Err On The Side Of Caution

Résumé: n the last decades, academic writing received an immense attention from scholars and researchers from various strands of thought. Hedging, like many other metadiscourse strategies, piqued the attention of several researchers working on both the spoken and written discourse. Hence, the present study is mainly concerned with examining the use of hedging device among Algerian researchers in their published research articles. To narrow down the scope, the main aim is to have a precise examination of the use of hedges in terms of their frequency and functions in the discussion sections of Algerian academic research articles. Thus, a corpus-based study was conducted to achieve this aim operating both quantitative and qualitative methods. Therefore, a sample of 20 discussion sections was selected from the linguistics and literature RAs, which were published in Algerian Scientific Journal Platform national website. Two models, Vartalla (2001) of hedging forms and Hyland (1994) of hedging functions, were adopted in order to investigate the frequency and functions of hedges respectively. The findings indicate that modal auxiliaries were the most frequent hedging devices in the corpus, while nouns were the least hedges employed. The second main result was demonstrated in the heavy use of Content Oriented hedges, which represented more than half of the total number of the hedges found in the corpus. These results call for an implication for curriculum designers, teachers and students to make an effort in familiarizing hedging devices and showing their importance in the world of academic writing.

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