Hedging and Discourse

Hedging and Discourse
Author: Raija Markkanen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2010-10-06
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110807335

Hedging and Discourse

Hedging and Discourse
Author: Raija Markkanen
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 300
Release: 1997
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9783110155914

This volume reviews the present state of researchin heding and contains studies of heding strategies in English, German, Finnish and Russin, using various academic text-types as exemplars. The papers deal with aspects of 'hedging' from the perspective of intercultural contact, particularly in foreign language learning, writing in the foreign language, and translation. concept of breakthrough.

New Approaches to Hedging

New Approaches to Hedging
Author: Gunther Kaltenböck
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2012-11-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9004253246

Hedging is an essential part of everyday communication. It is a discourse strategy which is used to reduce commitment to the force or truth of an utterance to achieve an appropriate pragmatic effect. In recent years hedges have therefore attracted increased attention in Pragmatics and Applied Linguistics, with studies approaching the concept of hedging from various perspectives, such as speech act - and politeness theory, genre-specific investigations, interactional pragmatics, and studies of vague language. The present volume provides an up-to-date overview of current research on the topic by bringing together studies from a variety of fields. The contributions span a range of different languages, investigate the use of hedges in different communicative settings and text types, and consider all levels of linguistic analysis from prosody to morphology, syntax and semantics. What unites the different studies in this volume is a corpus-based approach, in which various theoretical concepts and categories are applied to, and tested against, actual language data. This allows for patterns of use to be uncovered which have previously gone unnoticed and provides valuable insights for the adjustment and fine-tuning of existing categories. The usage-based approach of the investigations therefore offers new theoretical and descriptive perspectives on the context-dependent nature and multifunctionality of hedges.

Hedging in Scientific Research Articles

Hedging in Scientific Research Articles
Author: Ken Hyland
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 319
Release: 1998-03-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027282587

This book provides a comprehensive study of hedging in academic research papers, relating a systematic analysis of forms to a pragmatic explanation for their use. Based on a detailed examination of journal articles and interviews with research scientists, the study shows that the extensive use of possibility and tentativeness in research writing is intimately connected to the social and institutional practices of academic communities and is at the heart of how knowledge comes to be socially accredited through texts. The study identifies the major forms, functions and distribution of hedges and explores the research article genre in detail to present an explanatory framework based on a complex social and ideological interpretive environment. The results show that hedging is central to Scientific argument, individual scientists and, ultimately, to science itself. The importance of hedging to student writers is also recognised and a chapter devoted to teaching implications.

Language and Woman's Place

Language and Woman's Place
Author: Robin Tolmach Lakoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 2004-07-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 019534717X

The 1975 publication of Robin Tolmach Lakoff's Language and Woman's Place, is widely recognized as having inaugurated feminist research on the relationship between language and gender, touching off a remarkable response among language scholars, feminists, and general readers. For the past thirty years, scholars of language and gender have been debating and developing Lakoff's initial observations. Arguing that language is fundamental to gender inequality, Lakoff pointed to two areas in which inequalities can be found: Language used about women, such as the asymmetries between seemingly parallel terms like master and mistress, and language used by women, which places women in a double bind between being appropriately feminine and being fully human. Lakoff's central argument that "women's language" expresses powerlessness triggered a controversy that continues to this day. The revised and expanded edition presents the full text of the original first edition, along with an introduction and annotations by Lakoff in which she reflects on the text a quarter century later and expands on some of the most widely discussed issues it raises. The volume also brings together commentaries from twenty-six leading scholars of language, gender, and sexuality, within linguistics, anthropology, modern languages, education, information sciences, and other disciplines. The commentaries discuss the book's contribution to feminist research on language and explore its ongoing relevance for scholarship in the field. This new edition of Language and Woman's Place not only makes available once again the pioneering text of feminist linguistics; just as important, it places the text in the context of contemporary feminist and gender theory for a new generation of readers.

Hedging in Academic Writing

Hedging in Academic Writing
Author: Angela Gräßer
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
Total Pages: 55
Release: 2014-02-13
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 3656593671

Examination Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, University of Augsburg, language: English, abstract: Hedging, ein Begriff der jüngeren Sprachwissenschaft, der sich sowohl auf semantisch-kognitive wie pragmatische Mittel und Strategien des Sich-nicht-festlegen-wollens oder -könnens bezieht, wird in der vorliegenden Studie als interpersonale Textstrategie verstanden, die den Restriktionen der, so die These, in den beiden untersuchten Sprachgemeinschaften geltenden tradierten Normen unterliegt. [...] Die thesengeleitete Untersuchung der 10 englischen und 10 spanischen linguistischen Fachaufsätze [...] führen zu erwartbaren, aber auch unerwarteten Ergebnissen. Unterschiede sind vor allem in Bezug auf den Grad der interpersonal-kooperativen Ausrichtung auf den Rezipienten zu konstatieren. Anglophone SchreiberInnen wenden sich häufiger unmittelbar an ihre LeserInnen, indem sie beispielsweise direkter auf sich selber als AutorInnen verweisen, während in den spanischen Texten nicht vorwiegend, aber doch auffällig oft unpersönliche Konstruktionen, einschließlich des pronominalen pluralis modestiae auftreten. Insofern bestätigt sich die eingangs aufgestellte Hypothese, dass AutorInnen dieses Kulturkreises "more conservative" sind. Allerdings, auch das zeigen die empirischen Befunde, ist eine Annäherung an die anglophonen Konventionen des hedging in den spanischen akademischen Publikationen nicht zu übersehen. Vorsichtig, aber sofort einsichtig formuliert die Verfasserin daher abschließend: "[It] may be true that the overwhelming influx of the English language in nearly every realm of academic discourse has indeed altered the conventions in 'academic' Spanish" (S. 41). (Auszug aus dem Gutachten der Zulassungsarbeit; ausgestellt von Prof. Dr. Wolfram Bublitz)

Culture and Styles of Academic Discourse

Culture and Styles of Academic Discourse
Author: Anna Duszak
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2011-06-24
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3110821044

TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS is a series of books that open new perspectives in our understanding of language. The series publishes state-of-the-art work on core areas of linguistics across theoretical frameworks as well as studies that provide new insights by building bridges to neighbouring fields such as neuroscience and cognitive science. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS considers itself a forum for cutting-edge research based on solid empirical data on language in its various manifestations, including sign languages. It regards linguistic variation in its synchronic and diachronic dimensions as well as in its social contexts as important sources of insight for a better understanding of the design of linguistic systems and the ecology and evolution of language. TRENDS IN LINGUISTICS publishes monographs and outstanding dissertations as well as edited volumes, which provide the opportunity to address controversial topics from different empirical and theoretical viewpoints. High quality standards are ensured through anonymous reviewing.

Understatements and Hedges in English

Understatements and Hedges in English
Author: Axel Hübler
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 203
Release: 1983-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027225311

The goal of this monograph is a comprehensive analysis of understatements and other forms of non-direct speech (hedges) in modern English. It is based on a multi-level approach, including philosophical, cultural, and socio-psychological arguments. The main part consists of an investigation of the linguistic restrictions for understatements and hedges to be formed by means of the following grammatical categories: negation of predicates, gradation of predicates, modalization of affirmative sentences by means of parenthetical verbs, modal adverbs, modal verbs, and questions.