A Cross-Cultural Study on Hedging Devices in Kurdish Conversation

Abstract

Hedges are words whose job is to make things fuzzier or less fuzzy. Truth and falsity are a matter of degree, and hedges make natural language sentences more/less true or more/less false. The purpose of the study is to investigate hedging devices in Kurdish spoken language. The aim is to know how hedging devices are used in Kurdish spoken discourse. Also the researchers are willing to know whether Kurdish speakers use hedging devices to indicate a lack of complete commitment to the truth of the proposition, and a desire not to express the commitment categorically, or to lessen the impact of an utterance. The data needed for the study was collected through observation, tape recording, and interviews. The dialogues of 35 people were recorded by the researchers as well as the researchers have interviewed with 21 people from different social classes.15 classes and meetings which Kurdish language was the means of communication were observed. The research showed that hedging as a mitigating device is extensively employed in different conversations. The study shows that hedging devices have the same roles in Kurdish as they have in English. They are used to reduce the certainty and sureness of the utterances. It indicates that some pragmatic devices modify the epistemic strength of the statement in Kurdish language just as they do in English and Arabic.

Keywords

• Hedging Devices
• Kurdish Language
• Spoken Discourse