文章基本信息

标题：A Contrastive Study of Hedging in Medicine Research Articles
本地全文：下载
作者：Jaza Arjmand ; Jalil Fat’hi
期刊名称：International Journal of English and Education
印刷版ISSN：2278-4012
出版年度：2015
卷号：4
期号：3
页码：203
出版社：Brahmaputra Publishing House
摘要：As far as academic writing is concerned, hedging is used as an important linguisticfeature which is concerned with the connotation of tentativeness, possibility and uncertainty.Hedging is used to minimize the potential risk of a claim or prevent embarrassing situations incase one might be found to be wrong. The purpose of the current study was to compare andcontrast the frequency and types of hedges in Introduction sections of medicine ResearchArticles (RAs) written by English Research Writers (ERWs) and Iranian Research Writers(IRWs) who write in English. In so doing, fifty English RAs (twenty-five written by ERWs andtwenty-five by IRWs) in the field of medicine from 16 leading journals were selected andanalyzed. The used criterion for analysis was Salager-Meyer (1994) taxonomy. Concerning thehedging categories proposed by Salager-Meyer (1994), the data analysis indicated that therewas no significance difference between the use of hedging categories, namely, compounds,approximators, and emotionally-charged expressions, in Introductions of RAs written byIranians and English native scholars in medicine. However, the findings suggested that there is asignificant difference between the use of hedging, regardless of the distribution and percentagesof the categories, in medical article Introductions written by Iranians and English scholars. Theresults of the study have implications for ESP writing pedagogy as far as instructional practiceand material development are concerned. The instruction of specific rhetorical structures andparticular features of the texts in a particular genre can be of great value for the development ofESP students' ability to communicate their research findings more effectively within thediscourse community.