Multicultural Education Volume 7, Issue 4, 2021 An Analysis of Native English and Pakistani English Writers’ Use of Hedging in Linguistics Research Asmara Shafqat, Rafique Ahmed Memon & Tafseer Ahmed Khan Article Info Abstract Article History This corpus-based study comparatively investigates the employment of hedging categories and their linguistic items in the discussion sections of linguistic PhD dissertations written by native English writers (NEWs) Received: writers and Pakistani English Writers (PEWs). Based on the analysis of the two corpora (15 PhD dissertations by NEWs; 15 PhD dissertations by February 24,2021 PEWs), overall, findings revealed that NEWs hedge more than their PEWs Accepted: counterparts. However, findings also showed that both groups displayed a high degree of similarity in using the categories of hedging. Both groups April 30, 2021 mainly rely on lexical and hedging to lessen the certainty of their claims and Keywords: arguments, and to a large extent, both groups avoid using adverbs of Hedging, Native English frequency to hedge their claims. Additionally, epistemic and possibility Writers, Pakistani hedging was not primarily used by the two groups. However, NEWs and English Writers, PEWs writers differ in the use of the linguistic items of hedging. It is Academic Writing, suggested that due to the impact of culture and L1, Pakistani L2 writers tend Corpus Linguistics, to be more committed to their claims in order to be more persuasive. Metadiscourse DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4991609 INTRODUCTION Presenting new knowledge and claims is a fundamental function of academic writing in general and PhD dissertations in particular (Flottum et al., 2006). While writing their PhD dissertations, writers are required to make meaningful and convincing claims that involve evidence and proof. At the same time, they need to present their claims and arguments cautiously to persuade their readers. One way to achieve this is possibly through hedges because using this discourse marker allows writers to lessen the strength and certainty of their claims so that they can influence their audience (Hinkel, 2005; Hyland, 2005). Hedging is one of the metadiscourse makers employed by writers to make their arguments less authorial and assertive by mitigating the certainty of their propositions (Lee & Deakin, 2016). Hence, the influence of hedging devices in the text (oral or written) can, in turn, affect the meaning or the conveyed message (Taweel, et al, 2011; Khan, Khan, Ullah, Usman, Farhat, 2020). Hyland (1996) points out that “hedging devices are used to indicate a lack of complete commitment to the truth of the proposition, and a desire not to express the commitment categorically (p.115). Hedging is realized by some linguistic devices, such as modal verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs and so on (Brown and Levinson, 1987). It is speculated in the literature that cross-culture variations influence hedging in academic writing (Vassileva, 2001). For instance, the way Anglo-American writers perceive hedging differs from that of Pakistani- speaking English writers. More specifically, Anglo-American tend to hedge more and thus are less committed to the claim, while Arab L2 writers’ use of hedging is limited because amplification and confirmation are features of the Pakistani discourse (Hinkel, 2005; Ullah, Malik, Zeb, Rehman, 2019). This kind of “cross-cultural misunderstanding” (Vassileva, 2001) has not been investigated in previous studies on the use of hedging by Arab L2 writers and Anglo-American L1 English writers. It is hoped that the findings may contribute to alleviating the cross-cultural misunderstanding that results from the different perceptions of hedging. Accordingly, the present study grew out of the gap as mentioned above in earlier research to investigate the use of hedges categories and their linguistic items in the discussion sections of linguistic theses written by EN and PE writers. A comparison is made between the two groups of writers in term of (1) the total frequency of the use of hedging, (2) the patterns of choice of the different hedging categories and (3) the use of linguistic items of hedging. The main objective of this study is to provide an in-depth description of how hedges and their linguistic expressions are used by EN and PE writers. Hence, a better understanding of how hedges are utilized in academic writing for presenting new claims will be provided for Pakistani L2 writers of English. This will, in turn, contribute 437 to fostering Pakistani L2 writers’ L2 pragmatic competence and strategies of making arguments and claims. To achieve these objectives, this study attempts to answer the following research questions: 1. Do NEWs writers use hedges more than PEWs or vice versa? 2. What are the similarities and differences (if any) between NEWs and PEWs in the use of hedging categories? 3. How are hedges realized linguistically by NEWs and PEWs? THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Definition of hedges It was Lakoff (1973) who first introduced the term “hedging” in writing. Since the notion of hedging has been studied intensively, it seems there is a consensus on the definition of hedging (Hyland, 1996). Lakoff used the term hedging to indicate fuzziness; “for me some of the most interesting questions are raised by the study of words whose job is to make things more or less fuzzy” (p.195). Some researchers used different terms to refer to the term hedging: vagueness, tentative language, indirectness and uncertainty (Hyland, 1998; Varttala, 2001). Hyland, (1996) defined hedging as” the expression of tentativeness and possibility and it is central to academic writing where the need to present unproven propositions with caution and precision is essential” (p.115). In essence, hedges can be referred to as the act of mitigating the strength of claims made by writers. Following Hyland (1995), in this study, hedging is concerned with any language devices used by writers to describe “(1) a lack of complete commitment to the truth value of an accompanying proposition or (2) a desire not to express that commitment categorically” (p.1). Hence, words and expressions like perhaps, seems, I guess, may be, kind of and sort of are different forms of hedging. More examples are given in the following section. Taxonomy of hedging Different researchers have categorized hedges in different ways. For example, based on their functions, Prince et al. (1982) classify hedging into two types; shields and approximators. The former refers to “hedging devices that do not affect the truth-conditions but reflect the degree of speaker’s commitment to the truth-value of the proposition” (e.g., I think, appear) (Markannen & Schroder, 1997, p.12). By contrast, approximators are hedging devices that affect the truth condition, affecting the content itself (e.g., according to) (Markannen & Schroder, 1997, p.13). Salager-Meyer’s (1994) taxonomy is a further classification of hedges whereby she added three categories to Prince et al.’s (1982). This classification includes shields (e.g., might, seem, probably, suggest), approximators (e.g., approximately, occasionally), expressions of the authors’ personal doubt and direct involvement (e.g., I believe, to our knowledge), emotionally-charged intensifiers (e.g., extremely difficult, absolutely interesting) and compound hedges (e.g., it may suggest that …, It would seem likely that …) (Salager- Meyer’s, 1994, pp. 154-155). However, these two taxonomies are debatable because they were based on medical corpora, and they are certainly influenced by the nature of the discipline (Varttala 1999). Another classification to be presented here is Hyland's (1994) classification of hedging based on the grammatical classes. This taxonomy consists of “modal verbs (e.g. can, may, might), lexical verbs (seem, suggest, believe), modal adverbs (often, occasionally, a bit), modal adjectives (few, hardly, just) and modal nouns (possibility, assumption, estimate)” (Hyland, 1994, p.244). Noticeably, this classification is not comprehensive as it does not include assertive pronouns and downtoners, so that it was not considered as an analysis framework for the current study. Based on both the functions of hedging and part of speech, Hinkel (2005) classifies hedges into six categories: epistemic, lexical, possibility, downtoners, assertive pronouns, and adverbs of frequency. Hinkel (2005, p. 39) provided a further explanation for her six-way classification in the following way: 1. epistemic hedges refer to the limitations of the writer’s knowledge (e.g. potentially, probably); 2. lexical hedges are similar to epistemic hedges but cannot modify phrases (e.g. many, several); 3. possibility hedges can also include probability (e.g. perhaps, hopefully); 4. downtoners function to delimit meaning and emotive implication of nouns, verbs, and adjectives (e.g. at all, a bit); 5. assertive pronouns can modify noun phrases (e.g. anybody, somebody); and 6. adverbs of frequency whose vagueness makes them “ubiquitously function as hedges” (e.g. daily, frequently). Since this classification was based on a study conducted on L1 and L2 essays written by native and nonnative speakers of English, including Pakistani-speaking learners of English, it is obtained in this study, and thus, the corpora data were analyzed according to the hedging categories and their linguistic realizations presented in Table 1. In addition, full verbs category items appeared in the corpora, and they were not included in Hinkel’s classification, so