The Hedges In English Final Project Abstracts Of The Students Of Undergraduate Degree Of Stikubank University.

Abstract

Hedging is theexpression of tentativeness and possibly in language use and its crucial toscientific writing where statements are rarely made without subjectiveassessment of truth but a scientific academic writing is hard without hedgesfor expressing precisely.             The study aims at finding out the relative frequency of each type and thefunction of hedges used in Abstracts of theStudents of Undergraduate Program of Stikubank University. The writer used descriptivequalitative method. The data were taken from 10 graduate’s theses from period of 2010-2011. The findings show the highest frequency of types ofhedges found in the abstract section is modal auxiliary (29.5%).The other hedges occurances are Full VerbsNon-Factive Reporting Verb and Adjective ofIndefinite Frequency (2.3%), Tentative Linking Verb (4.5%), TentativeCognition Verbs (11,4%), AdverbialsAdverbials of Indefinite Frequency (9%), Adverbials Approximative Adverbials (11.4% ),Question (6.8%), Other Hedges (22.8%)and 0 % for Adverbials ProbableAdverbials,  Adverbials of IndefiniteDegree, Adjective Probable Adjective, Adjective of Indefinite Degree,Approximative Adjective, Nouns Non-Factive Assertive Nouns, Tentative CognitionNouns and Noun of Tentative Likelihood. Moreover, thewriter found functions of the hedges towards proposition (81.1 %), towardsreaders (13.5%) and toward writer(5.4%). Consideringthe significance of hedges in academic discourse, the students are expected tobe able to use hedges effectively. The students had better avoid or minimizethe hedges used in writing scientific research, especially in making theirabstracts of the theses, but if it is hard to be avoided, the students may usehedging devices appropriately.