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NURTURING HEDGES IN THE ESP CURRICULUM
KEN HYLAND
English Department, City University of Hong Kong, Tatchee Avenue, Hong Kong
There is a popular belief that scientific writing is purely objective, impersonal and informational, designed to disguise the author and deal directly with facts. But while ESP courses often provide the linguistic means to accomplish this invisibility, they often ignore the fact that effective academic writing always carries the individual's point of view. Writers also need to present their claims cautiously, accurately and modestly to meet discourse community expectations and to gain acceptance for their statements. Such pragmatic aspects of communication however are vulnerable to cross-cultural differences and L2 students are rarely able to hedge their statements appropriately. This paper argues that hedging devices are a major pragmatic feature of effective scientific writing and that students should be taught to recognise and use them in their own work. It examines the frequency, functions and realisations of hedges and discussed a range of strategies for familiarising students with their appropriate use. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.
INTRODUCTION
The term hedging was introduced to linguistics by Lakoff (1972) to describe "words whose job it is to make things more or less fuzzy". It has subsequently been used by sociologists to describe a means to avoid face-threatening behaviour and by applied linguistics to discuss devices such as I think, perhaps, might and maybe which qualify the speaker's confidence in the truth of a proposition. In scientific writing these effective and propositional functions work in rhetorical partnership to persuade readers to accept knowledge claims (eg. Myers, 1985). Hedges express tentativeness and possibility in communication and their appropriate use is a critical, although largely neglected, area of scientific discourse.
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how ESP teachers can help develop L2 learners' understanding of the principles and mechanics of the appropriate use of this critical pragmatic feature. First however, I will give a brief overview of hedging in academic writing, sketching its importance and principal means of realisation.
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