MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING QUY NHON UNIVERSITY PHAN THỊ CẨM TÚ HEDGING DEVICES USED IN ENGLISH SPEECHES BY PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN ON THE COVID-19 Field: English Linguistics Code: 8 22 02 01 Supervisor: Bùi Thị Đào, Ph.D BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC QUY NHƠN PHAN THỊ CẨM TÚ CÁC PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG CÁC BÀI PHÁT BIỂU TIẾNG ANH CỦA TỔNG THỐNG JOSEPH BIDEN VỀ COVID 19 Chuyên ngành : Ngôn ngữ Anh Mã số: 8 22 02 01 Người hướng dẫn: TS. Bùi Thị Đào i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby declare that I am the sole author of the MA thesis entitled ―Hedging devices used in English speeches by President Joseph Biden on the Covid -19‖. The thesis contains no material published elsewhere or written by other people except where reference is made in the text of the thesis. Moreover, this research has not been submitted for any other degree or diploma at any university.
Quy Nhon, 2022 PHAN THỊ CẨM TÚ ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The completion of this study is the result of not only my efforts but also other assistance of individuals to whom I would like to express my special gratitude. Firstly, I am deeply grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Bùi Thị Đào, who has supported me with her endless patience, thoughtful guidance and comprehensive advice during the whole period of the study. Without her instructions, this thesis would have been impossible to be completed.
Secondly, I am also thankful to all the lecturers of the courses for their valuable lectures and experiences, which provide essential knowledge for this thesis. Thirdly, my gratitude is devoted to my colleagues and close friends for their kind support and warm encouragement, without which I could not have overcome all the trouble during the fulfilment of this study. Finally, I owe my whole family a debt of gratitude, especially my parents, who always stand by me and provide me with emotional support and great care while my thesis was in process and have helped me overcome many unexpected difficulties during the course and the thesis. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them.
iii ABSTRACT Based on Salager-Meyer‘s classification framework, the present study aimed to investigate the linguistic devices which act as hedges used in 10 speeches made by President Joseph Biden on COVID-19. The main purpose of the study is to explore kinds of hedging devices in speeches to find out the most dominant type of hedging devices and the frequencies of the hedging devices are identified in the speeches of the President Joseph Biden experience the world in COVID-19. The study is a combination of qualitative, quantitative, descriptive, analytic, and synthetic method. The results indicate that modal auxiliaries verbs, which is the most frequently used hedging device in President Joseph Biden‘s speeches and the most frequently used hedging device subcategory is the modal auxiliary ―will‖.
The findings of the study could serve as data for further understanding. To learners, this kind of hedging devices is proved to be one of the effective instruments for improving their English skills in general and in communication in particular. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES. vii LIST OF FIGURE. AIMS AND OBJECTIVE.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY. SCOPE OF THE STUDY. ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY. AN OVERVIEW OF HEDGES AND PREVIOUS STUDIES.
DEFINITIONS OF HEDGES. TYPES OF HEDGES. Modal auxiliary verbs. Modal lexical verbs.
Adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrases. Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency and time .2 DESCRIPTION OF DATA. DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURES. VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY.
36 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. AN OVERVIEW HEDGING DEVICES TYPES EXPLORED FROM THE DATA. Modal auxiliary verbs .2 Modal lexical verbs .3 Adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrases .4 Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency and time. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS.1 REVIEW OF FINDINGS IN THE STUDY.
LIMITATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES .4 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES. 61 APPENDIXES vi ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS (a) Abbreviations Adj.: Adverbs HD: Hedging devices AFT.: Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency and time (b) Conventions - Boldface is used to mark the first use of technical terms. - Italics are used for examples, emphasis, and technical terms. vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 The categories and some examples of hedging words.
Distribution of Hedging types. Frequency and percentages of modal auxiliaries. Frequency and percentages of modal lexical verbs. Frequency and percentages of adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrases.
Frequency and percentage of approximators concerning degree, quantity, frequency and time. Frequency and percentages of introductory phrases. Frequency and percentages of if clauses. 53 viii LIST OF FIGURE Figure.
Set model for modal verbs, auxiliary verbs and verbs. Distribution of Hedging types. Frequency and percentages of modal auxiliaries. Frequency and percentages of modal lexical verbs.
Frequency and percentages of adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrases. Frequency and percentage of approximators concerning degree, quantity, frequency and time. Frequency and percentages of introductory phrases. RATIONALE It has been widely accepted that communication plays an important role in daily life conversation.
In order to be a successful communicator, a speaker must be aware of not only what to say but also how to say it appropriately. Thus, in a conversation, besides informative content of an utterance, speakers often use devices to attenuate or reinforce the utterances of the speech act. One of the devices is hedges which are expressed to avoid misunderstanding or negative reaction to speaker‘s speech and contribute to the flexibility and continuation for a conversation as well as achieve communicative purposes. Human often face with many real-life difficult situations that they cannot express straightly what they are thinking clearly.
In those situations, it is very necessary for the speakers to have tactful communicative skills and strategies. It is the issue of effective communication that deal with for creating and using of hedges. Channel (1994: 3) states that ―one of the most useful and enduring insights to come out of the recent study of language use is that speakers and writers tailor their language to make it suitable to the situation (when, where and why?)‖ and ―the linguistic context (is it gossipy chat, an interview, a story in a popular newspaper?. Lakoff (1972: 90) explains that ―in order to show their femininity, women tend to adopt an unassertive style of communication.
That is, they must learn to denude their statements of declarative force.‖ He also further describes that ―women‘s speech lacks 2 authority.‖ His studies devoted to the domain has demonstrated and, roughly speaking, agreed upon the validity of hedging devices in strengthening the statements by weakening the claims. Sandell (1977: 5) explains that in order to achieve the same effect with different speakers, i. to make them react in a uniform manner, the skilled sender changes his wording with each different utterances so as to conform to their different frames of meanings. Still, his conception of the topic of the message is as unchanging as the effect he desires on one part of the hearers.
Nevertheless, this does not imply that these different wordings would have the same effect on a single individual, which makes it important to distinguish between inter individual and intra individual identity (or similarity) of meanings, and to research if one and the same nominal meanings, differently styled in a message, will carry out intra individually different meanings, particularly regarding those aspects in which we call persuasive effects. By reasons of similarity and utterance, it is possle to purport that indetermination, indirectness, vagueness are different strategies or means of the same phenomenon hedging. To a certain extent, all these means do share certain pragmatic functions. In recent years, together with the increasing infectious diseases on covid- 19, great efforts of presidents in Vietnam and elsewhere have been made in order to prevent and cure.
The information on covid-19 in presidents‘ speeches is constantly updated with various hedging devices to help people avoid spreading diseases. Hedging is considered as not only one mechanism whose main meaning is related to the tone, attitude, and information within speeches, but a communicative strategy in form of pragmatic competence which plays a central role in delivering the intended message of the speaker as well. Getkham further stated that hedging devices are one of the important requirements 3 which help speakers to maintain objectivity in their language production. One way through which this requirement can be realized is utilizing hedges.
Hedging in speeches from pragmatic perspective is still an area available for more exploration. This study, the author adopts the viewpoint of Palmer (2003: 331) that hedge devices are words and phrases that ―certain prosodic and paralinguistic features, having the effect of damping down the force of what is said, and are valuable resources for speakers;‖ and Brown & Levinson (1987: 145) that hedge devices are ―particles, words or phrases that modify the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete than perhaps might be expected.‖ Moreover, Salager-Meyer (1994:150) defined that hedges are associated with ―purposive vagueness and tentativeness.‖ The meanings of hedge verbs are to reduce the risk of negation. Hedges have been given different classifications by different researchers (Crompton, 1997; Hyland, 1996, 1998; Myer, 1989; Salager-Meyer, 1994). One of the most important ones is that of Hyland (1996).
Hyland (1996: 430) suggested three types of hedging: ―content-oriented‖ hedges, ―reader-oriented‖ hedges and ―writer- oriented‖ hedges. ―Content-oriented‖ hedges are further subdivided into ―accuracy-oriented‖ and ―writer-oriented‖ hedges. Accuracy-oriented hedges are utilized to ―qualify the accuracy of a part of the proposition, while writer- oriented hedges are used to ―reduce the commitment of the speaker to the proposition in order to protect against the threat of negation‖. On the other hand, a ―reader-oriented‖ hedges is ―an acknowledgement of the reader‘s right to make judgments and to engage in a dialogue.‖ Besides, hedging is considered as an integral and important tool in 4 writing discourse.
Less attention has been made on hedging in different disciplines or genres in speeches. All the above reasons, an insightful investigation into “Hedging Devices used in English Speeches by President Joseph Biden on the COVID-19” has chosen as a potential subject to help people master pragmatic features of hedging devices used in speeches so that they can achieve a sufficient foundation of knowledge to make their speeches successful and persuasive, avoid misunderstanding. AIMS AND OBJECTIVE 1. Aims This study aims to investigate hedging devices through analyzing speeches by President Joseph Biden on the COVID-19.
Objective This study is intended to fulfill the following objectives: - To identify and classify hedging devices used in speeches by President Joseph Biden on the COVID-19 - To explore the frequencies of the hedging devices used in those speeches 1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS To achieve the aims and objectives of the study, the following research questions are raised: 1. What are types of hedging devices used in speeches of President Joseph Biden on the COVID-19? 2. What are the frequencies of the hedging devices identified in those speeches? 5 1.
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The outcome of this study is expected to bring an insight into the use of hedging devices in English speeches by President Joe Biden. Also, the analysis of types of the hedging devices in those speeches is hoped to bring some pedagogical implications to the teaching and learning of English. The learners are expected to earn the benefits from the results of analysis to have a sufficient knowledge and understanding about hedges so that they can identify hedges in each study. SCOPE OF THE STUDY This study is focused on the analysis of common hedging devices in ten speeches by President Joseph Biden on the COVID-19.
