A Pragmatic Analysis of Hedging Devices in English Literary and Linguistic Articles by Iraqi Authors

Abstract

Hedging is a term of uncertainty and vagueness used by writers to mitigate and weaken the strength of their assertion and claim. Hedging is used as a method to convey ideas and arguments appropriately to develop good academic writing. However, The misuse of hedging devices would cause unsuccessful communication between writer and reader, hence ill-formed academic writing. This study aims to find out the use of hedging devices and their pragmatic functions in Iraqi Authors' English Literary and Linguistic Research Articles. To this end, a qualitative method of analysis is used based on Hyland’s (1998) classification of hedging devices. Thirty research articles were selected from Iraqi interdisciplinary journals’ fifteen articles for each field of literature and linguistics. The findings have shown that hedging devices were used more in literary articles than in linguistic articles. It has been found that literary articles used hedges 1000 times distributed in three main parts of articles: introduction (163 / 16.3%), discussion (679 / 67.9%) and conclusion (158 / 15.8). However, hedging devices have been found 759 times in the linguistic articles: Introduction (143 / 18.84%), discussion (470 / 61.92), and conclusion (146 / 19.24%). Hedging devices were most frequently used in the discussion section than in the introduction and conclusion sections in both literary and linguistic articles. Finally, the study implicates further application of hedging devices in both EFL and ESL contexts