The Use of Hedges and Boosters in Monolingual and Bilingual EFL Learners’ Academic Writings: The Case of Iranian Male and Female Post-graduate MA Articles
محورهای موضوعی : language teaching
MirAyyoob Tabatabaei
1
(
Department of Humanities, Payam-e Noor University, Tehran, IRI
)
صمد رمزی
2
(
Department of Humanities, Payam-e Noor University, Tehran, IRI
)
کلید واژه: academic writing, Bilingual, Boosters, Monolingual, Hedges,
چکیده مقاله :
Expressing doubt and certainty in academic writings requires a cautious use of hedges and boosters. Despite their importance in academic writing, little is known about how they are used in monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners’ academic writings. To shed some lights on the issue, the present study investigated the use of hedges and boosters in research articles written by monolingual and bilingual male and female EFL learners. Based on the collected corpus from twelve academic research articles, the overall rhetorical and categorical distribution of hedges and boosters were identified across four sections of these articles (Abstract, Introduction, Discussion, and Conclusion). The results evinced that the overall distribution of hedges and boosters in research articles written by bilinguals was higher than that of monolinguals. Moreover, there were significant differences between male and female EFL learners in the use of hedges and boosters in their academic research articles. These findings not only paved the way for further studies in the use of hedges and boosters but they also presented some beneficial implications for teaching of academic writing to EFL learners.
بیان شک و اطمینان در نوشته های رسمی نیازمند استفاده محتاطانه از اصطلاحات شک و اطمینان که در زبان انگلیسی اصطلاحا "هج" و "بوستر" میگویند می باشد. علی رغم اهمیت زیادی که برای نوشته های رسمی قایل شده اند، تحقیقات اندکی در زمینه استفاده زبان آموزان تک زبانه ها و دو زبانه ها از این اصطلاحات شک و تردید در نوشته های رسمی انجام پذیرفته است. برای روشن شدن این مساله تحقیق حاضر به بررسی استفاده زبان آموزان تک زبانه و دوزبانه مونث و مذکر در مقالات تحقیقی می پردازد. با توجه به جمع آوری داده ها از 12 مقاله رسمی و بررسی جزء به جزء چهار قسمت اصلی مقالات (شامل چکیده، مقدمه، روش شناسی و بحث و نتیجه گیری) نتایج نشان داد که توزیع کلی استفاده از اصطلاحات شک و تردید در مقالات تحقیقی دو زبانه ها نسبت به آن در مقالات تحقیقی تک زبانه ها بیشتر است. علاوه بر این، تفاوت قابل توجهی بین نویسندگان مونث و مذکر در استفاده از اصطلاحات شک و تردید وجود داشت. اگر چه تحقیق حاضر به روشن شدن این مسئله کمک می نماید با این حال نیاز به تحقیقات در این زمینه محسوس است.
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