Hedging: Recent Trends in Written Academic Discourse
Hedging: Recent Trends in Written Academic Discourse

Summary/Abstract: This article reviews the most recent literature on hedging in written academic discourse by focusing on research carried out in the 21st century in order to provide an overview of the current state of research and to identify opportunities for further studies in the field. Besides reinforcing the idea that hedges are rhetorical strategies with polypragmatic functions aimed at facilitating the acceptance of knowledge claims in written academic discourse, this theoretical analysis reveals the existence of new perspectives in the study of hedging. These novelties mainly refer to the increased focus on the use and interpretation of hedges by native vs. non-native speakers of English, the role of cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary variation and the response of the target readers to hedging in written academic discourse.

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