Tài liệu Hedging and boosting in results and discussion section of english applied linguistics research articles by vietnamese and foreign writers

BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY TANG BA THIEP HEDGING AND BOOSTING IN RESULTS AND DISCUSSION SECTION OF ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES BY VIETNAMESE AND FOREIGN WRITERS MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8 22 02 01 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE BINH DUONG PROVINCE - 2020 BINH DUONG PROVINCIAL PEOPLE’S COMMITTEE THU DAU MOT UNIVERSITY TANG BA THIEP HEDGING AND BOOSTING IN RESULTS AND DISCUSSION SECTION OF ENGLISH APPLIED LINGUISTICS RESEARCH ARTICLES BY VIETNAMESE AND FOREIGN WRITERS MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8 22 02 01 MASTER THESIS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE SUPERVISED BY TRAN QUOC THAO (PhD) BINH DUONG PROVINCE – 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis of Master of Arts in English linguistics would not be done without any assistance from professors, teachers, colleagues, friends, relatives, and family. Therefore, I gratefully give great acknowledgement to their supports and motivations during the time of conducting the research as a requirement of completing my thesis. First and foremost, I would like to express my special appreciation, sincerest gratitude and profound thanks to my supervisor, Dr. Tran Quoc Thao, who took a profound interest to my thesis. His timely guidance and comments had been invaluable, important and necessary to me during the process of conducting the study. Moreover, his generous contributions and suggestions were greatly added to the quality of the thesis. Second, my sincerest gratitude is sent to all teachers in charge of postgraduate programs at Thu Dau Mot University, particularly Dr. Tran Thanh Du, without their generous suggestions and supports, this thesis would have been impossible to be completed. Third, a great number of special thanks are sent to all my friends and colleagues for their kindly help, care, and motivations during the time I conducted the current study. Finally, I would like to address my deepest thanks to my parents, my wife and my children for their endless love and care. Their assistance and motivations helped me to conduct my research to standard as it is. i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify my authorship the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled “Hedging and Boosting in results and discussion section of English applied linguistics research articles by Vietnamese and foreign writers” in terms of the statements of requirements for Thesis in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. This Thesis has not previously been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions. Binh Duong, October 2020 Tăng Bá Thiệp ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Tăng Bá Thiệp, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts, accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library. I agree that the original of my Master’s Thesis deposited in the University Library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan and reproduction for theses. Binh Duong, October 2020 Tăng Bá Thiệp iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENT .................................................................................... i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .................................................................... ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS ..................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................... iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................ vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................ viii LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................ ix ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 1.1. Background to the study.................................................................................. 1 1.2. The problem statements .................................................................................. 4 1.3. Aims and objectives of the study .................................................................... 5 1.3.1. Aims of the study .......................................................................................... 5 1.3.2. Objectives of the study ................................................................................. 5 1.4. Research questions .......................................................................................... 5 1.5. Scope of the study ........................................................................................... 6 1.6. Significances of the study ............................................................................... 7 1.6.1. Theoretical contributions ............................................................................. 7 1.6.2. Practical contributions................................................................................. 7 1.7. Definitions of key terms .................................................................................. 8 1.8. Organization of the study ................................................................................ 9 CHAPTER 2 ....................................................................................................... 10 LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................. 10 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 10 2.2. Hedges…... .................................................................................................... 10 2.2.1. Definitions of hedges .................................................................................. 10 2.2.2. Types of hedges .......................................................................................... 13 2.2.3. Functions of hedges.................................................................................... 16 iv 2.3. Boosters ...................................................................................................... 20 2.3.1. Definitions of boosters ............................................................................... 20 2.3.2. Types of boosters ........................................................................................ 21 2.3.3. Functions of boosters ................................................................................. 25 2.4. Hedges and boosters in academic writings ................................................... 26 2.5. Review of previous studies ........................................................................... 30 2.5.1. Foreign sources .......................................................................................... 30 2.5.2. Local sources ............................................................................................. 33 2.6. Conceptual framework of the study .............................................................. 34 2.7. Summary ...................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3 ....................................................................................................... 37 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................. 37 3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 37 3.2. Research design ............................................................................................. 37 3.3. Materials ...................................................................................................... 38 3.4. Data collection procedures ............................................................................ 39 3.5. Data analysis procedures ............................................................................... 40 3.6. Framework for data analysis ......................................................................... 43 3.7. Validity and Reliability ................................................................................. 44 3.7.1. Validity ....................................................................................................... 44 3.7.2. Reliability ................................................................................................... 45 3.8. Summary ...................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 4 ....................................................................................................... 47 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ........................................................................ 47 4.1. Introduction ................................................................................................... 47 4.2. Results ...................................................................................................... 47 4.2.1. Frequency of hedges and boosters in the corpora ..................................... 47 4.2.2. Types of hedges in categories .................................................................... 48 4.2.3. Types of boosters in categories .................................................................. 56 4.2.4. Functions of hedges in R&D section in AL research articles .................... 61 v 4.2.5. Functions of boosters in R&D section in AL research articles ................. 66 4.2.6. Similarities ................................................................................................. 70 4.2.7. Differences ................................................................................................. 78 4.3. Discussion ..................................................................................................... 80 4.4. Summary ...................................................................................................... 87 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION ............................................... 88 5.1. Summary of the main findings ...................................................................... 88 5.2. Implications ................................................................................................... 89 5.3. Limitations of the study ................................................................................ 90 5.4. Recommendations for further research ......................................................... 90 REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 90 APPENDICES ...................................................................................................... 1 Appendix A: List of hedges and boosters .............................................................. 1 Appendix B: Sample of concordance ..................................................................... 5 Appendix C: Sample of analysis of functions ........................................................ 6 Appendix D: Samples of R&D section in AL research articles ............................. 7 Appendix E: 30 English AL research articles written by VWs ............................. 8 Appendix F: 30 English AL research articles written by FWs ............................ 13 vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AL Applied Linguistics AWFWs Articles Written by Foreign Writers AWVWs Articles Written by Vietnamese Writers ELT English Language Teaching EFL English as Foreign Language F Frequency FWs Foreign Writers VWs Vietnamese Writers R&D Results and Discussion vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2. 1. Holmes' (1988) taxonomy of hedges and boosters ............................ 22 Table 2. 2. Hyland's (2004) taxonomy of boosters .............................................. 23 Table 2. 3. Hinkel's (2005) category of boosters ................................................ 23 Table 2. 4. Yagiz and Demir’s (2015) category of boosters ............................... 24 Table 2. 5. Demir's (2016) taxonomy of boosters ............................................... 24 Table 2. 6. Hinkel's (2005) taxonomy of boosters in functions ........................... 26 Table 3. 1. Source of corpora in the current research ........................................ 38 Table 3. 2. Size of corpus used in the present research ...................................... 39 Table 3. 3. Category of hedges (compiled and adapted)..................................... 43 Table 3. 4. Hinkel (2005) taxonomy of boosters in functions ............................ 44 Table 4. 1. Frequency and percentage of hedges and boosters .......................... 47 Table 4. 2. Distribution of hedges in categories ................................................. 49 Table 4. 3. Distribution of hedges in category of modal verbs ........................... 50 Table 4. 4. Distribution of hedges in category of lexical verbs .......................... 51 Table 4. 5. Distribution of hedges in category of adverbs .................................. 52 Table 4. 6. Distribution of hedges in category of adjectives ............................... 53 Table 4. 7. Distribution of hedges in category of nouns ..................................... 54 Table 4. 8. Distribution of other hedges .............................................................. 55 Table 4. 9. Hinkel's (2005) category of boosters ................................................ 57 Table 4. 10. Frequency of boosters in categories ............................................... 57 Table 4. 11. Distribution of boosters in category of universal pronouns ........... 58 Table 4. 12. Distribution of boosters in category of emphatics .......................... 59 Table 4. 13. Distribution of boosters in category of amplifiers .......................... 60 Table 4. 14. Frequency of pragmatic function of hedges .................................... 74 Table 4. 15. Frequency of hedges in the corpora per 1000 words in types ........ 81 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2. 1. Varttala’s (1998) category of hedging devices ................................ 15 Figure 2. 2. Hyland's (1996a, 1998a) categorization of scientific hedges .......... 17 Figure 2. 3. Conceptual framework of the current research ............................... 35 Figure 4. 1. Summary of frequency of hedges in the research ............................ 56 Figure 4. 2. Frequency in percentage of modal verbs in the corpora................. 70 Figure 4. 3. Frequency of lexical verbs in the corpora ....................................... 71 Figure 4. 4. Frequency of adverbs as hedges in the corpora .............................. 72 Figure 4. 5. Frequency of adjectives as hedges in the corpora .......................... 72 Figure 4. 6. Frequency of nouns as hedges in the corpora ................................. 73 Figure 4. 7. Frequency of other hedges in the corpora ....................................... 73 Figure 4. 8. Comparison of universal pronouns in types .................................... 75 Figure 4. 9. Comparison of emphatics in types ................................................... 76 Figure 4. 10. Comparison of amplifiers in types ................................................. 76 Figure 4. 11. Frequency and percentage of boosters in the corpora .................. 77 ix ABSTRACT In academic writing, hedges and boosters play crucial roles in stating problems, facts or claims in any fields with the objectives to minimize authors’ opposing claims and enable them to use cautious, polite, or modest strategies and negotiations in which there may be their acknowledgements about flaws in statements. The increasing usage of hedges and boosters in academic writing, especially in research articles, has recently attracted researchers to find out the functions as well as the similarities and the difficulties of hedges and boosters. The purpose of this research is to examine the use of hedges and boosters in Results and Discussion section of research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers. To conduct the research, two corpora referred to linguistics consist of 30 research articles written by Vietnamese writers and 30 ones by foreign writers. The research was mainly conducted with mixed methods and contrastive analysis approach design to explain and discuss the results. The results revealed that both foreign writers and Vietnamese writers used mostly modal verbs and lexical verbs as hedges, foreign writers used more hedges than Vietnamese writers, but foreign writers used fewer boosters than Vietnamese writers. Besides, there were similarities and differences in use of hedges and boosters between foreign writers and Vietnamese writers. This research has pedagogical implications in terms of hedges and boosters for teachers, learners and writers. Keywords: hedging, boosting, applied linguistics x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION In this chapter, the background of the research is discussed by focusing on the use of hedges and boosters in the general academic writing and research articles. Next, it refers to the problem statements of the study. Then it shows the purpose of the study and the research questions which will be analyzed in Chapter 4. Finally, the scope, the significance of the study and the definitions of terms are mentioned afterwards. 1.1. Background to the study For many years, hedges and boosters have become phenomena in academic writing (Holmes, 1984, 1988; Salager-Meyer, 1994, 1997; Hyland, 1996a, 1998a, Markkanen, 1997; Varttala, 1999, 2001; Demir, 2015, etc.) especially in research articles. Strict regulations in academic writing and formal styles may cause readers to find it difficult to present and interpret their ideas and points of view. In scientific research, academic writing forms plays a crucial role in presenting the study to readers. Besides, Ferris (1994) remarked that academic writing in research helps researchers showed the point of view and defend it. That means to use appropriate words to persuade readers to agree with authors. There are needs to have some kinds of word that can help researcher to defend their points of view while still help them use the probability and certainty to their claims. Hedges and boosters are choices as Hyland (2004) stated that writers might resort to detach from claims due to the use of hedge and booster. Lakoff (1972) first introduced the notion of hedge as “words whose job is to make things fuzzy” (p.195). This description of hedge refers to the term of hedge in linguistic language or academic writing. On the other hand, in terms of booster, the expression of certainty seems to be the core to the rhetorical character of academic writing in most of the scientific research. It is important that scientific research need and accept the claims or statements by getting the 1 conviction with caution, the confidence with reliability, or the uncertainty about something. Contrary to the points of view about the concept of hedges that Lakoff (1972) stated above, Round (1981) claimed that “hedges are not used simply to cover oneself and to make things fuzzy, but can be used to negotiate the right representation of the state of the knowledge under discussion to achieve greater preciseness in scientific claims” (p.151). Communication is one of the main goals of using English in verbal or non-verbal form (e.g. spoken or written discourse). Writers, especially in scientific research, strive to overcome the shortcoming in foreign language (English in this case) to persuade readers or listeners to understand the point of view of the related issues as well as try to defend their point of view in any fields they want. To reach this aim, hedges may be the most appropriate language devices that can be used in research (Coast, 1987; Holmes, 1995). Hedges seem to appear more and more frequent in research articles or scientific research for their roles of argumentation to defend the researchers’ points of view. Moreover, they can present the new knowledge or make the conversation or argumentation keep going on. Round (1982) stated that hedging was a basic feature in academic discourse to enable the writers to show their certainty or doubt referring to their statement. Hyland (1998) asserted that writers or speakers seemed not to pay much attention to hedges as well as their functions in the use of difficult disciplines or genres. Crystal (1995) reminded of the lack of research on hedging for long time before. It seemed that the interest in modality and hedging in research literature or research articles have not been reflected in pedagogical material. In most of the scientific research about hedges and boosters, writers often focus on the use of hedges and boosters in one or more than one section: For instance, the abstract, the introduction, the methodology, the conclusion, or combining two sections in an research article. In an research article, the results and discussion section (R&D) is the most important section of a scientific research because it 2 reflects the writers’ points of view, represents their results and discusses the findings after the process of conducting a research. Additionally, writers also have to defend their opinions, points of view about scientific results. Referring to the importance of hedges and boosters in Discussion section, Hyland (1998a) stated that the Discussion section helped writers “highlight findings and situate them in a context of a wider body of knowledge by relating the results to the work of others” (p.33). Hyland (2000) referred to hedges and boosters as a significant way to express the confidence of author in academic writing. In one hand, boosters, such as “clearly, obviously” show expressions of uncertainty in an issue, hedges, on the other hand, such as “seem, appear” are the expressions of doubt to the propositional information (p.179). Skelton (1988) stated that “without hedging, the world is purely propositional, a rigid (and rather dull) place where things either are the case or are not. With a hedging system, language is rendered more flexible and the world more subtle” (p.38). More specifically, Hyland (1998c) conducted a research to find out how hedges were used in different disciplines. Data for the research was collected from 28 articles in four disciplines including microbiology, astrophysics, marketing and applied linguistics. Based on Crismore et al.’s (1993) taxonomy of hedges and boosters, Hyland (1998c) claimed his results of his study about hedges that hedges were used more frequently in Applied Linguistics (AL) than those in other disciplines. According to Hyland (1998a), hedges and boosters are communicative strategies used to increase or reduce the force of writers’ statement. Hedges and boosters can modify the claims or propositions the writers claimed before, conveying the appropriate mutual attitude between writers and readers, reducing uncertainty in their utterances or claims to emphasize that what they believed or stated to be correct or accurate. A hedge, an epistemic device, is often used to express epistemic modality and to modify the illocutionary force of speech acts (Holmes, 1988). On the 3 other hand, a booster is used for writers to express the beliefs, strong claims and mark their involvement and solidarity with authors. Hedges and boosters are now accepted as important devices that promote and help writers have positive outcomes in academic writing in research articles. When writers employ hedges and boosters in their academic writing, readers can see an essential element of academic argument because writers try to include their claims and argumentation through their writing research articles (e.g., Hyland, 1998, Tran and Duong, 2013). Moreover, writers can demonstrate a more sophisticated level of academic writing, engage in fewer risk of negation (Tran and Duong), and provide more intellectually valuable contribution to the research articles. Given the above-mentioned reasons, there is a strong need to conduct the research “Hedging and Boosting in Results and Discussion section of English Applied Linguistic Research Articles by Vietnamese and foreign writers”, in order (1) to examine hedges and boosters and their usage in research articles, (2) to find out their functions in-depth study, and (3) to explore the similarities and the differences in types, frequencies and functions in research articles. 1.2. The problem statements Whereas hedges and boosters employed in research articles may be crucial to effectiveness of academic writing works, to the best knowledge of the researcher, no prior research has examined the role that the functions, the similarities, and the differences of hedges and boosters play in R&D section in AL research articles. Failure by prior researchers to address or refer to this issue is unusual because theoretical overviews of hedges and boosters consider its influence on readers, help them get fewer negations, and make the articles more valuable. In AL research articles, the R&D section plays an important role in reporting the results, negotiating, and presenting argumentation with partners, other researchers, or readers. Using the precise epistemic devices, hedges and boosters, in these situations is the core of persuasive academic writing. In Vietnam, English is considered as an important disciplinary in most of the fields. 4 However, it is not considered as a second language, but foreign language. This makes Vietnamese writers (VWs) find it difficult to apply correctly hedges and boosters in their works, especially in research articles. The evidence is that there have not been many studies of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles in Vietnam so far. A great number of studies on hedges and boosters were conducted by many researchers in many fields, these researchers focused on all rhetorical sections, but not R&D section only. Accordingly, a study of hedges and boosters is appropriate to fill the gap at present. This study focuses on R&D section and tries to find out the use, functions, similarities and differences of hedges and boosters in types, frequencies and functions in AL research articles. 1.3. Aims and objectives of the study 1.3.1. Aims of the study This study aimed to examine the use of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs. 1.3.2. Objectives of the study In order to achieve the aims of this study, the following objectives must be accomplished.  To find out the hedges and boosters used in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and foreign writers (FWs).  To analyze the functions of hedges and boosters used in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs.  To explore the similarities and differences in types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in R&D section in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs. 1.4. Research questions The current study was designed to seek for convincing answers to the following questions: 5 1. How are hedges and boosters used in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers? 2. What are the functions of hedges and boosters used in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers? 3. What are the similarities and differences in types, frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in Results and Discussion section in English applied linguistics research articles written by Vietnamese and foreign writers? 1.5. Scope of the study The study was designed to examine the use or frequencies of hedges and boosters in grammatical and functional classifications in R&D sections in AL research articles written by VWs and FWs with the corpus of 60 AL research articles in English. In addition, the functions of hedges and boosters were explored in the process of data analysis. Finally, the similarities and differences of hedges and boosters in the usage and function in R&D section were explored. The conceptual framework for this research was based on Hyland’s (1996a, 1998a) taxonomy of hedges in function and a list of hedge words, which is adopted from the previous studies such as Holmes’ (1984, 1988), SalagerMeyer’s (1994), Hyland’s (1994, 1996, 1998a, 2000), Vassileva’s (1997, 1998), Varttala’s (2001), was extracted, compiled and shortened to adapt the research. The frequencies, functions, similarities, and differences of boosters were examined by using Hinkel’s (2005) taxonomy of boosters with an accompanied list of booster words. The limit of the research is that the number of hedge and booster words was reduced in minimum quantities in accordance with the degree of the Thesis of Master of Arts. Hopefully, a great number of studies on hedges and boosters will be soon conducted to fill up this gap in the AL field. 6 1.6. Significances of the study The importance of epistemic modality in academic writing and AL research articles has documented through many previous studies in disciplinaries or fields such as academics, environment, engineering, chemical, etc. Milton and Hyland (1999) stated that the study of hedges and boosters and the appropriate use of these devices was “central to the process of weighing fact and evaluation, which is at the heart of academic writing” (p.147). The study may stimulate further research and further contribute to filling to the exist gap in the field of academic writing in research articles. 1.6.1. Theoretical contributions Communicators or writers will apply a new smooth method for listeners or readers to get transmitted information with a little requirement of cognitive activities. The study shows that there is a considerable importance in usage of epistemic modality or hedges and boosters. The findings can help writers compare the epistemic devices used in sections of AL research articles written by VWs and FWs. In addition, the study may help VWs or learners to identify the similarities and differences in use of hedges and boosters in AL research articles, showing the possibility of effective applications of epistemic modality devices in the linguistics fields in Viet Nam. 1.6.2. Practical contributions Writers will find out the appropriate approaches or methods to use hedges and boosters in academic writing. The appropriate usage of hedges and boosters can be suggested as an item under content related to errors in forms of writers’ feedback that is used in academic writing or AL research articles. Moreover, that may encourage writers to stress on the significance of hedges and boosters in academic writing. Writers or English learners feel confident when they communicate with English speakers or foreigners on presenting their points of view about issues or unfamiliar topics that they do not know in advance. 7 Researchers or writers can use hedges and boosters in precise ways to write more effective and internationally standard research articles in academic writing, applied linguistics and linguistics fields in general. 1.7. Definitions of key terms It has been obvious in the above of the introduction section that the research will be implemented to find out the use of hedges and boosters, their functions, and the differences between hedges and boosters in AL research articles. Therefore, some key terms in this study are defined as follows: A hedge refers to a word, a phrase such as may, might, can, could, perhaps, seem to suggest, probably, etc. (Hyland, 1998a) which is considered as an explicit linguistic device or concerning degrees of probability and “serve as a bridge between the propositional information in the text and writer’s factual interpretation” (Salager-Meyer, 1993, p.127). In text, the positive or negative politeness strategy of hedge can be used as shields to protect the addressers and therefore, reduce the commitment to the proposition. A booster refers to a word or a phrase showing or denoting full commitment to the truth value to that commitment. For example, Hyland (1998a) defines “booster are communicative strategies for increasing the force of statements… [they represent] a strong claim” (p.350). A research article refers to academic papers written in academic form, especially in the field of AL, like articles published in registered magazines or journals: Applied Linguistics, ELSEVIER, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Learning, Linguistics and Literature, Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, ResearchGate. Besides, there is a magazine containing AL research articles written in English by VWs and published in Vietnam such as LANGUAGE & LIFE. A results and discussion section refers to what a researcher will find in his or her study and how he or she will discuss the findings, the implications, and the relevance of the study. 8