Teaching academic reading: some initial findings from a session on hedging

Abstract

In academic English, hedging devices mark the writer’s attitude(s) to both proposition (i.e. content) and audience and are thus an important and pervasive feature in academic discourse. However, second language learners seem to have some difficulty assessing qualification and certainty in the writer’s commitment to a claim and sometimes fail to notice hedges (Hyland 2000b). The present paper presents data from a sess ion on hedging, part of an academic reading course in an Agricultural college in Portugal. Conscious-raising activities were designed to encourage learners to be aware of hedges as ways of modulating propositional content. It is suggested that becoming familiar with hedging as a writing convention of academic English may possibly facilitate reading of academic texts.

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