Hedging in Emma Watson’s Speech about Gender Equality
Abstract
Hedging is a linguistic resource which conveys the fundamental characteristics of science of doubt and skepticism (Salager-Meyer, 1994). Salager-Meyer also affirm that hedging is the process whereby the authors turn down their statement to reduce the risk of opposition and minimize the “threat- to-face” that hide in every act of communication. This research examines the used of Hedges and to categorize the types of Hedges in online speech. The research adopts Salager-Meyer (1994) theory as a framework and applied descriptive qualitative method. In this study it was showed that several types of hedges were used in the article, such as Modal Auxiliary Verbs; Modal Lexical Verbs / Speech Act Verbs; Adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrases; Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency and time; Introductory Phrases; "If" clauses; and Compound hedges. Meanwhile, the source of the data of this research was obtained from a YouTube video entitled “Hedging in Emma Watson’s Speech about Gender Equality”. Furthermore, the finding of this research showed that the speaker dominantly use Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency and time and Modal Auxiliary Verbs. It shows that the hedging is useful for decreasing someone statement’s power because the speaker is not sure about his statement. It also helps the speaker to avoid problem in confronting with others.References
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