چکیده:
The expression of doubt and certainty is crucial in academic writing where the authors have to distinguish opinion from fact and evaluate their assertions in acceptable and persuasive ways. Hedges and boosters are two strategies used for this purpose. Despite their importance in academic writing, we know little about how they are used in different disciplines and genres and how foreign language writers present assertions in their writing. This study explores the use of hedges and boosters in the research articles of two disciplines of Electrical Engineering and Applied Linguistics. It further examines the use of hedges and boosters by native and non-native writers of English in these research articles. Based on a corpus of twenty research articles, the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were calculated across four rhetorical sections (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion) of the research articles. The analysis shows that the overall distribution of hedges and boosters in Applied Linguistics articles is higher than Electrical Engineering articles. Moreover, there are significant differences between native and non-native writers in the use of hedges and boosters. These findings may have some implications for the teaching of academic writing especially to EFL learners.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Non-Native Research Articles in Applied Linguistics and Engineering Farahman Farrokhi Safoora Emami University of Tabriz The expression of doubt and certainty is crucial in academic writing where the authors have to distinguish opinion from fact and evaluate their assertions in acceptable and persuasive ways.
The limited number of studies which are conducted in this area have shown that there are some variations in the use of hedges and boosters across disciplines (Hyland, 1998; Varttala, 2001) and rhetorical sections of research articles (Salager-Meyer, 1994; Vassileva, 2001).
Genre-based approaches to analysis of texts and exploration of the use of textual strategies such as hedges and boosters in different disciplines and between native and non-native writers have pedagogical implications for teaching academic writing and English for Specific or Academic Purposes.
It investigates the use of hedges and boosters in four rhetorical sections (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion) of Electrical Engineering (henceforth EE) and Applied Linguistics (henceforth AL) research articles.
Procedures of Data Analysis One of the main objectives of this study is to examine the occurrence of hedges and boosters across the two disciplines of EE and AL and four rhetorical sections of research articles: Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion.
Another aim is to identify the differences between native and non-native writers in the use of hedges and boosters across these two disciplines and four rhetorical sections of research articles.
Rhetorical Distribution The frequency of hedges and boosters was computed per 1,000 words in the Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion sections of EE articles written by native and non-native writers.