A Study of Hedges Used in the Discussion Sections of Journal Articles in the Field of Linguistics

This study focused on hedges used in discussion sections of journal articles in the field of linguistics. This study analyzed the types of hedges and functions of hedges used by authors in journal articles. The data were classified and analyzed based on the theory proposed by Hyland (1994, 1996). This study was conducted using a descriptive qualitative approach. The source of data is fourteen journal articles in the field of linguistics, while the data are hedging devices in the form of words, phrases or clauses found in discussion sections of journal articles. The method of collecting data used is content analysis method proposed by Khotari (2004). The findings showed there were seven types of hedges used by authors. The first is modal verbs (58 data); the second is lexical verbs (22 data); the third is modal adjectives (17 data); the fourth is modal adverbs (13 data); the fifth is reference to limited knowledge (6 data); the sixth is reference to limitations of model, theory or method (2 data), and the last is reference to limiting condition (2 data). Meanwhile, there were two functions of hedges used by authors. They are content-motivated hedges which consists of accuracy-based hedges (88 data) and writer-based hedges (23 data) and reader-motivated hedges (9 data).