“Hedging in biomedical research articles: learning how to write science in English L2”

 

The appropriate use of hedging in scientific discourse is a vital skill for writers presenting their knowledge within an academic discourse community and much work has therefore been done on this relevant feature, especially on its use in the rhetoric of medical texts. However, some authors believe that there are considerable differences in styles of writing in particular cultures (e.g., see Connor and Kaplan 1987, Mauranen 1993b and Valero-Garcés 1996), and in fact some others see non-native speakers, in particular, fail to modulate their writing (Bloor 1991, Bazerman 1988, Hyland 2001). Therefore, hedging seems a difficult device to use for learners of English as a foreign language and especially, L2 writers of science.

In this paper I will examine the range of expressions in English and Spanish biomedical research articles that are commonly known as hedging: expressions whose aim is either 1) to allow scientists to present their knowledge cautiously and introduce claims, 2) to encourage dialogue with the audience and facilitate discussion, 3) to qualify categorical commitment or 4) to avoid author's involvement due to the impossibility to reach absolute accuracy of facts. At first, hedging typical realisation might be considered to be the modal verb forms. Modals, however, are not the only hedging devices available. This study based on a corpus of 10 Research Papers (RP) in English and 10 RP and 10 Case Reports (CR) in Spanish sets out to find reasons behind the existence of the wide range of hedging realisations. Drawing upon Swales (1990) genre analysis framework, it will be shown that hedging features are related to linguistic forms through functional and conventional associations. These will be presented through two semantic networks (one for English and another for Spanish) showing the factors influencing the choice of expression. With these networks I aim i) to explain the meanings conveyed by each realisation, ii) to expose the similarities and differences between Spanish and English hedging devices in biomedical research papers iii) to show how 40 Engineering students from UPC perceived hedging functionality in Spanish and English specialised texts. This linguistic analysis would benefit not only from contrasting hedging in different languages but also from observations of this complex phenomenon by learners of English as a foreign language and especially, L2 writers of science.

This paper will start by explaining what hedging is, what classifications of hedging have been offered in the literature, and where – within those classifications – our corpus fits. A brief overview of the data used will then be provided and the remaining sections of this paper will show the preliminary results of this study. The results of my study will be presented as follows: firstly, I will focus on the linguistic forms and present the hedging expressions found in the data. I will then show that functional features explain the appropriateness of the most frequent realisations found in the data. Afterwards, I will focus on the associations between the situation and the form, showing the factors that influence the choice of expression and formalising them in a semantic network that can be a useful tool for text generation. Finally, the results for both languages will be compared, establishing similarities and differences between Spanish and English. Thus, providing L2 English learners with such pedagogical implications as the processing and systematisation of hedging functionality, toward the acquisition of its use strategy in specialized texts.