Hedging in Abstracts of Journal Articles

Abstract

This diploma thesis is devoted to a pragmatic analysis of hedging devices distributed in abstracts of journal articles. The theoretical part focuses on a formal and functional description of the aforementioned phenomenon. In addition, the theory of politeness, conversational maxims and epistemic modality are discussed. The analytical part subsequently studies and compares the morphosyntactic as well as pragmatic features of hedges and their distribution in abstracts written by native and non-native speaker researchers.