<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Hedges and boosters are important metadiscoursal devices contributing to the construal of persuasion in academic discourse as they enable academic writers to distinguish facts from opinions, evaluate the views of others and convey a different degree of commitment to their assertions (cf. Hyland 1998a, Hyland 2004, 2005). This study explores cross-cultural variation in the use of lexical hedges and boosters in the academic discourse of non-native writers. The study is carried out on a specialized corpus of linguistics research articles published in the international journal Applied Linguistics and the national Czech English-medium journal Discourse and Interaction. The main purpose of the cross-cultural investigation is to analyze variation in the rate, distribution and choice of hedges and boosters across the rhetorical structure of research articles in order to shed light on ways in which Anglophone and Czech writers express different degrees of commitment in their assertions when striving to persuade their target readership to accept their views and claims. </p></abstract>

Hedges and boosters are important metadiscoursal devices contributing to the construal of persuasion in academic discourse as they enable academic writers to distinguish facts from opinions, evaluate the views of others and convey a different degree of commitment to their assertions (cf. Hyland 1998a, Hyland 2004, 2005). This study explores cross-cultural variation in the use of lexical hedges and boosters in the academic discourse of non-native writers. The study is carried out on a specialized corpus of linguistics research articles published in the international journal Applied Linguistics and the national Czech English-medium journal Discourse and Interaction. The main purpose of the cross-cultural investigation is to analyze variation in the rate, distribution and choice of hedges and boosters across the rhetorical structure of research articles in order to shed light on ways in which Anglophone and Czech writers express different degrees of commitment in their assertions when striving to persuade their target readership to accept their views and claims.

Cross-Cultural Variation in the Use of Hedges and Boosters in Academic Discourse

English Linguistics at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic

Prague Journal of English Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

{"article-title":"Cross-Cultural Variation in the Use of Hedges and Boosters in Academic Discourse"}

Hedges and boosters are important metadiscoursal devices contributing to the construal of persuasion in academic discourse as they enable academic writers to...

Cross-Cultural Variation in the Use of Hedges and Boosters in Academic Discourse

Publié en ligne: 17 sept. 2016

Pages: 163 - 184

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2016-0009

Mots clés
Boosters, hedges, metadiscourse, research article, cross-cultural variation

© Faculty of Education, Charles University

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Cross-Cultural Variation in the Use of Hedges and Boosters in Academic Discourse

Publié en ligne: 17 sept. 2016

Pages: 163 - 184

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/pjes-2016-0009

Mots clésBoosters, hedges, metadiscourse, research article, cross-cultural variation

© Faculty of Education, Charles University

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Mots clés
Boosters, hedges, metadiscourse, research article, cross-cultural variation