A contrastive study of hedging in English and Chinese academic spoken discourse

Duan, Yuxiang;Degand, Liesbeth
(2025) Pragmatics : quarterly publication of the International Pragmatics Association — Vol. first-online (2025)

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This study sets out to discuss the distribution and linguistic features of hedging strategy, investigating how they are realized in L1 English, English as a lingua franca (ELF), and L1 Chinese within the academic spoken genre. To this end, a systematic procedure for identifying hedging devices was developed, applied to two languages and an international variety. Results indicate functional diversity in hedging conventions, with L1 English exhibiting a colloquial propensity compared to ELF and L1 Mandarin. Conversely, ELF speakers display the highest frequency of hedges but with less diversity. L1 Mandarin speakers show a preference for author-oriented hedges, while L1 English speakers favor audience-oriented ones. The findings are interpreted considering language differences, linguacultural practice, cognitive interpretations, and socio-pragmatic awareness within academic communities. The study also contributes to further discourse analysis and scholarly peer communication by highlighting the importance of hedging in usage-based research.
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Duan, Y., & Degand, L. (2025). A contrastive study of hedging in English and Chinese academic spoken discourse. Pragmatics : quarterly publication of the International Pragmatics Association, first-online. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.24019.dua (Original work published 2025)