خلاصة:
Hedges are recognized to be of great significance in research articles
since they are the tools to which the academic writers resort in order to
give an appropriate representation of their findings. Many variables such
as language, discipline, culture and language proficiency can influence
the frequency of hedges in research articles. This study, however, focuses
on the role of gender in the frequency of hedges and aims to investigate
whether there is any difference between Iranian males and females in the
use of these devices. To this end, 60 applied linguistics research articles
by Iranian females and males from well-organized journals were
randomly selected and the analyses of the hedges were based on
Hyland’s (1996a) model. The results of this study showed that there is a
significant difference between males and females. Men make use of more
hedges than women. Moreover, the findings showed that the discussion
section of the articles included more hedges than the introduction section.
ملخص الجهاز:
Keywords: hedges, gender differences, Iranian applied linguistics research articles, hedging devices, introduction, discussion *Assistant Professor, Imam Hossein University, Tehran, Iran -Received on: 26/06/2013 Accepted on: 04/12/2013 Email: dr.
e. research articles and scientific texts (Hyalnd, 1994, 1995, 1996b; Salager-Meyer, 1994; Varttala, 2001; Vold, 2006) and on the other hand, trying to find gender differences in relation to this linguistic feature (Dixon & Foster, 1997; Holmes, 1986, 1990; Tannen,1990, 1994).
On the other hand, "most research on gender and language has focused on oral communication, typically examining conversational dominance and largely concluding that men and women make different use of linguistic resources available to them in interactions" (Tse & Hyland, 2008, p.
Many studies (Brown & Levinson, 1987; Ghafarsamar & Alibakhshi, 2007; Ha, 2009; Holmes, 1986) have focused on the use of linguistic forms in the language of men and women in different kinds of written and spoken discourse, but no study has been conducted on Iranian men’s and women’s use of hedging in their writing.
Accordingly, the main question of this study is if there is any significant difference between Iranian men and women in the use of hedging devices in their applied linguistics research articles.
This study also investigated the distribution of hedges in two sections of introduction and discussion in the applied linguistics articles by Iranian men and women writers.
This study aimed to fill in the gap and examined the role of gender differences in the use of hedges in the Introduction and discussion sections of applied linguistic research articles written by Iranian men and women writers.