A Pragmatic Analysis of Hedges in Articles on Chemistry,
Linguistics and Economics
Farida Hidayati, Syihabuddin
Syihabuddin and Dadang Sudana
Sekolah Pascasarjana, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia
farida.sutardi@gmail.com, syihabuddin@upi.edu, dsudana2013@yahoo.com
Keywords: Hedges, Features, Scientific.
Abstract: This study examines the use of hedges in the introduction sections of scientific articles in three disciplines,
namely Chemistry, Linguistics and Economics, based on Lakoff (1973), Hyland (1998), Varttala (2001) and
Salager-Meyer (1994). The aim of this research is to discover the distribution of hedges in the introduction
sections of those articles written by male and female writers. Data were collected from 6 articles consisting
of 2 articles on Chemistry, 2 articles on Linguistics and 2 articles on Economics selected from reputable
international journals. This study indicates that the total percentages of hedges are Economics (7.59%),
Linguistics (6.27%) and Chemistry (3.1 %). In terms of gender, the total percentages for males are 8.35%
and females 8.61%. This study confirms Hardjanto (2016) who states that the use of modal auxiliaries
(hedges), tends to be more common in soft sciences (economics and linguistics) than in hard sciences
(chemistry). Meanwhile, this study refutes Yeganeh and Ghoreyshi (2015) that hedging has been claimed to
be a strategy that is used mostly by female writers than male writers. In this study, male writers hedged as
much as females, probably because the genre of the texts is similar, namely academic texts.
1 INTRODUCTION
Studies of hedges in scientific articles have long
been conducted by linguists. Their linguistic features
have been investigated from various aspects.
Generally, however, most studies on hedges aim to
investigate at least the types and frequencisof
hedges that occur in scientific articles. Some
distinguishing viewpoints are (a) the disciplines of
sciences in which hedges are examined, such as
humane studies, heath and law; (b) the parts of
articles that are examined; (c) the subjects of study,
namely the profiles of writers; (d) the genre or
media in which hedges are used, namely spoken or
written.
Afshar, Moradi and Hamzavi (2014) explored
the types and frequencies of hedges in humane
studies’ articles. Musa (2014) compared the use of
hedges in Chemistry theses and English theses.
Rabab’ah (2013) compared the use of hedges in the
fields of Nursery and English education. Aquino
(2014) investigated the use of hedges in journalistic
articles written by students in campus newspapers.
Hashemi and Shirzadi (2016) examined the use of
hedges in linguistics articles using a triangulation of
three research methods, namely qualitative,
quantitative, and mixed methods.
Tran and Duong (2013) compared the use of
hedges contained in sub-chapters of research
articles, such as results and discussion in articles
written in Applied Linguistics and Chemical
Engineering. Afshar and Bagherieh (2014)
compared and contrasted the frequencies of hedges
in abstracts in Persian Literature and Civil
Engineering. Hashemi and Shirzadi (2016)
examined the use of hedges in the discussion sub-
chapter in linguistic articles.
Hinkel (2005) analyzed the types and frequencies
of hedges in essays written by native speaker writers
and non-native speaker writers in English. Yagiz and
Demir (2014) investigated the strategies of using
hedges between English native speakers and non-
native speakers.
Samaie, Khosravian, and Boghayeri (2014)
analyzed the types and frequencies of hedges in the
sub-chapter of introduction written by English native
speaker writers and non-native speaker writers.
Afshar, Asakereh and Rahimi (2014) compared the
frequencies of the use of hedges in the discussion
418
Hidayati, F., Syihabuddin, S. and Sudana, D.
A Pragmatic Analysis of Hedges in Articles on Chemistry, Linguistics and Economics.
DOI: 10.5220/0007168404180422
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 418-422
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
sub-chapter written by English native speakers and
non-native speakers.
Riekkinen (2009) researched hedges in oral
interactions in the context of academic discourse.
Dousti and Rasekh (2016) studied the differences in
the use of hedges in interpersonal interactions
between male students and female students.
2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
The research questions of the study are as follows:
1. What are the distributions of hedges in the
introduction sections of the six articles in the
fields of Economics, Linguistics, and Chemistry?
2. What are the total percentages of hedges used in
the introduction sections of articles written by
male and female writers in the those three
disciplines?
3 DATA COLLECTION
This study investigates the distributions of hedges in
the introduction sections of economics, linguistics,
and chemistry articles. Two articles for each field
were selected, namely by one male author and one
female author from peer-reputable international
journals from 2010 to 2014. There were 6 articles
analyzed consisting of 2 articles on Chemistry, 2
articles on Linguistics and 2 articles on Economics.
4 DATA ANALYSIS
Data were analyzed using following features and
categories synthesized from the features of hedges of
Lakoff (1973), Hyland (1998), Varttala (2001) and
Salager-Meyer (1994) as follows:
a. adverb-based hedge:
roughly, relatively, technically, ... etc.
b. pronoun-based hedge: somewhat
c. adjective-based hedge:
possible, substanstial, reasonable, ... etc.
d. verb-based hedge:
appear, seem, verb-based hedge, ... etc.
e. noun-based hedge:
prediction, implication, possibility, ... etc.
f. modal verb- based hedge:
can, could, may, ... etc.
The above hedges were computed in terms of
disciplines, namely the distribution of hedges across
different disciplines and gender, namely the
distribution of the use of hedges by both male and
female writers to discover which gender used more
hedges. These distribution figures were expressed in
percentages.
5 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
Following is the findings and discussion of the
study. The findings are presented in tabular form.
After that these findings are discussed by comparing
them to the findings of previous studies which
investigated a similar topic. Table 1 describes the
total percentages of hedges in the introduction
sections of economics, lingustics and chemistry. The
table shows that every subject in this research used
hedges in their introduction sections of the research
articles with varying percentages.
With regard to discipline differences, economic
articles were found to be hedged more than the two
other disciplines, namely, linguistics and chemistry.
The table shows that the distribution of hedges in the
introduction sections of economics articles is 7.59
%. Although the number of hedges in economics is
greater than in linguistics (6.27%), this difference is
slight as both economics and linguistics belong to
the soft sciences category. Meanwhile, chemistry
articles which are considered “a hard science” has
the least number of hedges (3.1 %).
This study confirms Hardjanto’s (2016) study
which states that the use of modal auxiliaries, or
hedges in general, tends to be more common in soft
sciences (economics and linguistics) than in hard
sciences (chemistry). Hard sciences such as
chemistry are not expected to hedge as much as
social science and linguistics because it is expected
to present its findings based on pure experiments
with greater certainty. Meanwhile, soft sciences,
namely linguistics and economics tend to be more
discursive and interpretive, more tentative and more
cautious in presenting knowledge claims. The
following table is the distribution of hedges found in
the introduction section of Economics, Linguistics
and Chemistry written by male and female writers:
A Pragmatic Analysis of Hedges in Articles on Chemistry, Linguistics and Economics
419
Table 1: The distribution of hedges in the introduction sections of the three disciplines.
Economics and linguistics belong to social
sciences, also known as “soft” sciences, as they deal
with variables which characterize human behaviour.
It is known that on the rhetorical and stylistic level,
economists tend to mitigate expressions, especially
in the presence of negative judgements. Writers in
linguistics also rely more on personal projections
because data in soft sciences are abstract and appear
to be subjectively analysed. Writers in applied
linguisics are likely to show fuzziness and leave
space for negotiation whereby a sense of politeness
is shown (Tran and Duong, 2013).
This discipline-based variation inthe distribution
of hedges in the introduction sections economics,
linguistics, and chemistry seems to have been caused
mostly by different characteristics between soft and
hard sciences. Varttala (2001, p.248) states that
“different disciplines may not be altogether uniform
when it comes to frequency, forms, and variety of
hedges”. It may be validly stated that chemistry
articles need to argue their claims more strongly as
they are based on pure facts and experiments. Yet
economics and linguistics are considered to be softer
areas of research and it could be more difficult to
make stronger claims in presenting findings in these
two disciplines.
In addition, Hyland (2008) believes that
discipline specificity lies in the use of language. He
No.
Subject
Code
Gender
Discipline
No.
Types of Hedges
Hedges
Percentages
1.
EcM
Male
Economics
1.
adverb-based hedges
1.36 %
2.
adjective-based hedges
0.68%
3.
modal verb-based hedges
0.51%
4.
noun-based hedges
0.34 %
5.
verb-based hedges
0.17 %
2.
EcF
Female
Economics
1.
modal verb-based hedges
1.71 %
4.53 %
2.
verb-based hedges
0.97%
3.
noun-based hedge
0.85 %
4.
adverb-based hedge
0.84 %
5.
adjective-based hedge
0.24 %
Total Distribution of Hedges in the Introduction Sections of the Economics Articles
3.
LiM
Male
Linguistics
1.
noun-based hedge
2.1%
2.
modal verb-based hedge
0.65%
3.
adverb-based hedge
0.64%
4.
verb-based hedge
0.32%
5.
adjective-based hedge
0.32%
4.
LiF
Female
Linguistics
1.
noun-based hedge
0.91%
2.24%
2.
modal verb- based hedge
0.67%
3.
verb-based hedge
0.44%
4.
adjective-based hedge
0.22%
Total Distribution of Hedges in the Introduction Sections of the Linguistics Articles
5.
ChM
Male
Chemistry
1.
modal verb-based hedge
0.54%
2.
verb-based hedge
0.36%
3.
adjective-based hedge
0.36%
6.
ChF
Female
Chemistry
1.
adverb-based hedge
0.92%
2.
adjective-based hedge
0.69%
3.
noun-based hedge
0.23%
Total Distribution of Hedges in the Introduction Sections of the Chemistry Articles
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
420
argues that different disciplines value different kinds
of arguments and also vary in what their readers
already know and how they might be persuaded.
Accordingly, Hyland (2008) believes that chemists
do not write like linguists or economists. He
suggests that disciplines make up a continuum with
hard sciences like natural sciences, for example
chemistry, on the one end and soft sciences such as
economics and linguistics on the other.
Table 2 presents a distribution of hedges across
various disciples employed by both gender types.
Table 2: The total percentages of hedges in the introduction sections of articles written by male and female writers.
Gender
No.
Subject Code
Percentages of
Hedges
Total Percentages
of Hedges
Male
1.
LiM
4.03%
8.35%
2.
ChM
1.26%
3.
EcM
3.06 %
Female
1.
ChF
1.84%
8.61%
2.
EcF
4.53 %
3.
LiF
2.24%
Table 2 shows that there is slight difference
between percentages of hedges of male and female
subjects. Female subjects tend to hedge more than
males but the difference is only 0.26 % and it is not
significant. It can be stated that this study refutes
Yeganeh and Ghoreyshi (2015) that hedging has
been claimed to be a strategy that is used mostly by
female writers than male writers.
In this study, male writers tend to hedge as much
as females, probably apparently because the genre of
the texts is similar, namely scientific texts which
have the same convention that should be followed
by both male and female authors.
6 CONCLUSIONS
This study showed that the distribution of hedges in
the introduction sections of economics, linguistics,
and chemistry which vary due to different
characteristics between soft and hard sciences. In
terms of the number of hedges’ percentages, the first
highest is economics (7.59%), the second is
linguistics (6.27%) and the last is chemistry (3.1 %).
This study confirms Hardjanto (2016) who states
that the use of modal auxiliaries, or hedges in
general, tends to be more common in soft sciences,
such as economics and linguistics than in hard
sciences, such as chemistry. Meanwhile, based on
the types of hedges, it was revealed that the
frequencies of the use of hedges vary from highest to
lowest: noun-based hedges (4.43%), modal verb-
based hedges (4.08%), adverb-based hedges
(3.76%), adjective-based hedges (2.51%) and verb-
based hedges (2.26%). Finally, in terms of gender,
the total percentages of hedges showed that male
subjects is8.35% and female subjects is 8.61%.
This study opposes Yeganeh and Ghoreyshi’s
(2015) findings that state hedging has been claimed
to be a strategy that is used mostly by female writers
than male writers. In this study, male writers tend to
hedge as much as females, probably because the
genre of the texts is similar, namely scientific texts
which have the same convention that should be
adhered to by both male and female authors.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my deep gratitude to
Professor Syihabuddin and Dadang Sudana, Ph.D.,
as my research supervisors, for their patient
guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful
critiques of this research work. I would also like to
thank Dr. Ruswan Dallyono, for his advice and
assistance in revising and editing my paper. My
grateful thanks are also extended to Mr. Iman
Santoso and Ms. Willayana for their help and
support in finishing the paper.
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Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
422