The Use and Frequency of Hedges in Applied Linguistics Papers Written by Male and Female Scholars: A Gender-based Comparison

E. Daryaee Motlagh¹

Section:Research Paper, Product Type: Journal-Paper
Vol.7 , Issue.1 , pp.16-21, Jan-2021

Online published on Jan 31, 2021

Copyright © E. Daryaee Motlagh . This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 

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Abstract :
The current article follows Hyland’s model to identify and further examine textual discrepancies reflected by the usage and recurrence of hedging devices. More specifically, articles composed by language scholars of both genders were chosen in this study to draw a gender-based comparison based on the analysis of article sections that may comparatively contain recurring hedges. To this end, sixty-six academic papers published over the last few years in well-organized journals were first reviewed on a random basis. Then, the introductions and discussions that were written by male and female scholars were selected and studied separately to record the frequency of hedges. Finally, the distribution, forms, categories and functions of hedging devices were analyzed in the highlighted sections with reference to Hyland’s model. The findings indicate asymmetric preferences in utilizing hedges, lexical verbs, adjectives and modal verbs among highly competent male and female authors. The results also contradict the general assumption in gender-linked studies of language conducted previously which suggested that hedges are characteristic of women’s language or appear mainly in their discourse.

Key-Words / Index Term :
Hedges, Gender differences, Hedging devices, Research articles, Applied linguistics

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