Hedging in the Results and Discussion Section of English Applied Linguistics Research Articles by Vietnamese and Foreign Writers

Abstract

Hedging in academic writing in general and in research article (RA) in specific has a vital role in enabling writers to minimize their opposing claims and negotiate the meaning. Nevertheless, hedging can be different from one discipline to another and from culture to another. This study, therefore, aims at examining the deployment of hedges in the Results and Discussion (R-D) section of English Applied Linguistics (AL) RAs by Vietnamese writers and their foreign counterparts. Two corpora consisting of 30 RAs written by Vietnamese writers and the other 30 ones by foreign writers were collected. The results revealed that both Vietnamese and foreign writers deployed hedges in the R-D section of English AL RAs at a similar frequency. Moreover, they shared common senses of utilizing the hedges’ types and functions in the R-D section of English AL RAs. This study has confirmed that the norms and practices of the AL, a soft science, were common among non-native English writers regardless of their culture-bound.