Hedging and boosting in results and discussion section of english applied linguistics research articles by vietnamese and foreign writers

The purpose of this research is to examine the use of hedges and boosters in Results and Discussion section of research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers.. The results r

BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE

THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

TANG BA THIEP

HEDGING AND BOOSTING IN RESULTS AND DISCUSSION SECTION OF ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES BY VIETNAMESE AND FOREIGN WRITERS

MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8 22 02 01

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE

BINH DUONG PROVINCE - 2020

BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE

THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY

TANG BA THIEP

HEDGING AND BOOSTING IN RESULTS AND DISCUSSION SECTION OF ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES BY VIETNAMESE AND FOREIGN WRITERS

MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8 22 02 01

MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUPERVISED BY TRAN QUOC THAO (PhD)

BINH DUONG PROVINCE – 2020

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis of Master of Arts in English linguistics would not be done without any assistance from professors, teachers, colleagues, friends, relatives, and family Therefore, I gratefully give great acknowledgement to their supports and motivations during the time of conducting the research as a requirement of completing my thesis

First and foremost, I would like to express my special appreciation, sincerest gratitude and profound thanks to my supervisor, Dr Tran Quoc Thao, who took a profound interest to my thesis His timely guidance and comments had been invaluable, important and necessary to me during the process of conducting the study Moreover, his generous contributions and suggestions were greatly added to the quality of the thesis

Second, my sincerest gratitude is sent to all teachers in charge of graduate programs at Thu Dau Mot University, particularly Dr Tran Thanh Du, without their generous suggestions and supports, this thesis would have been impossible to be completed

post-Third, a great number of special thanks are sent to all my friends and colleagues for their kindly help, care, and motivations during the time I conducted the current study

Finally, I would like to address my deepest thanks to my parents, my wife and my children for their endless love and care Their assistance and motivations helped me to conduct my research to standard as it is

Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee

This Thesis has not previously been submitted for the award of any degree

or diploma in any other institutions

Binh Duong, October 2020

Tăng Bá Thiệp

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS

I hereby state that I, Tăng Bá Thiệp, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library

I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction for theses

Binh Duong, October 2020

Tăng Bá Thiệp

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ii

RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vii

LIST OF TABLES viii

LIST OF FIGURES ix

ABSTRACT x

CHAPTER 1 1

INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background to the study 1

1.2 The problem statements 4

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study 5

1.3.1 Aims of the study 5

1.3.2 Objectives of the study 5

1.4 Research questions 5

1.5 Scope of the study 6

1.6 Significances of the study 7

1.6.1 Theoretical contributions 7

1.6.2 Practical contributions 7

1.7 Definitions of key terms 8

1.8 Organization of the study 9

CHAPTER 2 10

LITERATURE REVIEW 10

2.1 Introduction 10

2.2 Hedges… 10

2.2.1 Definitions of hedges 10

2.2.2 Types of hedges 13

2.2.3 Functions of hedges 16

2.3 Boosters 20

2.3.1 Definitions of boosters 20

2.3.2 Types of boosters 21

2.3.3 Functions of boosters 25

2.4 Hedges and boosters in academic writings 26

2.5 Review of previous studies 30

2.5.1 Foreign sources 30

2.5.2 Local sources 33

2.6 Conceptual framework of the study 34

2.7 Summary 36

CHAPTER 3 37

METHODOLOGY 37

3.1 Introduction 37

3.2 Research design 37

3.3 Materials 38

3.4 Data collection procedures 39

3.5 Data analysis procedures 40

3.6 Framework for data analysis 43

3.7 Validity and Reliability 44

3.7.1 Validity 44

3.7.2 Reliability 45

3.8 Summary 46

CHAPTER 4 47

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 47

4.1 Introduction 47

4.2 Results 47

4.2.1 Frequency of hedges and boosters in the corpora 47

4.2.2 Types of hedges in categories 48

4.2.3 Types of boosters in categories 56

4.2.4 Functions of hedges in R&D section in AL research articles 61

4.2.5 Functions of boosters in R&D section in AL research articles 66

4.2.6 Similarities 70

4.2.7 Differences 78

4.3 Discussion 80

4.4 Summary 87

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 88

5.1 Summary of the main findings 88

5.2 Implications 89

5.3 Limitations of the study 90

5.4 Recommendations for further research 90

REFERENCES 90

APPENDICES 1

Appendix A: List of hedges and boosters 1

Appendix B: Sample of concordance 5

Appendix C: Sample of analysis of functions 6

Appendix D: Samples of R&D section in AL research articles 7

Appendix E: 30 English AL research articles written by VWs 8

Appendix F: 30 English AL research articles written by FWs 13

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AL Applied Linguistics

AWFWs Articles Written by Foreign Writers AWVWs Articles Written by Vietnamese Writers ELT English Language Teaching

EFL English as Foreign Language

F Frequency

FWs

VWs

Foreign Writers Vietnamese Writers R&D Results and Discussion

LIST OF TABLES

Table 2 1 Holmes' (1988) taxonomy of hedges and boosters 22

Table 2 2 Hyland's (2004) taxonomy of boosters 23

Table 2 3 Hinkel's (2005) category of boosters 23

Table 2 4 Yagiz and Demir’s (2015) category of boosters 24

Table 2 5 Demir's (2016) taxonomy of boosters 24

Table 2 6 Hinkel's (2005) taxonomy of boosters in functions 26

Table 3 1 Source of corpora in the current research 38

Table 3 2 Size of corpus used in the present research 39

Table 3 3 Category of hedges (compiled and adapted) 43

Table 3 4 Hinkel (2005) taxonomy of boosters in functions 44

Table 4 1 Frequency and percentage of hedges and boosters 47

Table 4 2 Distribution of hedges in categories 49

Table 4 3 Distribution of hedges in category of modal verbs 50

Table 4 4 Distribution of hedges in category of lexical verbs 51

Table 4 5 Distribution of hedges in category of adverbs 52

Table 4 6 Distribution of hedges in category of adjectives 53

Table 4 7 Distribution of hedges in category of nouns 54

Table 4 8 Distribution of other hedges 55

Table 4 9 Hinkel's (2005) category of boosters 57

Table 4 10 Frequency of boosters in categories 57

Table 4 11 Distribution of boosters in category of universal pronouns 58

Table 4 12 Distribution of boosters in category of emphatics 59

Table 4 13 Distribution of boosters in category of amplifiers 60

Table 4 14 Frequency of pragmatic function of hedges 74

Table 4 15 Frequency of hedges in the corpora per 1000 words in types 81

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2 1 Varttala’s (1998) category of hedging devices 15

Figure 2 2 Hyland's (1996a, 1998a) categorization of scientific hedges 17

Figure 2 3 Conceptual framework of the current research 35

Figure 4 1 Summary of frequency of hedges in the research 56

Figure 4 2 Frequency in percentage of modal verbs in the corpora 70

Figure 4 3 Frequency of lexical verbs in the corpora 71

Figure 4 4 Frequency of adverbs as hedges in the corpora 72

Figure 4 5 Frequency of adjectives as hedges in the corpora 72

Figure 4 6 Frequency of nouns as hedges in the corpora 73

Figure 4 7 Frequency of other hedges in the corpora 73

Figure 4 8 Comparison of universal pronouns in types 75

Figure 4 9 Comparison of emphatics in types 76

Figure 4 10 Comparison of amplifiers in types 76

Figure 4 11 Frequency and percentage of boosters in the corpora 77

ABSTRACT

In academic writing, hedges and boosters play crucial roles in stating problems, facts or claims in any fields with the objectives to minimize authors’ opposing claims and enable them to use cautious, polite, or modest strategies and negotiations in which there may be their acknowledgements about flaws in statements The increasing usage of hedges and boosters in academic writing, especially in research articles, has recently attracted researchers to find out the functions as well as the similarities and the difficulties of hedges and boosters The purpose of this research is to examine the use of hedges and boosters in Results and Discussion section of research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers To conduct the research, two corpora referred to linguistics consist of 30 research articles written by Vietnamese writers and 30 ones by foreign writers The research was mainly conducted with mixed methods and contrastive analysis approach design to explain and discuss the results The results revealed that both foreign writers and Vietnamese writers used mostly modal verbs and lexical verbs as hedges, foreign writers used more hedges than Vietnamese writers, but foreign writers used fewer boosters than Vietnamese writers Besides, there were similarities and differences in use of hedges and boosters between foreign writers and Vietnamese writers This research has pedagogical implications in terms of hedges and boosters for teachers, learners and writers

Keywords: hedging, boosting, applied linguistics

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

In this chapter, the background of the research is discussed by focusing on the use of hedges and boosters in the general academic writing and research articles Next, it refers to the problem statements of the study Then it shows the purpose of the study and the research questions which will be analyzed in Chapter 4 Finally, the scope, the significance of the study and the definitions of terms are mentioned afterwards

1.1 Background to the study

For many years, hedges and boosters have become phenomena in academic writing (Holmes, 1984, 1988; Salager-Meyer, 1994, 1997; Hyland, 1996a, 1998a, Markkanen, 1997; Varttala, 1999, 2001; Demir, 2015, etc.) especially in research articles Strict regulations in academic writing and formal styles may cause readers to find it difficult to present and interpret their ideas and points of view

In scientific research, academic writing forms plays a crucial role in presenting the study to readers Besides, Ferris (1994) remarked that academic writing in research helps researchers showed the point of view and defend it That means to use appropriate words to persuade readers to agree with authors There are needs to have some kinds of word that can help researcher to defend their points of view while still help them use the probability and certainty to their claims Hedges and boosters are choices as Hyland (2004) stated that writers might resort to detach from claims due to the use of hedge and booster

Lakoff (1972) first introduced the notion of hedge as “words whose job is

to make things fuzzy” (p.195) This description of hedge refers to the term of hedge in linguistic language or academic writing On the other hand, in terms of booster, the expression of certainty seems to be the core to the rhetorical character of academic writing in most of the scientific research It is important that scientific research need and accept the claims or statements by getting the

conviction with caution, the confidence with reliability, or the uncertainty about something

Contrary to the points of view about the concept of hedges that Lakoff (1972) stated above, Round (1981) claimed that “hedges are not used simply to cover oneself and to make things fuzzy, but can be used to negotiate the right representation of the state of the knowledge under discussion to achieve greater preciseness in scientific claims” (p.151)

Communication is one of the main goals of using English in verbal or non-verbal form (e.g spoken or written discourse) Writers, especially in scientific research, strive to overcome the shortcoming in foreign language (English in this case) to persuade readers or listeners to understand the point of view of the related issues as well as try to defend their point of view in any fields they want To reach this aim, hedges may be the most appropriate language devices that can be used in research (Coast, 1987; Holmes, 1995)

Hedges seem to appear more and more frequent in research articles or scientific research for their roles of argumentation to defend the researchers’ points of view Moreover, they can present the new knowledge or make the conversation or argumentation keep going on

Round (1982) stated that hedging was a basic feature in academic discourse to enable the writers to show their certainty or doubt referring to their statement

Hyland (1998) asserted that writers or speakers seemed not to pay much attention to hedges as well as their functions in the use of difficult disciplines or genres Crystal (1995) reminded of the lack of research on hedging for long time before It seemed that the interest in modality and hedging in research literature

or research articles have not been reflected in pedagogical material In most of the scientific research about hedges and boosters, writers often focus on the use

of hedges and boosters in one or more than one section: For instance, the abstract, the introduction, the methodology, the conclusion, or combining two sections in an research article In an research article, the results and discussion

reflects the writers’ points of view, represents their results and discusses the findings after the process of conducting a research Additionally, writers also have to defend their opinions, points of view about scientific results Referring

to the importance of hedges and boosters in Discussion section, Hyland (1998a) stated that the Discussion section helped writers “highlight findings and situate them in a context of a wider body of knowledge by relating the results to the work of others” (p.33)

Hyland (2000) referred to hedges and boosters as a significant way to express the confidence of author in academic writing In one hand, boosters, such

as “clearly, obviously” show expressions of uncertainty in an issue, hedges, on the other hand, such as “seem, appear” are the expressions of doubt to the

propositional information (p.179) Skelton (1988) stated that “without hedging, the world is purely propositional, a rigid (and rather dull) place where things either are the case or are not With a hedging system, language is rendered more flexible and the world more subtle” (p.38)

More specifically, Hyland (1998c) conducted a research to find out how hedges were used in different disciplines Data for the research was collected from 28 articles in four disciplines including microbiology, astrophysics,

marketing and applied linguistics Based on Crismore et al.’s (1993) taxonomy

of hedges and boosters, Hyland (1998c) claimed his results of his study about hedges that hedges were used more frequently in Applied Linguistics (AL) than those in other disciplines

According to Hyland (1998a), hedges and boosters are communicative strategies used to increase or reduce the force of writers’ statement Hedges and boosters can modify the claims or propositions the writers claimed before, conveying the appropriate mutual attitude between writers and readers, reducing uncertainty in their utterances or claims to emphasize that what they believed or stated to be correct or accurate

A hedge, an epistemic device, is often used to express epistemic modality and to modify the illocutionary force of speech acts (Holmes, 1988) On the

other hand, a booster is used for writers to express the beliefs, strong claims and mark their involvement and solidarity with authors

Hedges and boosters are now accepted as important devices that promote and help writers have positive outcomes in academic writing in research articles When writers employ hedges and boosters in their academic writing, readers can see an essential element of academic argument because writers try to include their claims and argumentation through their writing research articles (e.g., Hyland, 1998, Tran and Duong, 2013) Moreover, writers can demonstrate a more sophisticated level of academic writing, engage in fewer risk of negation (Tran and Duong), and provide more intellectually valuable contribution to the research articles

Given the above-mentioned reasons, there is a strong need to conduct the research “Hedging and Boosting in Results and Discussion section of English Applied Linguistic Research Articles by Vietnamese and foreign writers”, in order (1) to examine hedges and boosters and their usage in research articles, (2)

to find out their functions in-depth study, and (3) to explore the similarities and the differences in types, frequencies and functions in research articles

1.2 The problem statements

Whereas hedges and boosters employed in research articles may be crucial

to effectiveness of academic writing works, to the best knowledge of the researcher, no prior research has examined the role that the functions, the similarities, and the differences of hedges and boosters play in R&D section in

AL research articles Failure by prior researchers to address or refer to this issue

is unusual because theoretical overviews of hedges and boosters consider its influence on readers, help them get fewer negations, and make the articles more valuable In AL research articles, the R&D section plays an important role in reporting the results, negotiating, and presenting argumentation with partners, other researchers, or readers Using the precise epistemic devices, hedges and boosters, in these situations is the core of persuasive academic writing In Vietnam, English is considered as an important disciplinary in most of the fields

However, it is not considered as a second language, but foreign language This makes Vietnamese writers (VWs) find it difficult to apply correctly hedges and boosters in their works, especially in research articles The evidence is that there have not been many studies of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles in Vietnam so far A great number of studies on hedges and boosters were conducted by many researchers in many fields, these researchers focused on all rhetorical sections, but not R&D section only Accordingly, a study of hedges and boosters is appropriate to fill the gap at present This study focuses on R&D section and tries to find out the use, functions, similarities and differences of hedges and boosters in types, frequencies and functions in AL research articles

1.3 Aims and objectives of the study

1.3.1 Aims of the study

This study aimed to examine the use of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs

1.3.2 Objectives of the study

In order to achieve the aims of this study, the following objectives must be accomplished

 To find out the hedges and boosters used in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and foreign writers (FWs)

 To analyze the functions of hedges and boosters used in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs

 To explore the similarities and differences in types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles written

by VWs and FWs

1.4 Research questions

The current study was designed to seek for convincing answers to the following questions:

1 How are hedges and boosters used in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers?

2 What are the functions of hedges and boosters used in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers?

3 What are the similarities and differences in types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers?

1.5 Scope of the study

The study was designed to examine the use or frequencies of hedges and boosters in grammatical and functional classifications in R&D sections in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs with the corpus of 60 AL research articles in English In addition, the functions of hedges and boosters were explored in the process of data analysis Finally, the similarities and differences

of hedges and boosters in the usage and function in R&D section were explored The conceptual framework for this research was based on Hyland’s (1996a, 1998a) taxonomy of hedges in function and a list of hedge words, which is adopted from the previous studies such as Holmes’ (1984, 1988), Salager-Meyer’s (1994), Hyland’s (1994, 1996, 1998a, 2000), Vassileva’s (1997, 1998), Varttala’s (2001), was extracted, compiled and shortened to adapt the research The frequencies, functions, similarities, and differences of boosters were examined by using Hinkel’s (2005) taxonomy of boosters with an accompanied list of booster words The limit of the research is that the number of hedge and booster words was reduced in minimum quantities in accordance with the degree

of the Thesis of Master of Arts Hopefully, a great number of studies on hedges and boosters will be soon conducted to fill up this gap in the AL field

1.6 Significances of the study

The importance of epistemic modality in academic writing and AL research articles has documented through many previous studies in disciplinaries

or fields such as academics, environment, engineering, chemical, etc

Milton and Hyland (1999) stated that the study of hedges and boosters and the appropriate use of these devices was “central to the process of weighing fact and evaluation, which is at the heart of academic writing” (p.147) The study may stimulate further research and further contribute to filling to the exist gap in the field of academic writing in research articles

1.6.1 Theoretical contributions

Communicators or writers will apply a new smooth method for listeners

or readers to get transmitted information with a little requirement of cognitive activities The study shows that there is a considerable importance in usage of epistemic modality or hedges and boosters The findings can help writers compare the epistemic devices used in sections of AL research articles written by VWs and FWs In addition, the study may help VWs or learners to identify the similarities and differences in use of hedges and boosters in AL research articles, showing the possibility of effective applications of epistemic modality devices in the linguistics fields in Viet Nam

1.6.2 Practical contributions

Writers will find out the appropriate approaches or methods to use hedges and boosters in academic writing The appropriate usage of hedges and boosters can be suggested as an item under content related to errors in forms of writers’ feedback that is used in academic writing or AL research articles Moreover, that may encourage writers to stress on the significance of hedges and boosters in academic writing

Writers or English learners feel confident when they communicate with English speakers or foreigners on presenting their points of view about issues or unfamiliar topics that they do not know in advance

Researchers or writers can use hedges and boosters in precise ways to write more effective and internationally standard research articles in academic writing, applied linguistics and linguistics fields in general

1.7 Definitions of key terms

It has been obvious in the above of the introduction section that the research will be implemented to find out the use of hedges and boosters, their functions, and the differences between hedges and boosters in AL research articles Therefore, some key terms in this study are defined as follows:

A hedge refers to a word, a phrase such as may, might, can, could,

perhaps, seem to suggest, probably, etc (Hyland, 1998a) which is considered as

an explicit linguistic device or concerning degrees of probability and “serve as a bridge between the propositional information in the text and writer’s factual interpretation” (Salager-Meyer, 1993, p.127) In text, the positive or negative politeness strategy of hedge can be used as shields to protect the addressers and therefore, reduce the commitment to the proposition

A booster refers to a word or a phrase showing or denoting full

commitment to the truth value to that commitment For example, Hyland (1998a) defines “booster are communicative strategies for increasing the force of statements… [they represent] a strong claim” (p.350)

A research article refers to academic papers written in academic form,

especially in the field of AL, like articles published in registered magazines or journals: Applied Linguistics, ELSEVIER, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Learning, Linguistics and Literature, Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, ResearchGate Besides, there is a magazine containing AL research articles written in English by VWs and published in Vietnam such as LANGUAGE & LIFE

A results and discussion section refers to what a researcher will find in

his or her study and how he or she will discuss the findings, the implications, and the relevance of the study

A foreign writer, in this study, refers to one of any foreign writers who

use English to write academic research articles in the field of AL (writers’ names are not written in Vietnamese language and they are not Vietnamese)

A Vietnamese writer, in this study, refers to any Vietnamese writers who

use English to write academic research articles in the field of AL

1.8 Organization of the study

This study is organized in five chapters

Chapter 1 provides the introduction, which is include the rationale, the

aim and research questions, the significance, definitions of terminology, the theoretical framework, and the organization of the study

Chapter 2 presents the literature review of this study, which includes the

definitions of hedges and boosters, the functions of hedges and boosters, and the previous research of those fields both domestically and internationally

Chapter 3 describes the methodology, which consists of the research

setting, materials, research design, research tools, data collection and data analysis procedures, and the ethical consideration

Chapter 4 provides the data analysis and discussion of the findings The

findings of the current research are compared to the previous researchers’ findings

Chapter 5 deals with the conclusions, recommendations for the use of

hedges and boosters in R&D sections in research articles written by VWs and FWs, the limitations of the study, and some suggestions for further research concerning to the field

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Introduction

In this chapter, the first section of literature review is the definitions of hedges and boosters in linguistic field The next section is followed by the overview of the hedging and boosting functions and the third section of this chapter will be discussed about some previous studies on hedge and booster both

in international and domestic research articles The conceptual framework is the part which presents how the study will be conducted

2.2 Hedges

In this part of the chapter, a great number of definitions of hedges and boosters are presented and explained so that readers can know and discuss about different definitions of hedges and boosters in R&D section in a variety of research articles

2.2.1 Definitions of hedges

The word “hedge” is used as a linguistic term appeared in the 1970s when Lakoff (1972) shows his article “Hedges: A study in meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts” Later, Lakoff (1973) defined hedges as “words whose meanings involved fuzziness –words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy” (p 471) Fuzziness can help people avoid embarrassing situations and express the writers’ commitment to the true value of statement (Salager-Meyer,

1994 & Tran, 2013) and it can provide them with the more open room for the possibility of interpretation (Crompton, 1997)

Hedges may refer to showing or expressing hesitation, uncertainty, indirectness, or politeness Nikula (1997) remarked the use of hedges in academic writing as “meaning negotiations and reformulations for both speakers and hearers” (p.193) Crismore and Vande Kopple (1997) stated that “hedges stimulate a personal interaction between a producer and receiver of language in

which they signal that the truth of the material is tentative and the receiver has room to evaluate and judge for him or herself” (p.235)

Tran and Duong (2013) stated that “the study of hedges used in research articles, hence, helps to see an essential element of an academic argument” and hedges are considered as metadiscourse resources of materials for writers or researchers to show their points of views in all related fields or different disciplines

Hyland (1998) defined the term of hedges as “the means by which writers can present a proposition as an opinion rather than a fact: item are only hedges in their epistemic sense, and only when they mark uncertainty” (p.5) Not only did Hyland (ibid.,) define the definition of hedges, he also divided hedges in academic discourse into two types: content-oriented and reader-oriented hedges Hyland (1998) stated that “Content-oriented hedges served to mitigate the relationship between propositional content and a non-linguistic mental representation of reality; they hedge the correspondence between what the writer says about the world and what the world is thought to be like” (p.162)

Brown and Levinson (1987) defined hedge as “a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or noun phrase in a set” (p.145) and offered another concept of hedge in their linguistics research of Politeness Theory as politeness strategies

Crompton (1997) stated that “despite attempts to bring into order the multitude definitions, this appeared that researchers continue to approach the concept of hedge and hedging in a variety of ways” (p.275) and “an item of language which a speaker uses to explicitly qualify his/her lack of commitment

to the truth of a proposition he/she utters” (p.281) In linguistics area, the first primarily oriented definition of hedge might be found in Lakoff’s (1973) work,

in which he paid attention to a problem with a new concept “vague boundaries and fuzzy edges” (p.458)

Hyland (1998) and Tran and Duong (2013) pointed out that hedges were means whereby writer could present a claim, statement, or a proposition as an opinion rather than a fact or certain knowledge to avoid the responsibility for the certainty of a proposition or claim In one hand, readers or hearers might understand the definition by considering some special categories of hedges such

as the reduction of force or power of statement or claim by using some special words like fairly, almost, or partly Additionally, hedge is defined as a method of

using the adverbs of frequency like usually, often, sometimes Moreover, hedge

is considered to reduce responsibility for the truth by using probably, perhaps,

may, or maybe (Tran & Duong)

In academic writing, Hyland (1998) also suggested a definition of hedge

as “imply that a statement on plausible reasoning rather than certain knowledge and allow readers the freedom to dispute it” (p.352) Moreover, Hyland (1996) proposed a concept of hedge that “to mitigate claims as well as minimize the impositions that may be found in such claims” (p.434) In other word, Hyland (2004) stated that hedges were communitive strategies which conveyed the level

of writers’ confidence to the truth of a claim or statement and express an attitude

to the audience

Yagiz and Demir (2014) defined hedges as type of tentative language to obtain from any certainty or to mitigate the claims or propositions avoiding negative criticism from readers or research partners

In brief, hedges are lexical devices used by researchers or writers of research articles to negotiate, soften, or mitigate the opposing proposition or claims In other words, hedging is the expression of tentativeness and possibility and is a must in academic writing where it is necessary to present unproven proposition with caution and precision (Hyland, 1996b) Hyland (2000) claimed that hedges referred to words that “modify the writer’s commitment to the proposition” (p.111) and “represent a major contribution to the social negotiation

of knowledge and writers’ efforts to persuade readers of the correctness of their claims, helping them to gain community acceptance for their work” (p.89) In

this study, hedge can be considered as lexical devices used to signal the author’s lack of confidence and mitigate the writer’s certainty about or reduce their commitment to a proposition

2.2.2 Types of hedges

Hedges, in terms of linguistics, are considered as rhetorical devices

appeared in types of verbal or adverbial expressions (can, could, seem suggest,

probable, etc.) concerning degrees of probability (Nguyen, 2018) According to

Holmes (1988) and Varttala (1998, 2001), five main word forms of epistemic lexical modality were modal auxiliaries, lexical verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns

A great number of researchers in the previous studies proposed different categories of hedges such as Holmes (1984, 1988), Salager-Meyer (1994), Hyland (1994, 1996, 1998a, 2000), Vassileva (1997, 1998), Varttala (2001), Hinkel (2005), Bayyurt (2010), Cuneyt Demir (2015), etc Especially, Hyland (1998a) and Salager (1994) proposed their own categories of hedges which have been utilized by a great number of linguistics researchers, natural science and social researchers, writers, students, and English as a second language learners

According to Salager-Meyer (1997), the classification of hedges seemed

to be more concrete than others based on seven categories as follow

1) Modal auxiliary verbs

2) Modal lexical verbs

3) Adjectival, nominal, and adverbial modal phrases

4) Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency, and time

5) Introductory phrases

6) If clauses

7) Compound hedges

Hyland (1994) proposed a hedge taxonomy including modal auxiliaries

(may, might, can, could, would, etc.), modal lexical verbs (believe, seem, etc.),

adjectival, adverbial, and nominal modal expressions and others

Recently, in a linguistics study, Fraser (2010) proposed several hedge types in forms of grammatical categories as follows

(1) Modal verbs including can, could, may, would, etc

(2) Modal adverbs such as possibly, probably, apparently, etc

(3) Modal adjectives refer to possible, probable, apparent, likely, etc

(4) Modal nouns consisting of suggestion, claim, assumption, etc

(5) Phrases such as somewhat, sort of, kind of, etc

Varttala (2001) proposed a classification of hedges revised from Hyland’s (1998b) classification of hedges in eight types of grammatical forms This classification of hedges has been utilized by several linguistics researchers such

as Atai and Sadr (2008) Here is the Varttala’s (2001) category of hedges revised from Hyland (1998b), which was presented by Hashemi (2005)

(1) Modal auxiliary verbs

(2) Full verbs

2.1 Nonfactive reporting verbs

2.2 Tentative cognition verbs

2.3 Tentative linking verbs

(3) Adverbs

3.1 Probability adverbs

3.2 Adverbs of indefinite frequency

3.3 Adverbs of indefinite degree

5.1 Non-factive assertive nouns

5.2 Tentative cognition nouns

5.3 Nouns of tentative likelihood

(6) Clausal elements

(7) Questions

(8) Other

Farrokhi and Emami (2008) compiled a category of hedges base on Quirk

et al (1985), Holmes (1988), Hyland (1996a, 1998), Hyland and Milton (1997) and Varttala (2001) and proposed a hedge classification consisting of five types

of categories including modal verbs, lexical verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns

Varttala (1998) proposed a category to identify hedges composed of five

epistemic lexical items such as modal auxiliaries verbs (e.g., may, might, etc.), main verbs (e.g., argue, believe, etc.), adverbs (e.g., possibly, perhaps, etc.), adjectives (e.g., potential, probable, etc.) and nouns (e.g., claim, idea, etc.) (as

cited in Wang and Tatiana, 2016) Figure 2.1 is category for identifying hedging devices adapted from Varttala (1998, p 183)

Figure 2.1 Varttala’s (1998) category of hedging devices

Modal

auxiliaries

Main verbs

Hedging Devices

2.2.3 Functions of hedges

A great number of functions of hedges have been discussed in research articles and analysis discourse Brown and Levinson (1987) believed that hedges might be used as positive and negative politeness devices The functions of hedges and boosters in academic prose were perceived mostly as communicative since they expressed reliability and strategic manipulation of strength of commitment to claims to accomplish interpersonal aims (Hyland, 2005)

In a study of the medical field, Salager (1994) classified epistemic modality devices, hedges, in five sub-category of functions including shield, approximators of degree, time and frequency, emotionally charged intensifiers and compound hedges The taxonomy of hedges in Salager’s (1994) research was classified in five categories as the following

1 Shields: they consist of modal verbs which express possibility or semi–

auxiliaries such as to appear, to seem, can, could, may, might, would,

should They can be possibility adverbs such as probably, likely, possibly

and their derivative adjectives In some cases, they can be epistemic verbs

like to suggest, can, could, may, might, would, to appear, to seem,

probably, to suggest

2 Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency, and time: e.g.,

approximately, roughly, about, often, occasionally, generally, usually,

somewhat, somehow, a lot of

3 Authors' personal doubt and direct involvement, expressions such as

I believe, to our knowledge, it is our view that we feel that, etc

4 Emotionally- charged intensifiers, such as extremely

difficult/interesting, of particular importance, unexpectedly, etc

5 Compound hedges, the examples are it could be suggested, it would

seem likely, it would seem somewhat, it would like to, etc

Compound hedges are phrases made up of several hedges which often

appear as types as the following: it would appear, it seems reasonable

/probable, etc

These compound hedges can be double hedges (it may suggest that; it

seems likely that; it would indicate that; this probably indicates), treble hedges

(it seem reasonable to assume that) or quadruple hedges (it would seem

somewhat unlikely that, it may appear somewhat speculative that)

In other research, Swales and Feak (1994) suggested useful functions of hedges which consist of five categories (p.86) as follows

1) Probability expressions (e.g may, likely)

2) Distance expressions (e.g seem, appear, in the view of, based on) 3) Generalization qualifications (e.g trend, most, many people think that, apart from, with the exception of)

4) Weaker verbs (e.g suggest, assume, indicate, contribute to)

5) Combined qualifications (e.g may reduce certain types of injury in some circumstances)

Although Swales and Feak’s (1994) classification suggested many functions of hedge to readers and writers, these seemed not to be clear enough for them to understand thoroughly and use effectively in academic writing

According to Hyland (1996a), the functions of hedges are defined as

“hedging in scientific research writing represents a little-studied area of pragmatic competence and we know a little about how it functions and is typically realized in the specific academic domains” (p.434)

Figure 2 2 Hyland's (1996a, 1998a) categorization of scientific hedges

Hyland (1996, 1998a) created a rather clear model of hedges called the poly-pragmatic model by dividing hedges into two main categories and its

sub-categories The two main categories stand for content-oriented and

reader-oriented, in which content-oriented category consists of two subcategories such

as accuracy-oriented and writer-oriented Figure 2.2 is Hyland’s (1996a, 1998a)

the model of category This taxonomy of hedges is clearly seen because it is more precise and easier to understand than that of other ones

a) Content - oriented hedges

Hyland (1998a) pointed out that content-oriented was used “mitigate the relationship between propositional content and a representation of reality” (p.162) These linguistics devices consist of two subcategories such as accuracy-oriented and writer-oriented

1 Accuracy-oriented

Accuracy-oriented hedges are used to describe the reported phenomena and convey the writers’ proposition of the certainty and perform the reliability function (Wang, 2016) Accuracy-oriented hedges often function in approximate

of quantity, degree and frequency (e.g., some, about, nearly, approximately,

almost, quite, somewhat, etc.) They consist of two subcategories Attribute and

Reliability

Attribute hedges are to specify the extent to which a term accurately describes the report phenomena (ibid.) Hyland (1998) claimed that attribute hedges “results vary from an assumed idea of how nature behaves and allows a better match with familiar descriptive terms” (p.164) Attribute hedges are often

in terms of adverbs or adjectives

According to Hyland (1998a), reliability hedges including modal auxiliaries, full verbs, modal verbs, adjectives, and nouns “express a conviction about propositional truth as warranted by deductions from available facts, relying

on inference, deduction, or repeated experience They refer to present states and are usually in the active voice without writer agentivity” (p.167)

2 Writer-oriented

Hyland (1998) pointed out that writers-oriented hedges intends to “shield the writers from possible consequences of negotiability by limiting personal commitment” (p.172) writers-oriented hedges often function in terms of modal

verbs (can, could, should, would, may, etc.,) full verbs, modal verbs, adjectives and nouns; in terms of epistemic verbs (think, believe, suggest, predict, appear,

seem, assume, propose, etc.); in terms of epistemic adverbs (probably, possibly,

maybe, etc.); in terms of adjectives (possible, probable, likely, etc.); in terms of passive voice ( X is believed, Y is thought to, etc.) and impersonal types

(b) Reader-oriented

Hyland (1996) claimed that reader-oriented “confirm the attention writers give to the interactional effects of their statements” and “solicit collusion by addressing the reader as an intelligent colleague capable of participating in the discourse with an open mind” (p 446) Reader-oriented hedges make frequent

use of epistemic lexical verbs (we propose, I believe, we infer, I can speculate,

etc.)

According to Hyland and Milton’s (1997), in terms of epistemic devices,

modal verbs such as will, can, could, would are devices expressing doubt and certainty Moreover, other epistemic devices including epistemic verbs (know,

believe, etc.), adverbs (probably, definitely, etc.), adjectives (clear, likely, etc.)

and nouns (doubt, certainty, suggestion, etc.) are also used to express doubt and

certainty In their research, hedges and boosters were divided into five categories such as modal verbs, lexical verbs, adverbials, adjectives, and nouns It can be inferred that hedges have both lexical and grammatical meanings express doubt and certainty

Farrokhi and Emami (2008) stated that “hedges are lexical items which reduce or soften the illocutionary force or utterance Thus, they can be used to express the speakers’ views tentatively or unconfidently, or they may serve to mitigate the force of negatively affective speech acts” (p.65)

Based on the functions of hedges and the usage of them in the research articles, it can be briefly concluded that hedges are often used as well as identified as essential factors in research articles Hyland (1998b) referred to one

of the main functions of hedge as “to meet the adequacy conditions by reducing the risk of negation on objective grounds” (p.162) Some other writers use hedges to confirm or interpret their claims or research findings more precisely, others think that the use of hedges can help writers or researchers to express a perspective on their propositions or claims and to display unproven statements with caution Moreover, in case of lacking adequate and clear evidence, writers can use hedges as strategies to show their point of views without showing the impoliteness of negotiation or threatening readers

2.3 Boosters

2.3.1 Definitions of boosters

Booster, an epidemic modality device showing intensifiers, emphatics (Demir, 2015) has widely known in AL research articles for its importance of showing writers’ claim or propositions Holmes (1982) defined that booster were considered as lexical items to help writers express firm persuasion to his/her claim In other words, boosters were utilized to emphasize and stress certainty and persuade readers with the validity of claims (Peacock, 2006) or the given information

Not only are hedges and boosters two important interpersonal meta- discourse devices in communication, but they are also crucial devices in academic writing such as in research articles However, according to Hyland

(2005), words such as clearly, obviously, indeed, demonstrate, prove were called

boosters He suggested that boosters were the words that enabled writers to communicate certainty in what they expressed and to signal their involvement with the topic and solidarity with the readers Hyland (1999) offered the definition of boosters with their functions as “stress shared information, group memberships, and engagement with readers”

Hyland (1998a) also suggested other definitions of booster as “boosters are communicative strategies for increasing the force of statements… [they represent] a strong claim” (p.350) Peacock (2006) adapted the definition of booster after Hyland (1998a) and suggested that “boosting was defined as a communitive strategy for increasing the force of a statement and emphasizing certainty, strong commitment, conviction, and accepted the truth” (p.65)

Hyland (2005) said that booster enabled writers to write with assurance

“while effecting interpersonal solidarity, setting the caution and self-effacement suggested by hedges against assertion and involvement” (p.179) Accordingly, unlike “hedges”, Hyland and Tse (2004) offered the definition of boosters as

“indicate certainty and emphasize the force of propositions” (p.168)

Farrokhi and Emami (2008) defined boosters as “lexical devices used to express strong conviction are described as boosters Boosters, such as clearly, obviously and of course, allow writers to express conviction and assert a proposition with confidence” (p.64) and “booster may be used to strengthen utterances functioning to express agreement, or disagreement of reassurance or denial’ (p.66) Moreover, Hu and Cao (2011) described boosters as meditacourse devices that notify the writers’ stance over the whole allegation

In brief, boosters, known as tools of intensifiers, strengtheners, or

emphases, such as certainly, sure, definitely… are words that writers can use to

show the certainty of a problem, statement, or proposition Peacock (2006) concluded that “competence in research writing includes a developed knowledge

of boosting” (p.61) when he argued that boosters play an important part in persuading readers of the validity of writers’ views

2.3.2 Types of boosters

In many previous studies, boosters are often seen in types of modal verbs, lexical verbs, adverbs, adjective or nouns Skelton (1997) suggested that verbs

such as show, demonstrate, find, etc., “are writers’ means of claiming that the

truth they are discussing is in evidential” There is a list of 118 booster words

compiled by Peacock (2006) including lexical items modal verbs, lexical verbs, and their derivative forms (see Appendix A) Holmes (1988) argued that lexical devices used to express degrees of certainty appeared in terms of modal, lexical verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns

Table 2 1 Holmes' (1988) taxonomy of hedges and boosters

No Category Hedges Boosters

Absolutely, actually, certainly, clearly, exactly, obviously, totally, etc

4 Adjectives

Approximate, common, considerable, general, possible, potential, relative, significant, typical, etc

Absolute, certain, clear, complete, confident, definite, exact, evident,

impossible, sure, etc

Claim, evaluation, possibility, probability, suggestion, etc

Certainty, confidence, fact, evidence, precision, etc

Hyland (1998a) stated that “modal (will, must) are used to signal accepted

truth – that is, they downplay the author’s involvement by implying that the claim or statement made is one that is already generally accepted in the

discipline” (p.371) and “devices such as of course and obviously appear to have

the same function” (p.368)

Nuyts (2005) stated that “epistemic modality, which is parallel to the other two main meaning categories of modality, namely deontic and dynamic is best describe by its characteristic of the degree of probability of the state of affairs conveyed by modal auxiliaries, adjective, adverbs” (p.10) In short, boosters are

modal adjectives, and nouns However, in the present research, there is a type of hedges such as phrases, words which named other hedges to meet the researcher’s demand for the data analysis

Hyland (2004) proposed a taxonomy of boosters consisting of four categories which is presented in the following table

Table 2 2 Hyland's (2004) taxonomy of boosters

No Categories of boosters Examples

1 Tentative verbs and modals Should

2 Tentative adjectives and adverbs Certainly, definitely

3 Solidarity features It is a fact that, due to the fact that,

4 Self – mention reference Writer, researcher

The types of booster are to express the speakers’ purposes with confidence and strong conviction Hyland (2005) claimed in his study that the use of boosters helps writers to shorten the alternatives and to show a high level

of certainty

Table 2 3 Hinkel's (2005) category of boosters

Categories of boosters Examples

Universal and negative pronouns All, each, every pronominal, etc

Emphatics Exact(-ly), extreme, for sure, etc

Amplifiers Absolutely, amazingly, Awfully, badly, etc Eli Hinkel (2005), one of the prominent writers proposed a classification

of hedges and boosters (as cited in Bayyurt, 2010, p.167), in which the functions

of boosters were displayed in three types such as universal pronouns, emphatics and amplifiers The following table is Hinkel’s (2005) classification of boosters

According to Yagiz and Demir’s (2015), boosters can be categorized in to four types The following table is Yagiz and Demir’s (2015) categories of boosters

Table 2 4 Yagiz and Demir’s (2015) category of boosters

No Categories of boosters Examples

2 Epistemic lexical verbs Demonstrate, show, find

3 Epistemic adjectives Rigorous, undeniable, superior

4 Epistemic adverbs Actually, always, clearly

According to Demir (2016), the taxonomy of boosters in his research was

adapted from that of Bayyurt (2010) who classified boosters as modals, verbs,

adverbs, adjectives, and nouns However, there were quantifiers and determiners

in his taxonomy The following table is the taxonomy that Demir (2016) used in the research

Table 2 5 Demir's (2016) taxonomy of boosters

No Category Example

1 Modal boosters Must, need to, will, have-has, be to + infinitive

2 Verbal boosters Ascertain, assure, convince, prouve, etc

3 Adjectival boosters Absolute, adorable, alluring, apparent, etc

4 Adverbial boosters Accurately, assertively, categorically, etc

5 Quantifiers/determiners Many, much, a great amount, etc

6 Noun boosters Certitude, eternity, plethora, proof, etc

In short, hedges and boosters in terms of modal verbs, lexical verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and nouns can perform different functions at different times

in context of research of linguistics filed The more profound research of hedges

and boosters in their functions will be explored more in details in R&D section in this study

2.3.3 Functions of boosters

Boosters, the same as hedges and in terms of grammatical categories, were manifested in these categories: modal verb, verb, adverb, adjective, and noun

Skelton (1997) suggested that some verbs like demonstrate, show, find are

writers’ claims about the truth they refer to is obvious, while Huston (1993)

debated these verbs such as demonstrate, show, or establish certainty With the

same agreement, Salager-Meyer (1994) emphasized that those verbs showed the commitment to a proposition

The fact that boosters are used as modal verb appeared most in R&D According to Hyland (2005), boosters are words like “clearly, obviously and demonstrate” that enable writers to communicate certainty in what they express and to signal their involvement with the topic and solidarity with readers Therefore, their functions are to “stress shared information, group, membership, and engagement with readers” (Hyland, 1999)

Hyland (2005) claimed that boosters enable writers to write with assurance “while effecting interpersonal solidarity, setting the caution and self-effacement suggested by hedges against assertion and involvement” (p.179) Moreover, Hyland and Tse (2004) stated that, unlike hedges, “boosters indicate certainty and emphasize the force of propositions” (p.168) Peacock (2006) defined the function of boosters as

“increase the force of statements and emphasize certainty, strong commitment, conviction, and accept truth; persuade reader that their claims are justified and that their observations are fact; galvanize support, express collegiality, and avoid disagreement; transform claims into knowledge; and imply certainty resulting from the convincing nature of the data itself” (p.68)

In the one hand, according to Farrokhi and Emami (2008), “boosters function to express the speaker’s intentions with confidence and strong conviction” (p.67) In the other hand, Hinkel (2005) had conceptions of functions

of boosters with a slight difference in words The Figure 2.6 illustrates the Hinkel’s (2005) taxonomy of boosters

Table 2 6 Hinkel's (2005) taxonomy of boosters in functions

All, each, every pronominal, etc

Emphatics Emphasize force or writers’

2.4 Hedges and boosters in academic writings

Hedges and booster are communicative strategies for increasing or reducing the force of statements (Hyland, 1998, p.349) Both hedges and boosters in academic writing or research articles consist of words or phrases in different forms (such as epistemic modal verbs, modal lexical verbs, and their corresponding adverbs, adjectives or nouns, etc.) and different functions with the objectives to respect the class membership or change the relationship between writers and readers or listeners on stating a claim or a proposition such as showing writers’ uncertainty or certainty According to Takimoto (2015) “As hedges and booster are concerned with the writers’ personal attitudes toward the propositional content, hedges and boosters belong to the semantics domain of modality” (p.99) Hedges and boosters appear in forms of modality, which are often (not exclusive) expressed by modal auxiliaries The following example from the 60 research articles illustrates the use of modal auxiliaries

(1) Interruption while talking and busy hour can create either good or bad

environment (AF24)

According to Hyland (1995), hedging function can be inferred that

“hedges allow writers to express propositions with greater precision in areas often characterized by reformulation and reinterpretation” (p.4) Hedges are likely to help writers anticipate the possible negative results that can be proved wrong or not precise These can help writers to protect their reputation, avoid their personal responsibility for the statement and limit the damage resulting from their claims or propositions Hedges help writers create a mutual relationship between writers and readers to obtain the readers’ ratification of claims

Having mentioned the use of epistemic devices in academic writing as well as research articles, Hyland (1998) pointed out that “second language students find hedging their propositions notoriously problematic” (p.8)

Varttala (2001) investigated the use and incidences of hedges used in scientific texts in three different disciplines and the findings revealed that there were differences in using epistemic devices among research articles and the remainders

Vassileva (2001) conducted a study to investigate the use of detachment (hedges) and commitment (boosters) in English and Bulgarian research articles written in English with the findings showing the differences in three parts Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion in research articles

Moreover, hedges and boosters in forms of lexical verbs are considered epistemic devices to “carry the writers’ uncertainty and as boosters to show their certainty in the truth of their propositions” (Takimoto, 2015, ibid.)

While hedges such as possibly, might, clear, or seem represent a weakening of a

claim through an explicit qualification of the writer’s commitment, boosters are used as a strategy to persuade the readers of writers’ confident assertion but also

as a strategy to restrict the negotiating space available to readers (Takimoto, 2015)

According to Peacock (2006), the function of boosters is “to express variously evidential or implicit truth, accepted truth and solidarity” (p.65)

Skelton (1997) pointed out that lexical verbs such as show, find, or demonstrate

can be used to show the truth In agreement with Skelton’s (1997) views, Salager-Meyer (1994) claimed that these verbs are used to emphasize commitment to a proposition

Hinkel (2005) proposed three types of boosters in function such as universal pronouns, emphatic and amplifiers, which are slightly different from

other researchers in types Hyland (1998a) claimed that “modal verbs (e.g., must,

will, etc.) are used to signal accepted truth” (p.371) while Hinkel (2005)

proposed that epistemic adverbs such as clearly or certainly are used to show the

emphatic force or writers’ certainty in message

Hedges and boosters play important roles in academic writing because writers’ doubt or uncertainty and confidences to readers or listeners “contribute

to negotiating the with readers persuading them that the writers’ claims are valid, and helping the writers to obtain the acceptance for their work in their disciplines (Takimoto, 2015, ibid.) One of the main and important functions of the rhetorical devices is the power of persuasion over the readers (Demir, 2016) and gaining the efficient and appropriate usage of hedges and boosters can help writers obtain their results purposefully and objectively

A great number of studies have been conducted by researchers in different disciplines to find out effective methods in using epistemic devices such as hedges and boosters, to find out the differences in use of hedges and boosters between native and non - native writers Many articles sharing the difficulties in writing research articles, academic work had findings which showed that the number of native writers using epistemic was often more predominant or higher than those of non-native writers (Skelton, 1997; Hyland (1998); Varttala (2001)