Hedging in Scientific Research Articles

Pragmatics & Beyond New Series #54

by Ken Hyland

Hedging is central to academic writing as it expresses possibility rather than certainty and collegiality rather than presumption. It is one means by which writers manage this pragmatic dimension of discourse and this text attempts to shed light on the use of hedging in published scientific papers. The author argues hedges are employed to overcome the inherent negatability of statements and gain the reader's acceptance of a knowledge claim; hedges can emphasize an orientation to either the proposition or the reader; the epistemic and affective functions of hedges are often conveyed simultaneously and that this indeterminacy prevents the formation of discrete descriptive categories; and hedging in scientifc research writing is the product of informational, rhetorical and personal choices and cannot be fully understood in insolation from its social and institutional contexts.

Hardcover

First published March 15, 1998

About the author

Ken Hyland is Professor of Applied Linguistics in Education at the University of East Anglia. He is a Foundation Fellow of the Hong Kong Academy of the Humanities and an Honorary Professor at Warwick University, Jilin University and Hong Kong University.