The construction of knowledge claims in three disciplines: An exploration of hedging and boosting strategies in research articles written in English by Arab and Anglophone writers
Research background: Academic writers utilize a variety of rhetorical methods to
construct their knowledge claims through hedges and boosters. These two strategies
may also be affected by disciplinary, cultural, or generic contexts.
Gap in knowledge and Purpose of the study: This mixed-methods contrastive
research study explored how disciplinary and cultural contexts may affect the way
Arab and Anglophone writers construct and modulate knowledge claims through
hedges and boosters in the results and discussion sections of 90 English research
articles in three disciplines: Journalism, Law, and Political Science.
Methods: Instances of hedges and boosters and their pragmatic functions in context
were identified, employing Liu and Tseng’s (2021) framework. This framework
provides a detailed functional interpretation of the use and variation of these
devices along four continuums: authorial voice, reasoning, consensus-building, and
information evaluation.
Findings: The results showed interesting contrasts and similarities between both
groups regarding the approaches they used to define their levels of commitment
and detachment in their knowledge claims. The quantitative findings revealed
significant differences in hedges but non-significant differences in boosters used by
both groups. The qualitative analysis revealed that hedging and boosting functions in
Arab and Anglophone writers’ RAs differed along the four continuums. Anglophone
writers often used hedges in their writing to show humility, negotiate knowledge
claims, and accommodate vagueness. These acts enabled them to sketch the realities
emerging from their research. By contrast, the English-speaking Arab writers used
fewer hedging strategies and demonstrated assertiveness, and assumed shared
knowledge to enhance the realities constructed in their knowledge claims.
Value Added: These findings can benefit ESP/EAP teachers, especially those teaching
writing for publication purposes to raise postgraduate students’ awareness of
epistemic modality markers. A custom-made ESP/EAP course tailored to the needs
of learners based on Liu and Tseng’s (2021) hedging-boosting framework can be
devised to develop communicative and academic strategies in English.
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