English modals as hedges and boosters in academic and journalistic articles

• Main Author: Hashim, Siti Afifah
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Asian Scholars Network 2023
• Subjects: PE English
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/113493/7/113493_English%20modals%20as%20hedges%20and%20boosters.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/113493/; https://myjms.mohe.gov.my/index.php/ajress/article/view/24073/13523; https://doi.org/10.55057/ajress.2023.5.3.35

There has been much focus given on hedges and boosters in academic papers. Hedges and boosters are linguistic devices comprising both grammatical and lexical features and are used to establish direct engagement with the readers. Many studies have come to the conclusion that hedges are used in academic papers to avoid overstatement of claims, a strategy that provides some room for the readers to disagree with the claim made by the writers. Boosters, on the other hand, are linguistic devices used to make the writers’ deliberations sound more assertive, again though in a contrastive vein, a strategy to make readers understand that the claim made is true. This study, using Huffman’s Probability model & Hyland’s Interactional model of Metadiscourse, seeks to examine the use/function of modals as hedges and boosters. Additionally, the study examines the distribution of these hedges and boosters in two different genres; academic and journalistic. Inferential statistics is used to determine if significant differences exist between the two genres in authors' use of modals as hedges and boosters. For the purpose of the analysis, thirty academic articles from TESOL Quarterly and thirty journalistic articles from The Economist were examined. The findings showed boosters are more common in journalistic articles; hedging, on the other, is more prominently used in academic articles.