چکیده:
This study examined the effect of explicit instruction of hedging on English forSpecific Academic Purposes (ESAP) reading comprehension performance ofEnglish Language Learning (ELL) university students. A reading comprehensiontest was developed and validated as the pretest and the posttest. The test, includingitems for assessing the comprehension of the students in their area of specialization,was administered to 180 undergraduates (B.S.), of whom 100 students were selectedand randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Then, all theparticipants attended 10 sessions of awareness-raising treatment. During the first 3sessions, the participants in the experimental condition were instructed on theessential meaning of a hedge, as well as the types and functions of hedging devices.The next sessions focused on the practical use of these markers as they appear inacademic texts. After the treatment, the test was again given to the same students asthe post-test. The results of two t tests and a two-way ANOVA provided empiricalsupport for the facilitative effect of explicit instruction in recognizing hedgingdevices that improved their language proficiency and therefore improved theirreading comprehension scores.
خلاصه ماشینی:
Shooshtari ShahidChamranUniversity of Ahvaz Sattar Mutaqid Islamic Azad University, Behbahan Branch Abstract This study examined the effect of explicit instruction of hedging on English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) reading comprehension performance of English Language Learning (ELL) university students.
The results of two t tests and a two-way ANOVA provided empirical support for the facilitative effect of explicit instruction in recognizing hedging devices that improved their language proficiency and therefore improved their reading comprehension scores.
Introduction It is generally believed that reading is the most important language skill for learners in academic contexts (Carrell, 1989; Eskey, 1988; Grabe & Stoller, 2001; Robinson, 1991).
The purpose of this study was to gain more insight into the effect of explicit instruction in the recognition of hedging on reading comprehension at higher and lower levels of language proficiency in an English for Specific Academic Purposes (ESAP) setting.
The present study intends to illustrate the extent to which explicit instruction of hedging affects the ESAP reading comprehension performance of university students of electrical engineering with different proficiency levels.
The independent variable in this study was explicit instruction of hedging devices and the dependent variable was ESAP reading comprehension performance; the proficiency level of the participants played the role of intermediary variable.
While it is true that rhetorical decisions may sometimes reflect either conscious choices or unreflective practices, the analysis of hedging patterns in reading passages indicates that effective comprehension involves a community-oriented deployment of appropriate linguistic resources to represent writers, their texts, and their readers.