Hedging in Research Ariticles about English Language Teaching Written by Thai and Native Speakers of English

Abstract

This research aims to explore the extent to which hedging expressions are used by Thai and native English authors in a corpora of research articles. The hedging devices investigated include modal verbs. lexical verbs, adjectives, adverbials, nouns, It/There introductory phrases. and compound of these hedging in each research article section. The findings revealed that Thai authors tended to use fewer and more limited items and means for expressing hedging in academic writting than native authors. Hedging expressions were frequently employed in the discussion section of research articles, and were employed the least in the method section. Modal verbs, lexical verbs, and asverbials were the three most common characteristics of hedging found in the corpora.