earticle

영어

The purpose of the study was to reveal cultural and linguistic differences in hedging for the purpose of enhancing the pedagogy of writing instruction for English language learners. Thirty research article introductions were selected from two journals in the field of ESL/EFL education, English Teaching from Korea and TESOL Quarterly from the United States. The results showed that Korean writers tended not to hedge their statements to such a great extent, but are assertive, whereas Korean writers writing English introductions and native English-speaking writers appeared to favor hedging; more frequent use of hedging appeared in indicating a research gap in the field or announcing the implications of the study. For native English-speaking scholars in this study, hedging was considered a polite device in academic writing to gain acceptance for their statements, whereas Korean scholars considered hedging an indication of authors’ uncertainty. These differences can be utilized in teaching so as to enable students studying English to make appropriate choices about the way they write research papers in English.