خلاصة:
The aim of this study is to explore the pragmatic features of hedging in
selected modern plays ;it is an attempt to investigate hedging devices and
functions in a case study of three selected modern plays pragmatically,
namely “ look Back in Anger” by John Osborn , The invention of Love” by
Tom Stoppard and “under the Blue Sky” by David Eldrige. Hedging as
important phenomena has received a great attention in linguistic study
recently; it is the fact that it represents the most central features of daily
communication. The study hypothesizes that hedging is utilized in modern
plays frequently and hedging devices are used for the purpose of specific
pragmatic functions. Based on the content of this study and in order to
obtain the requirements of qualitative and quantitative research, the
researchers adopt a theoretical model which consists of merging Hyland’s
and Yu’s models because both of the classifications of hedging adhere to the
same function-based approach to categorize hedging
ملخص الجهاز:
According to Yu, there are six types of hedging: epistemic verbs, approximators, modal auxiliaries, epistemic adverbs, adjectives and nouns because he thinks that all of them possess a meaning of modifying.
Personal attribution, hypothetical condition, direct questions (Hyland, 1998b), agentless constructions, parenthetical expression (Namsaraev, 1997), concessive conjunctive, conditional subordinator, metalinguistic comments (Fraser, 2010), pragmatic markers (Yu, 2009).
182) C-Modal Adverbs They are the third common category of hedging, according to Varttala (2001) four types of adverbs as lexical devices function as hedges that are probability adverb, adverb of indefinite frequency, adverbs of indefinite degree and approximative adverb such as probably, possibly, perhaps, quite, sort of and relatively.
B-Pragmatic markers They are used as hedging devices and they include diverse expressions such as personal reference or opinion and direct questioning that can help the writer to make a kind of dialogue with the readers such as: 9.
Moreover Hyland's reader- oriented hedges deals with the interpersonal interaction between reader and writers, it refers to implicit hedges category in Yu's model that “work on syntactic level or utterance level to monitor the interaction or communication process,” and he encompasses pragmatic markers implicit hedges that are already considered to be a feature of spoken discourse in addition to most significant hedging forms like modal verbs, epistemic lexical verbs, epistemic adverbs, epistemic adjective, noun, and approximators (Yu, 2009, p.
(به تصویر صفحه رجوع شود) Figure 2: The top five modal verbs with epistemic meaning in the selected plays Approximators of quantity, frequency and degree This kind of hedging devices is the prominent category in the selected modern plays.