Hedging: An exploratory study of pragmatic transfer in nonnative English readers’ rhetorical preferences

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the role of pragmatic transfer in the use of the rhetorical strategy of hedging in academic writing in English as a second language (henceforth, L2). Two groups of Spanish researchers (n=30) took part in the study, performing two different experiments. The first one consisted of reading two versions of the same passage, one hedged and the other unhedged, and they were asked to decide which text they considered more academic and why. The second experiment consisted of identifying hedges in a passage. The results indicate that Spanish researchers apply pragmatic transfer, either frequently failing to identify hedges in the L2 or considering them as negative evasive concepts.