviewees who spent their precious time participating in my research Their insightful ideas and contributions are highly useful for this study

Fourth, I am indebted to my family members who have always given me their total support and great patience, especially during the time I concentrated on the thesis

Fifth, I am deeply grateful for my dearest friends, Thuc Nhi, Anh Nhi, Duc Trung, Doan Thien, Gia Thong, Xuan Luan, Quang Giau and Viet Long for their endless support, great encouragement and substantial assistance throughout the research conducting process

Sixth, my thanks go to all the people who have supported me to complete the research work directly or indirectly

Last but not least, I would like to send my best regard to Faculty of English at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University for offering me the opportunity to conduct this graduate thesis, which is one of the milestones in my academic life

I hope that the findings of this study can serve as a useful source for further research in the field

2.2.1 The inevitability of hedging language in academic writing 13 2.2.2 The functions of hedges in academic writing 14 2.2.3 The importance of balanced use of hedges in academic writing 16

2.3 Hedges in argumentative writing 17

4.1 The occurrence of hedges in EFL students’ argumentative essays 27 4.2 Frequency of types of hedges in EFL students’ argumentative essays 29

4.2.6 Modal adverbs 41

4.4.2 Hedges in academic writing teaching practice 54

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1 Classifications of hedges based on syntactic categories 9

Table 4 Basic information of the academic writing textbook sections for

analysis

24

Table 6 Average number of hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2 Number of hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative essays 28

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

ELT: English Language Teaching

L1: Mother tongue

L2: Second language

SPSS: Statistical Package for Social Science

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Research background

In the age of global integration, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has been adopted as an indispensable part of the educational curriculum the world over Among four key language skills, writing is believed to pose considerable challenges

to EFL teachers (Ghoorchaei & Tavakoli, 2019; Nguyen, 2018) This situation puts forward the need for practical solutions to improving the practice of teaching and learning the writing skills in EFL classrooms

Academic writers often employ metadiscourse devices to demonstrate their sense of text organization or attitudes towards the text contents (Hyland, 2000) Hyland (2000) went on to claim the importance of appropriate use of metadiscourse markers on the quality of the arguments Being one category of metadiscourse devices, hedging language is considered an inevitable element in academic writing because it is inextricably associated with formality (Hyland, 1994) Myers (1989) also claimed that hedges are a vital part of academic discourse and one of its many genres, argumentative writing

Several studies have proved the favorable effects of a proper use of hedges on academic writing First, hedging devices express intended indirectness to prevent the writer from total commitment to the propositional contents (Skelton, 1988) Second, hedges can soften the claims to avoid assertion on the audience, which protects their face wants (Hinkel, 1997) Third, hedging devices prove the writer’s level of caution and humble attitudes towards the claims, making them even more reliable to the readers (Hyland, 2000)

Acknowledging these benefits of hedges, linguists have shown increasing interest in the use of this metadiscourse device in academic writing Hyland (1994,

1996, 1998) investigated the types of hedges in scientific articles of different fields Hinkel (2004) also studied different hedging behaviors in research papers between L1 and L2 academics and concluded that L2 writers employed fewer tokens of hedges

in their writing In addition, the distribution of hedging devices in argumentative writing was examined by Algi (2012)

In Vietnam, some studies have been carried out on hedges Bui (2017) explored teachers’ perceptions of hedging use in teacher talks and revealed their positive attitudes towards this practice as well as their considerations that the use of mitigating language cannot be applied to students of all levels Moreover, Pham (2017)’s analysis of flexibility of hedging in Vietnamese research articles showed that hedges are commonly used in this type of discourse for various purposes

1.2 Rationale

From a personal perspective, during my journey of learning English, I have been instructed by the teachers to employ “softening language” and not to make too strong claims without being informed of the underlying reasons Therefore, since being introduced to the term “hedges” recently, I have been intrigued to investigate this linguistic element and its uses in academic writing, particularly in argumentative essays Understanding that other EFL learners may have different learning experiences regarding the employment of hedges in writing, I strive to discover their perceptions of hedging and the integration of cautious language in academic writing courses

On a larger scale, research into hedging behaviors of EFL learners may point out common patterns in the use of hedges among them, and disclose how hedges are included in academic writing courses This can offer important pedagogical implications on the instructions of academic writing, a genre of great importance, but also of much trouble for L2 learners (Wingate, 2012), and contribute to the enhancement of L2 writing skills Noticeably, Hinkel (2005) declared that Vietnamese EFL learners tended to lack mitigating devices in their essays, putting forward the need for deliberate instructions on this metadiscourse device

Furthermore, it can be inferred from the literature that scientific writing is commonly investigated when it comes to hedging language, and that there is still little research on the use of hedges in argumentative writing, especially in Vietnam Thus,

this study was conducted to investigate EFL learners’ use of hedges in argumentative essays, their perceptions of this attenuating marker and the inclusion of hedging language in academic writing courses

1.3 Research objectives and research questions

This research aimed to explore EFL learners’ use of hedges in their argumentative essays, their perceptions of this practice and the representation of hedging language in their academic writing course In particular, the study addresses the following research questions:

1 How frequently are hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative essays?

2 What types of hedges are used in EFL students’ argumentative essays?

3 How do EFL students perceive their use of hedges in argumentative writing?

4 How are hedges introduced to EFL students in academic writing courses? 1.4 Research scope

The study was undertaken at University of Foreign Language, Hue University The central focus of this research is to explore third year EFL learners’ hedging behaviors in argumentative writing, their perceptions and the integration of hedges in academic writing courses

1.5 Research significance

The research outcomes can reveal EFL learners’ employment and perceptions

of hedging languages in argumentative essays, as well as the integration of these linguistic elements in academic writing courses Furthermore, the results of this study can bring about constructive implications on the teaching practice of English argumentative writing in particular and of English in general

Chapter 2: Literature Review

Chapter 2 lays a theoretical background of the study based on its main themes, particularly hedging language and its classification, the use and functions of hedges

in academic writing and related studies in Vietnam The chapter then highlights the research gaps and suggests four research questions

Chapter 3: Methodology

Chapter 3 provides a detailed description of the methods employed in this study, including research design, research participants, research sites, data collection instruments, data sources, research procedure and data analysis

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion

Chapter 4 reports the data from essay, textbook and interview analysis and further discusses them to answer the research questions The chapter is divided into four sections accordingly

Chapter 5: Conclusion

Chapter 5 begins by summarizing the key findings of the study based on the research questions The researcher then discusses the implications on foreign language teaching and learning, the limitations and suggestions for further investigation in the field

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Hedges

2.1.1 Approaches to hedges

The term “hedges” was first introduced by Lakoff (1973) as “words whose job

is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy” (p 471) In this initial approach to the term, hedges were considered both reinforcement and mitigation of the claims made Recent studies, however, distinguish hedges (mitigation markers) from intensifiers, boosters or emphatics (reinforcement markers) (Algi, 2012; Eldursi, 2014; Holmes, 1988; Hosman, 1989; Hyland, 1996, 1998; Kondowe, 2014)

There have been various approaches to the notion of hedging A common approach is based on the relationship between hedging and modality Lyons (1977) introduced four types of modality, one of which is epistemic modals They are linguistic devices used to express speakers’ or writers’ attitudes towards the truth-value of the statements Coates (1983) categorized hedges and boosters as epistemic modality markers These linguistic devices signify a deficiency of commitment (hedges) or an affirmation of commitment (boosters) to the truth-value of the propositions It can be inferred that hedging is a means to convey modality

Hedges are also viewed as a metadiscourse device From a pragmatic standpoint, Hyland (1998) defined metadiscourse as a textual element which involves the discourse organization or the writer’s perspective towards the propositions and the receivers of the contents Hedges are classified as one sub-category of interpersonal metadiscourse which helps to “withhold the writer’s full commitment

to statements” (p 7) According to Hyland (1998), these interpersonal metadiscourse devices demonstrate the writer’s consideration of the contents of claims and of the audience, as a result leaving room for possible counter-arguments and building a closer writer-reader relationship This awareness of message receivers indicates the writer’s need for their illocutionary acts to meet the perlocutionary acts performed by the readers, or for their arguments to be understood and accepted

Another approach to hedges was initiated by Brown and Levinson (1978) and was later agreed by Cabanes (2007), Fraser (2010) and Myers (1989), suggesting that hedges are employed as Politeness Strategies Past studies revealed that hedging markers can satisfy the audience’s positive face wants, the need for appreciation and inclusion in a community, as well as negative face wants, the urge to avoid imposition and to enjoy freedom (Yule, 1996)

Each of these perspectives towards hedges adds some elements to the overall definition of this linguistic device Based on the aforementioned approaches, the researcher proposes the operational definition of hedges for this study as follows: Hedges are metadiscourse devices to mitigate the speakers’ or writers’ claims These devices are employed to show the speaker’s or writer’s careful consideration towards the propositional contents, towards the audience and their face wants, and in turn gain credibility for the propositions

2.1.2 Classification of hedges

Since the notion of hedging was first introduced by Lakoff (1972), there has been considerable literature on the classification of hedges Noticeably, these metadiscourse markers are categorized chiefly based on their functions and the syntactic categories

2.1.2.1 Classifications based on functions

Early hedging classification systems are mostly derived from various functions of hedging language

Prince, Bosk, and Frader (1982) divided hedges into approximators and shields, claiming that the former deals with the contents of the propositions, while the latter is related to the degree of certainty and speaker liability of the claims The

researchers then considered adaptors (somewhat, kind of) and rounders (about, approximately) to be sub-categories of approximators, as well as plausible (I think,

As far as I can tell) and attribution shields (According to, Presumably)

Salager-Meyer (1995) employed a quite similar division with shields (can, could, to appear, to suggest), approximators (about, often) and phrases that express

personal doubt or direct involvement (I believe, To my knowledge) She brought to

attention two other types of hedges, namely emotionally charged intensifiers

(extremely difficult, surprisingly) and compound hedges, or the combination of two

or more hedges (It would appear that, It would seem somewhat unlikely that) The

inclusion of intensifiers in hedging language demonstrates Salager-Meyer (1995)’s compliance to the initial approach to hedges by Lakoff (1972) as both a reinforcement and attenuation marker However, this way of classifying is rarely seen in other studies of the same field

Caffi (1999) used the same system as Prince et al (1982)’s taxonomy, but with other names Instead of hedges, she addressed the linguistic devices as “mitigators” and sorted them into bushes (which mitigate the propositional contents), hedges (which influence the emotive aspects, reduce author liability) and shields (which avoid the author’s accountability of the claims’ truth-value)

Hyland (1996) offered a slightly different categorization of hedges (see Figure 1) Reader-oriented hedges demonstrate writer’s consideration of reader involvement; Writer-oriented hedges prevent the writers from full commitment of the claims’ truth-value; Attribute hedges address the degree of accuracy of the claims; and Reliability hedges express the writer’s perceived certainty of the propositions Attribute hedges are also regarded as boosters, which is not in line with the operational definition of hedging employed in this study

Figure 1 Types of hedges by Hyland (1996)

2.1.2.2 Classifications based on syntactic categories

Many studies have been published using syntactic classifications of hedges

(Chan & Tan, 2017; Crompton, 1997; Demir, 2018; Hatipoğlu and Algi, 2018;

Kondowe, 2014; Skelton, 1988) These taxonomies shared some similarities, yet

fundamental differences were found Table 1 gives a summary of these

categorizations as follows:

No Categories of hedges

TAXONOMIES Skel-

ton (1988)

ton (1997)

Cromp-Kon- dowe (2014)

Chan and Tan (2017)

Hatipoğlu and Algı (2018)

Demir (2018) Examples

7 Quantifiers and

a few,

to some extent

It must be emphasized that…

Table 1 Classifications of hedges based on syntactic categories

Table 1 indicates that most linguists focused exclusively on lexical items

Epistemic (except for to be), cognitive and modal verbs are the most agreed

categories, included by all the researchers Epistemic adjectives and adverbs are also

commonly mentioned either as one category or as two different types Demir (2018)

seemed to offer the most comprehensive categorization of hedges, in that he listed

epistemic nouns, quantifiers and determiners as hedging markers in addition to the

typical categories

Little work has been done on hedging behaviors realized on sentence levels

Chan and Tan (2010) investigated these understudied categories and suggested some

possible realizations for them Hypothetical constructions (particularly if-clause and

its variations) and impersonal language (it-clause, there is/there are and passive

voice) are employed to demonstrate the author’s awareness of hedging Uysal (2014)

also included syntactic markers like passive voice and if conditionals as hedging

language

2.1.3 Hedges in different types of discourse

Hedging behaviors have been widely examined in various types of discourse within the literature Both spoken and written, formal and informal discourse were investigated

Not much has been investigated about hedges in spoken discourse, yet recent research has addressed both informal and formal settings Lafi (2011) studied hedges

as negative Politeness Strategies in daily conversations, while Tran (2016) analyzed modality hedging expressions in British and American ambassadorial speeches Gribanova and Gaidukova (2019) compared the use of hedges in interview speeches and political speeches, which are on two opposing ends of the formality spectrum

There have been a higher number of studies on hedging devices in written discourse in the literature, predominantly on formal writing Among little research carried out on informal writing, digital discourse genres like online discussion boards, tweets, blogs, emails and SMS messages were featured (Eldursi, 2014; Knight, Adolphs & Carter, 2013)

As for formal writing, studies on the frequency of hedging language, its classifications and functions in scientific articles are abundant A growing body of literature has examined hedging use in articles and journals in various fields (including molecular genetics, mechanical engineering, economic forecasting, marketing, literature, etc.) since the discovery of this term (Al-Zubeiry, Al-Baha, 2019; Demir, 2018; Hyland, 1996, 1998; Kim & Lim, 2015; Myers, 1989; Vázquez

& Giner, 2008; Yagiz & Demir, 2014) Case reports, conference proposals, research papers and dissertations have also been studied (Kondowe, 2014; Hewings & Hewings, 2004; Salager-Meyers, 1994; Uysal, 2014)

Some investigations were carried out on L2 essay writing (Akhtar & Riaz, 2019; Hinkel, 2005; Kreutz & Harres, 2011) and on argumentative writing, a genre

of academic essay writing (Algi, 2012; Hatipoğlu & Algi, 2018; Min, Paek & Kang, 2019; Trinh & Nguyen, 2014) However, it is noteworthy that most of them analyzed the distribution of hedges and each type of them in the essays It was not until recently

that researchers paid attention to the effectiveness of hedges in L2 writing Particularly, Hatipoğlu and Algi (2018) explored the frequency and quality of modal hedges in Turkish EFL learners’ argumentative paragraphs Min et al (2019) also discovered the writing quality of Koreans’ argumentative writing in relation to hedges, thus providing specific implications on the correlation between hedging quality and language proficiency of L2 learners

From the literature, it can be inferred that academic writing received more attention from researchers than other genres of discourse regarding hedges One possible explanation for this is Coffin et al (2005)’s and Knight et al (2013)’s findings that formal language is more associated with hedges than informal language

2.1.4 L2 learners’ use of hedges

Several studies have been conducted to compare native and non-native authors’ hedging behaviors, particularly in academic discourse (Algi, 2012; Al-Zubeiry, 2019; Demir, 2018; Hinkel, 2004, 2005; Uysal, 2014; Yagiz & Demir, 2014) Most of these investigations pointed out that native writers utilize hedges more frequently and appropriately in their writings compared to non-native writers

Regarding scientific articles, Al-Zubeiry (2019) and Demir (2018) both sought

to compare L1 writers’ scientific discourse to those of L2 writers in Arabia and Turkey respectively Hinkel (2004) compared the use of hedges in research papers by English writers and writers of six Asian countries (namely Vietnam, Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia) Uysal (2014) investigated English, Japanese, Indian and Turkish academics; the findings suggested that non-native writers tend to use fewer hedging devices than the natives In research into hedging in argumentative paragraphs, Algi (2012) also came to the conclusion that English writers’ paragraphs had more hedges than Turkish writers’ ones

The use of hedges is believed to be an inherited trait to native English speakers (Burrough-Boenisch, 2005), yet a quality that requires considerable effort and English proficiency from non-native speakers Hinkel (2004) went further to report that L2 authors are less concerned about employing hedges in their articles than L1

academics In addition, Uysal (2014) concluded that the deficiency of hedging language in conference proposals among non-native scholars might hinder their prospects of being accepted, since their proposals might be regarded as too assertive

Recent research has revealed a positive correlation between English proficiency and the proper use of hedges A study in Malaysia showed that a higher level of English comes with better hedging behaviors (Kim & Lim, 2015) The same findings can be found in Aull, Bandarage and Miller (2017)’s corpus-based research, which indicated that expert writing employed more hedges than student writing

Besides, a sufficient body of research has demonstrated that the use of hedges

is culturally sophisticated (Hatipoğlu & Algi, 2018; Hu & Cao, 2011; Kim & Lim, 2015; Kong, 2006; Vassileva, 2001), which might be the reason behind the prevalence of hedges in native compared to non-native discourse The Anglo-American culture embeds the “architecture of social distance and resentment of impositions” (Brown & Levinson, 1978, p.245), making the need to use hedges as face-saving acts inevitable (Holmes, 1984) In contrast, other cultures may have more direct communication styles, which leads to misuse of hedges in a cross-cultural context A typical example is Asian countries with the Confucian culture believing that the truth is persuasive itself, and that there is no need for arguing and convincing Therefore, people from these cultures tend to be less concerned about mitigating their claims and expressing uncertainty than those from English-speaking countries

This cultural difference results in the underrepresentation of hedging in English Academic writing courses in these cultures Hatipoğlu and Algi (2018) concluded their research on Turkish learners by suggesting that insufficient teaching

materials and deliberate instructions regarding this domain are the reasons behind L2 learners’ inability to hedge appropriately An informant in Kim and Lim (2015)’s interview even declared that a majority of Chinese English Academic Writing (written by Chinese scholars) guidelines focus on objectivity and certainty, rather than the subjectivity and purposive tentativeness required in academic discourse Therefore, linguists suggested that hedging be included in the curriculum (Hu & Cao, 2011; Perez-Llantada, 2010)

2.2 Hedges in academic writing

2.2.1 The inevitability of hedging language in academic writing

Previous research has established an inextricable link between academic writing and formality Formality is regarded as a conventional way of expressing ideas which assumes writer-reader distance (Heylighen & Dewaele, 2002) Leech and Svartvik (2002) also defined formal language as “the type of language we use publicly for some serious purpose, for example in official reports, business letters, regulations and academic writing” (p 30) Moreover, Nowson, Oberlander and Gill (2005) indicated that written genres are more formal than spoken discourse In other words, formality is a key feature of academic writing This argument meets Chang and Swales (1999) and Swales and Feak (1994)’s claims that academic writing is formal in nature

According to Knight et al (2013), the frequent use of hedges is more often associated with formal than informal language Furthermore, Coffin et al (2005) also categorized hedges as one typical feature of the formal register Given the high degree

of formality in academic writing, it can be deduced that hedging language is an essential characteristic of academic discourse

Hedging devices have been considered a basic unit of communication in scientific discourse (Hyland, 1994, 1998; Hinkel, 2004, 2005) The inevitability of hedges in academic writing has been proven based on the nature of this discourse genre Wishnoff (2000) claimed that academic writing is “pragmatically sophisticated” and highly related to social context and the audience (p 122);

Mauranen (1997) described the academic discourse as “a world of uncertainties, indirectness and non-finality” (p 115) Therefore, the use of hedges is unavoidable, both as a means of involving the audience and an expression of intended hesitation

2.2.2 The functions of hedges in academic writing

Many studies have been conducted on the importance of hedging in written academic prose The functions of hedges in this type of discourse will be discussed

in this section

2.2.2.1 Expression of purposive hesitation

According to Lakoff (1972), the foremost use of hedging language is its ability

to convey uncertainty and indirectness Other researchers went further to indicate that this sense of ambiguity is conveyed purposefully (Channell, 1983; Dubois, 1987; Powell, 1985) to demonstrate the writers’ caution towards the propositions produced This intended hesitation distances the writers from the arguments and claims they make (Prince et al., 1982; Hinkel, 1997; Skelton, 1988; Swales, 1990) with a view to avoiding total responsibility for their truth-value Demir (2018) agreed by claiming that a balanced use of hedging devices prevents the writers from facing possible criticisms

2.2.2.2 Mitigation of claims

Hedges also act as mitigators of claims and arguments Swales (1990) claimed that hedges expressed the author’s “honesty, modesty and proper caution” towards the propositional contents (p 174) In their research, Dudley-Evans and St John (1998) concluded that academics use a variety of hedges to soften and mitigate their utterances Eldursi (2014) added that hedging language can be employed to decrease the force of the statements This, in turn, declines the level of imposition on the audience (Hinkel, 1997; Swales, 1990; Swales & Feak, 1994) Hyland (1998) mentioned hedges’ epistemic and interpersonal functions which allow writers to express the statements with caution and prevent possible opposing force on the audience

2.2.2.3 Involvement of audience

With its attenuating effects, hedging language is conducive to the engagement

of the readers to the writing Hedges imply that the arguments are tentative and plausible rather than fixed and indisputable, hence offering the audience the right to argue otherwise (Hyland, 1998) By expressing the intended uncertainty and indirectness of the author, hedging devices leave open the possibility of doubting, discussing and disputing for the audience, thereby conforming to the respecting convention for colleagues (Hyland, 1997) Hyland (1998a) then concluded that the appropriate use of hedging markers represents “a major contribution to the social negotiation of knowledge” (p 352)

2.2.2.4 Enhancement of credibility

The lack of certainty does not necessarily lead to confusion In fact, past studies have proven that a lower degree of certainty actually contributes to the credibility and persuasion of the claims

The mitigating nature of hedges is believed to substantiate the arguments Prince et al (1982) and Skelton (1988) stated that hedging makes the conveyance of claims more humble This careful consideration of the propositional contents raises their level of credibility Salager-Meyer (1994) explained that using hedges is equivalent to a more precise way of reporting the results in research papers She even emphasized that “Hedging may present the strongest claim a careful researcher can make” (p 151)

Therefore, the proper use of hedges renders the propositions more convincing for the audience Hyland (2000) indicated that writers use hedges to prove the correctness of their arguments to the readers and be accepted by the community This view was then agreed by Rubio (2011) Other studies also pointed out the positive correlation between the proper employment of hedging devices in writing and the level of audience persuasiveness (Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Demir, 2018) This need for the arguments to be understood and accepted, or the need for the illocutionary acts to meet the perlocutionary effects, is critical to all academics (Hyland, 1998)

2.2.2.5 Realization of Politeness Strategies

Hedges were said to make the academic discourse more polite (Lakoff, 1972; Salager-Meyer, 1994) The Politeness Strategy approach regarded hedges as face-saving acts (Brown & Levinson, 1978; Cabanes, 2007; Fraser, 2010) According to Brown and Levinson (1978), hedges can be used as both positive and negative Politeness Strategies, satisfying the writer’s and reader’s positive and negative face wants

Positive face wants are the aspiration for affection, inclusion and appreciation

By softening the claims when using hedges, the author avoids possible disagreement with others’ opinions, hence protecting their positive face This is a necessity in the academic discourse, as scientific research is full of unpredictability (Mauranen, 1997)

While only some realizations can act as positive Politeness Strategies, hedges are widely used as a negative face-saving act Hedging is one of the most common strategies to meet the negative face wants of the readers (i.e the need not to be imposed on), as it serves to soften the claims, as well as the assertion and imposition

on the audience (Hinkel, 1997; Swales, 1990; Swales & Feak, 1994)

2.2.3 The importance of balanced use of hedges in academic writing

Balanced use of hedges is of great importance to the credibility of the propositional contents and is almost a must for academics (Demir, 2018; Hyland, 2001; Sanjaya, 2013) However, using hedges effectively and appropriately is still a challenge for many (Hyland, 2001; Hyland & Milton, 1997; Sanjaya, 2013) In other words, users of English struggle to keep a balance between cautious and assertive language

In his study on lexical hedges, Demir (2018) extensively discussed the counter effects of the improper use of hedging on the writers’ credibility In particular, abusing hedges leads to a lack of authority over personal claims and a blurred stance

of the writer on the issue This will probably undermine the credibility of the claims and demonstrate the authors’ lack of confidence In contrast, the underuse of hedging

markers makes the arguments too absolute, which casts doubt and suspicion for the readers The credibility of the arguments will then be lowered

2.3 Hedges in argumentative writing

Argumentative writing is one of the most popular academic writing tasks (Connor, 1990; Hyland, 1990), especially for ESL learners (Mei, 2006) There have been several approaches to defining argumentative writing Hyland (1990) regarded

an argumentative essay as a prose used to convince the reader of a central proposition According to Driver, Newton and Osborne (2000), Swales (1990) and Wiener and Eisenberg (1987), in argumentative writing, the writer needs to take a stance on a debatable issue and persuade the audience of their standpoint with a logical flow of arguments, while still taking other viewpoints into consideration and arguing against those as well Seyler (2011) suggested five essential characteristics of an argument: purpose, arguable issues, evidence, audience, and recognition of a topic's complexity Three key features emerging from those approaches to argumentative writing are that the writer takes their stance on an arguable issue, convinces others of the chosen side and stays critical by considering the other side

These features put forward the need to use hedges in argumentative writing First, hedges contribute to the credibility of the writer’s stance (Dafouz-Milne, 2008; Demir, 2018; Hyland, 2000; Prince et al., 1982; Rubio, 2011; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Skelton, 1988) In other words, the appropriate use of hedging devices makes the author’s viewpoint clearer and the claims made in the essays more persuasive for the audience Moreover, balanced use of hedging markers prevents the writer from being aggressive, single-minded and imposing on the audience Instead, these mitigating devices tone down the arguments and signify that negotiation and further communication are welcomed, thus showing the author’s critical and rational thinking In fact, Myers (1989) stated that hedging language is closely related to academic writing, especially in the genres involving making claims and demonstrating personal viewpoints on an issue, which refers closely to the genre of argumentative writing Crismore and Farnsworth (1990) and Hyland (1996) also

proved that metadiscourse devices, of which hedging language is a category, are indispensable for argumentative discourse

2.4 Research into hedges in Vietnam

Some studies have been carried out on hedging behaviors in both spoken and written discourse in Vietnam, most of which are related to conversational language Particularly, Le (2011) analyzed the pragmatic values of hedging in some everyday situations; Ngo (2012) focused on the use of conditional clauses as hedging devices; Tran (2015) investigated hedging devices in direct question responses; Phan (2016) examined the borderline between politeness and impoliteness in Vietnamese hedges; and Bui (2017) studied teachers’ perceptions on and use of hedges in teacher talks

When it comes to written prose, research writing is the topic of favor Pham (2008) explored the use of hedges in economic research articles, and Ngo (2014) studied the application of hedging quantifiers in theses written by MA students at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Trinh and Nguyen (2014) also examined Vietnamese learners’ argumentative writing skills, of which using hedges is a sub-category

It could be derived from the literature that past research on hedges in Vietnam

is mainly related to conversational and scientific discourse

2.5 Research gaps and research questions

The above studies have investigated the term “hedge”, its various classifications and its presence in different types of discourse It is also clear from the literature that hedging language is inevitable and effective in academic writing, and

in the specific genre of argumentative writing

As mentioned in the literature review, the use of hedges in argumentative writing has been examined by a few scholars However, the topic remains relatively understudied in Vietnam In particular, the only research found with a relation between argumentative essays and hedges focused on Vietnamese learners’ writing skills in general (Trinh & Nguyen, 2014) instead of the specific use of hedging language

Therefore, this research is undertaken to investigate the use of hedging language among English-major third-year students of University of Foreign Languages, Hue University in their argumentative essays from the course of Writing

5, their perceptions on this use and the inclusion of hedges in academic writing courses The research also aims to suggest some implications on the teaching practice

of Writing 5 course concerning the introduction and application of hedges To achieve these aims, the research seeks to answer the following questions:

1 How frequently are hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative essays?

2 What types of hedges are used in EFL students’ argumentative essays?

3 How do EFL students perceive their use of hedges in argumentative writing?

4 How are hedges introduced to EFL students in academic writing courses?

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Research design

In order to answer the research questions, the qualitative method was selected

as the main approach in the study EFL learners’ argumentative essays were examined

to discover the use of hedges, particularly the number of hedging tokens and the types

of hedging devices The academic writing textbook was analyzed to discover the representation of hedges in writing materials introduced to students In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted to gain in-depth understanding about EFL learners’ perceptions of cautious language, their intentions when using these linguistic devices and the teaching practice of hedges in academic writing courses

A small portion of the quantitative approach was used to calculate the number

of hedges and the frequency of hedging categories in the essays

3.2 Research participants

The participants of this study are 30 students in the course of Writing 5 They are English-major students of the Faculty of English, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University At the time of writing the essays, the participants were third-year students who were taking the final, highest-level writing course in their university curriculum

The participants were all from the same class under the guidance of one lecturer from the university, which could minimize the possibility of bias due to different language inputs during data collecting The participants were identified with codes instead of real names to ensure their privacy

3.3 Research site

The study was carried out at the Faculty of English, University of Foreign Language, Hue University

3.4 Data collection instruments

3.4.1 EFL argumentative essay

Argumentative essay is chosen as a data collection instrument for this study since it is the most common writing task for EFL learners (Mei, 2006), and since hedges can satisfy the requirements of a convincing argumentative essay, including a clear standpoint, persuasive arguments and critical consideration of the opposing ideas (Demir, 2018; Hyland, 1990, 2000; Myers, 1989; Seyler, 2011; Swales, 1990) Hedges are even proven to play an indispensable role in persuasive writing (Crismore

& Farnsworth, 1990; Hyland, 1996)

Thirty EFL students were asked to write an argumentative essay of approximately 250 words without any referencing tools within 45 minutes 30 argumentative essays were collected from a periodic in-class test on the topic of

Facebook (see Appendix 1 for the detailed topic)

3.4.2 Semi-structured interview

Interview is believed to be one of the most prominent qualitative methods thanks to its communicative, flexible and reliable nature (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006) Semi-structured interviews allow the researcher to flexibly modify the prepared questions according to the informants’ answers and attitudes, and encourage the respondents to express their opinions freely

The interview questions were designed after the essay analyzing stage to clarify the EFL students’ intentions when using hedges in their argumentative essays and their intended effects (see Appendix 2) The interview also aimed to gather the students’ opinions of this metadiscourse device To avoid misunderstandings due to language barriers, the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese, the informants’ L1

In each interview, the researcher asked the interviewees to explain their intentions when using each token of hedges in their own writing and asked if they had ever been exposed to these linguistic devices before Afterwards, the researcher introduced the informants to the term “hedge” and the categories of hedging The remaining questions sought to discover the interviewees’ perceptions on hedges and

their inclusion in written discourse, and the manner in which they are included in the Writing 5 course syllabus

3.5 Data sources

3.5.1 EFL argumentative essays

The first and primary data source of this research is 30 EFL argumentative essays written by the participants This corpus was thankfully obtained from a Hue University funded research by a lecturer from the Faculty of English It would be analyzed from a different perspective from the original research, particularly regarding hedging use The lecturer previously coded data; therefore, the participants’ identity was protected

Descriptive analysis statistics of the corpus is assessed with SPSS version 23.0 and is reported in Table 2 below

The interview questions were designed after the essay analyzing stage to clarify the EFL students’ intentions when using hedges in their argumentative essays and their intended effects (see Appendix 2) The interview also aimed to gather the

students’ opinions of this metadiscourse device To avoid misunderstandings due to language barriers, the interviews were conducted in Vietnamese, the informants’ L1

The interviewees were numbered according to interview order from 1 to 5 All

of the interviewees’ answers were recorded

Table 3 below shows the basic information of the participants at the time of interview:

Participant Gender Age Years of

Table 3 Basic information of interviewees

3.5.3 Writing 5 Textbook

Successful Writing: Proficiency (Evans & Gray, 1997) has been adopted as the

textbook for the Writing 5 course at the Faculty of English, University of Foreign Languages, Hue University It is divided into nine units, each featuring one type of composition at advanced level Unit 6 (from page 54 to page 81) focuses on discursive essays, which was defined as “formal writing which discusses a particular issue, situation or problems” (p 54) and comprises three types: For and against essays, Opinion essays and Essays suggesting solutions to problems The researcher investigated only this section of essay writing and the Appendix (from page 158 to page 160) in search of occurrence of hedges Given in Table 4 is basic information of the book sections chosen for analysis in this study:

Section Content Page

Unit 6

Unit 6 (exclusive

Unit 6c Essays Suggesting Solutions to Problems 76 - 81

Table 4 Basic information of the academic writing textbook sections for analysis

3.6 Procedure

First, 30 argumentative essays were collected and analyzed to figure out the types of hedges used by EFL students and their frequency At the same time, the textbook was examined to highlight the learning materials on hedging use in the curriculum Afterwards, five random participants from those writing the essays were invited to participate in semi-structured interviews to explain their hedging behaviors

in the essays, express their attitudes towards hedges and how they had learnt about hedges with the textbook in the Writing 5 course The researcher decided to interview

up to five participants because many answers given by the fourth and fifth participants tend to be quite familiar to the first three participants which could be considered that the interview data almost reached the saturation point

3.7 Data analysis

3.7.1 Essay analysis

The essays were analyzed to identify any tokens of hedging devices employed

by the participants The hedges were then categorized into groups based on the operational classification adapted from Chan and Tan (2010), Demir (2018) and Uysal (2014) as follows:

It must be emphasized that…

However, there has been little discussion…

4 Epistemic verbs To suggest, to seem, to appear

6 Modal and semi-modal verbs Should, can, could

Ought to, need to, have to

7 Modal adjectives Possible, likely, probable

8 Modal adverbs Slightly, often, approximately, probably

9 Quantifiers and Determiners A few, some, to some extent

Table 5 Operational classification of hedges

Frequency of each type was then counted and presented in tables to provide

an overview on the EFL students’ actual use of and preference for hedging categories

3.7.2 Interview data analysis

The recorded interviews were transcribed and analyzed carefully to find recurring themes, offering insights into EFL learners’ intentions when employing hedging markers, their perceptions on this type of metadiscourse device and the

practice of introducing students to hedges in Writing 5 course The interviewees were numbered according to the essay’s codes

3.7.3 Textbook analysis

The textbook Successful Writing: Proficiency was analyzed carefully to

identify the elements of hedging devices introduced to the students, apart from the lessons delivered in the class

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

To investigate the third year EFL students’ use of and perceptions of hedges, and the practice of including hedges in academic writing course syllabus at University

of Foreign Languages, Hue University, thirty essays were analyzed, five

semi-structured interviews were conducted and the textbook Successful Writing: Proficiency was examined to gather qualitative data These instruments were

interpreted differently: the essays were analyzed to highlight hedging tokens; the interviews were studied to detect similar patterns in the students’ perceptions and the textbook was examined to explore the representation of hedging instruction

To examine the use of hedges in EFL academic essays, the frequency of hedging tokens and of each category was counted The data were sorted and analyzed with the web-based program Google Sheets

The following section offers a comprehensive analysis of the study in order to answer the research questions The first part focuses on the distribution of hedging language in EFL students’ argumentative essays The second part elaborates the frequency of hedging categories The third part discusses learners’ perceptions of this metadiscourse device The last part concentrates on the representation of hedges in

an academic writing course at University of Foreign Languages, Hue University (Writing 5)

4.1 The occurrence of hedges in EFL students’ argumentative essays

Argumentative essays Hedges used in essays

Table 6 Average number of hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative essays

Qualitative analysis revealed that there were a total of 555 hedges employed

in 30 essays of the corpus, which is equivalent to an average of 18.50 hedges/ writing This was considerably higher than the hedge/essay ratio of 11.54 found in 52 essays

from Turkish first-year students investigated by Algi (2012) and Hatipoğlu and Algi (2018) Bayyurt (2012) also examined EFL argumentative essays and found that an average of 6.97 hedges were employed in each essay A possible explanation for this seemingly more frequent use of hedging markers among the participants of this study

is that the data were taken at their third year of pursuing English specialized training, implying higher chance of exposure to hedges or certain categories of hedges compared to first-year or high school students The same explanation was proposed

by Demir (2018)

Figure 2 Number of hedges used in EFL students’ argumentative essays

Figure 2 offered an overview on the frequency of hedges in each argumentative essay analyzed in the study Statistics showed that each writing included at least 10 tokens of hedges Most essays employed 10-20 hedging devices (70%) This result was in contradiction with those of Hatipoğlu and Algı (2018) and Hyland and Milton (1997), who concluded that some essays in their corpora failed to use any hedging markers The reason for these rather contradictory findings may lie

in the differences in categorization In particular, both Hatipoğlu and Algı (2018) and

Hyland and Milton (1997) did not consider quantifiers, determiners and such sentence-level structures as if- clauses and impersonal language as hedging

4.2 Frequency of types of hedges in EFL students’ argumentative essays

With a view to answering the second research question regarding types of hedging markers, the researcher first reported the overall frequency of nine categories

in the corpus in Table 7, then revealed the items in each category to offer more

insights into EFL students’ hedging behaviors in their argumentative essays

Table 7 Frequency of hedging categories in EFL students’ argumentative essays

It is clear from Table 7 that “Quantifiers and Determiners” is the most commonly used category of hedges with a considerable 203 tokens, making up 36.58% of all the hedges Although not being mentioned much in the literature, quantifiers and determiners were proven to be employed largely by L2 scholars in Demir (2018)’s research In the interview, Student 1, 2 and 5 claimed that quantifiers and determiners are commonplace in their own essays because these lexical items are