Hedging
- Formal hedges employed in academic writing
- Formal hedges not employed in academic writing
- Hedging & modality
Academic texts are most frequently characterised by a desire to avoid making claims and statements that are too direct and assertive, since academic discourse is often about theories, conclusions drawn from evidence, exchanging viewpoints, and so on, rather than hard, indisputable facts. Therefore, hedging (making a proposition less assertive) is very important in academic styles. Less often, it is sometimes also necessary to assert a claim or viewpoint quite directly and more confidently, a process we shall refer to as boosting.
Hedging and boosting are principally realised through modal expressions and through the use of simple tense forms. We also examine the role of adverbs and other constructions in asserting (boosting) and hedging.
Formal hedges employed in academic writing
about generally relative to according to (+ noun) likely roughly apparent(-ly) merely seemingly approximate(-ly) most (+ adjective) slightly arguably nearly somehow broad(-ly) normal(-ly) somewhat clear(-ly) partially sufficiently comparative(-ly) partly surely essential(-ly) potential(-ly) theoretically evidently presumably
typically fairly probably
unlikely frequently relative(ly)
usually
It was, arguably, the strongest leadership the department had ever had and it used its resources well.
They are both from roughly the same period in the middle of the sixteenth century.
Yet, seemingly for Bakhtin, though material forces no doubt exist, what determines that we know about them at all are intersubjective human relations.
Common prepositional phrases and other expressions used as hedges include the following.
as a (general) rule
broadly speaking
generally speaking
in a sense
in a way
in most cases / in the majority of cases
in principle
in some senses
in some respects / in many respects
roughly speaking
Survey researches have as a rule understandably preferred to make use of established diagnostic categories, rather than have to develop their own new ones and then try to persuade clinicians to accept these.
[critique of a collection of political essays]
Thus the essays were, in a sense, out of date when they appeared, yet the cultural tradition which they articulate and to which they contribute remains a part of the German scene to this day.
Formal hedges not employed in academic writing
actually more or less
anyway more in a way pretty kind of
something like lots of
sort of
maybe like
Informal lexical hedges are often considered inappropriate in formal academic writing, although individual instructors may be somewhat flexible with regard to their uses. According to Kay (1997), lexical hedges includes prepositional modifiers of nouns, verbs, and whole sentences that are particularly vague and mark a shortage of factual information or knowledge. For example,
*Before this turning point in the history of industrial production, everything was sort of undefined and sporadic. They just ran production using their own intuitions with a more or less successful manufacturing. ...As a result, lots of creations could not be accomplished. This kind of working didn't hurt companies because there were not many competitors to share the market.
*This summary more or less encapsulates the thesis advanced by Glynn in his new and wide-ranging history of arms races and arms control.
The uses of such hedges as sort of, kind of, or lots in a formal academic assignment may actually create an impression that the writer is only vaguely familiar with the subject matter and is unable to cite specific information to make his or her text credible. The prior excerpt demonstrates that the student has a general idea of the history of industrial production, but did not make much effort or take the time for an in-depth study of the material.