The Use of Hedging Devices in Scientific Text An Analysis of Some Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

The term ''Hedging'' was first introduced by Lakoff (1972) to describe words whose job is to make things more opaque. It mainly represents the absence of certainty. Hence it is an important strategy to be used in scientific writings in order to lessen the commitment of introducing theories and conclusions.To the best of our knowledge, there is no study conducted about the use of hedges in scientific texts written by Iraqi EFL scholars. We are still unaware of the type of hedges these scholars employ in their writings and what functions they intend to achieve behind using such devices.