VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYỀN A STUDY OF HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN GONE WITH THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL (Nghiên cứu các phương tiện rào đón trong các cuộc hội thoại của tác phẩm Cuốn theo chiều gió của nhà văn Margaret Mitchell) M. THESIS Field: Linguistics Code: 60.15 HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---*****--- NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYỀN A STUDY OF HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN GONE WITH THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL (Nghiên cứu các phương tiện rào đón trong các cuộc hội thoại của tác phẩm Cuốn theo chiều gió của nhà văn Margaret Mitchell) M. THESIS Field: Linguistics Code: 60. TRẦN XUÂN ĐIỆP HANOI – 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents.
iii List of tables. v List of figures. vii PART 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the research and research questions.
Implications of the research. Scope of the research. Definitions of hedge. Classification of hedging devices and hedging functions.
Hedges versus conversational maxims and politeness strategies. About Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. 17 Findings and Discussions. Overview of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
Analysis of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind. 19 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Analysis of modal hedges. Analysis of performative hedges.
Analysis of quantificational hedges. Analysis of pragmatic-marker hedges. Analysis of tag questions, subjunctives and depersonalization. Functional analysis of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind.
Speaker-oriented function of hedges. Accuracy-oriented function of hedges. Hearer-oriented function of hedges. Recapitulation of main ideas of the research.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies. 42 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Taxonomy of hedging devices by Salager-Meyer (1994) Table 2: Summary of hedging functions and the devices used to express them by Hyland (1998) Table 3: Taxonomy of hedging devices by Yu (2009) Table 4: Hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind Table 5: Modal hedges: modal aux., and epistemic lexical verbs Table 6: Quantificational hedges: approximators of quantity, frequency, degree, and ―negation + intensifier‖ Table 7: Pragmatic-marker hedges: interpersonal and propositional Table 8: Other minor types of hedging devices: subjunctives, tag questions, and depersonalization LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Distribution of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind Figure 2 Distribution of modal hedges Figure 3 Distribution of performative hedges Figure 4 Distribution of quantificational hedges Figure 5 Distribution of pragmatic-marker hedges Figure 6 Distribution of other minor types of hedging devices Figure 7 Distribution of functions of hedging devices LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii ABBREVIATIONS Adj. Adverbs IPM Interpersonal pragmatic markers n Number p.
Page PPM Proportional pragmatic markers LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART 1: INTRODUCTION This part will briefly present the rationale of the research, indicate the research purposes and research questions, and finally outline the organization of the study as a whole. Rationale It is widely accepted that making frictions in human beings‘ everyday interaction within a community is almost inevitable. In order to reduce such a friction and maintain peace and social harmony, there are certain strategies that should be followed. One of these strategies is ―hedging‖.
Introduced for the first time by Lakoff in 1972, the term of ―hedge‖ was generally understood as ―words whose job is to make thing fuzzier or less fuzzy‖. Since its appearance, hedges have received a great deal of attention in conversation analysis where such devices are used to create conviviality, facilitate discussion, or show politeness (Holmes, 1984; 1995). Hedging has also been associated with conveying purposive vagueness (Powell, 1985) and as a means of achieving distance between the speaker and what is said (Skelton, 1997). Being an interesting linguistic phenomenon, hedges have been concerned by a number of linguists.
However, as a matter of fact, Yu (2009: 34) indicated that the majority of hedge studies are found to be concerned with academic or scientific writing, including genres such as economics (Pindi and Bloor, 1986; Channell, 1990), science digests (Fahnestock, 1986), medical discourse (Salager-Meyer, 1991; 1993; 1994; Adams-Smith, 1984), molecular genetics articles (Myers, 1989), and news-writing (Zuck & Zuck, 1986; 1987). The field of spoken discourse, in contrast, seems to receive a comparatively limited number of comprehensive and thorough investigations. Hence, with the hope of contributing to enrich the literature of researches on hedging in spoken discourse and to shed some light on the hedging phenomenon in American everyday LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 conversations by investigating linguistic realization of hedging, pragmatic functions and some linguistic features of identified hedges, the author of the present paper decided to carry out the study entitled ―A study of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell‖. In addition to certain theoretical contributions, the study is expected to have certain implications in language teaching when various linguistic expressions would be used to serve as valuable examples for hedging demonstration at work.
Aims of the research and research questions As mentioned earlier, the present research aimed to investigate linguistic devices of hedging, their linguistic realization and their major pragmatic functions in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. The present study attempts to address the following research questions: What are main hedging devices employed in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell? What are major functions of identified hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell? 3. Implications of the research Both theoretical and practical implications may be offered by the findings of the present study. From the theoretical perspective, this study may serve as an additional source of empirical studies on hedges in a way that it indicated different types of hedging devices used in everyday conversations to achieve different pragmatic effects and proved the possibility of utilizing the combined polypragmatic functions of hedges to investigate hedging phenomenon in spoken discourse.
In terms of practical perspective, the present study may serve certain samples as a source of authentic materials in learning and teaching hedging devices and functions of hedges since a text-based approach is believed to be a key dealing with the lack LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 of pragmatic competence of non-native speakers in communication with native ones. Scope of the research First, although communication comes with paralinguistic and extra-linguistic factors, the present study is restricted to the verbal mode of hedging. That is to say, the prosodic features (speed, tone, loudness, etc.) and the kinesic mode (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) are outside the research scope. Adjacency pairs, in addition, are also beyond the scope of the investigation.
Second, though pragmatic functions of hedging in spoken discourses are believed to be realized through different communicative strategies without using hedging expressions, such as saying sorry, showing regret, expressing interest, and so on, the present paper is restrained to linguistic realization of hedges, from which the pragmatic effects of hedges are expected to be portrayed. Methodology The research is based on a detailed contextual analysis of conversations in the novel of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. A comprehensive understanding of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind involves at least two levels of linguistic description: a quantitative analysis and a pragmatic analysis. The process of analysis is described as follows.
- Quantitative analysis: The purpose of quantitative surface-level analysis is to generalize the major forms of hedges in conversations. All the indentified items were scrutinized in their context to select those linguistic categories that express hedges. At this point, the taxonomy suggested by Yu (2009) was mainly employed to guide the process of identification of hedging devices in the conversations in the novel. - Pragmatic analysis: The research then employed a contextual analysis of authentic conversations at the second level of analysis to identify the purposes LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 served by identified hedging devices.
At this point, the pragmatic analysis was adapted from the theories introduced by Hyland (1998). Research design The study is designed to include three main parts. Part 1: Introduction, presenting the research rationale, aims of the study, research questions, implications of the research, study scope, methodology and the structure of the paper. Part 2: Development Chapter1: Theoretical Background, including definitions of hedge, hedging taxonomies, relationship between hedges and conversational maxims and politeness strategies, and general information on Gone with the Wind.
Chapter 2: Findings and Discussions, describing major hedging devices, their linguistic realization and pragmatic functions in Gone with the Wind. Part 3: Conclusion, summarizing the major points, limitations, and suggestions for further studies. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 Theoretical Background This part will briefly present a review of definitions of hedge, hedging taxonomies, relationship between hedges and conversational maxims and politeness strategies, literature review of related studies and general information on Gone with the Wind. Definitions of hedge From the explanations above it can be seen that it is rather challenging to state a definition of hedges incorporating all approaches.
Indeed, in the field of hedging studies related to pragmatics, linguistics, semantics, logics or philosophy, there is still little clarity and agreement as to what counts as a hedge. Lakoff (1972: 195), from the point of view of language philosophy, used the term hedge for the first time to refer to ―words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy‖. According to Brown & Levinson (1987: 145), hedges are defined as ―a particle, word or phrase that modifies 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‖ According to Hyland (1998: 5), hedging is ―the means by which writers can present a proposition as an opinion rather than a fact: items are only hedges in their epistemic sense, and only when they mark uncertainty‖ To create the theoretical basis and guide the process of realizing and analyzing hedging devices in this paper, ―hedge‖ is defined in its broad sense, as encompassing the six aspects recapitulated by Yu (2009: 69) as follows: LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. In this sense, hedge works rather locally on part of an utterance or proposition.
(2) Hedge performing a speech act, i. used as a hedged performative (e., I think/ suppose/ guess that. (3) Hedge as a linguistic means modifying the truth value of a whole proposition, making its content appearing vaguer yet more precise. (4) Hedge as a linguistic means moderating the speaker‘s attitude or his/her commitment to the propositional content.
(5) Hedge as a linguistic means that contributes to good interpersonal relationship, or good interactional behavior in communication. (6) Hedge performing more social functions such as saving the speaker‘s or the hearer‘s face, protecting the writer‘s or his/her institution‘s reputation, projecting the speaker‘s or the writer‘s personality, strengthening solidarity with the addressee, or gaining ratification from the readers. Classification of hedging devices and hedging functions Concerning the classification of hedging devices, it is widely accepted that ―the taxonomy of hedges is rather arbitrary, since there are no unified criteria for the classification of hedges‖ (Yu, 2009: 55). The following is an overview of some most prominent approaches to classification of hedges and hedging functions available in the literature.
Salager-Meyer's classification In 1994 Salager-Meyer developed a five-type taxonomy of hedges which is presented in Table 1.