Hedges in specialised vs. popular academic interaction: A case study of medical text

Academic interaction requires information and language management and part of good language management includes information on the speakers’ or writers’ use of hedges to indicate their stance on a scientifi c claim, ranging from total support to rejection. Although hedges are a complex phenomenon in function and form, they are considered central to academic interaction. This study analyses lexical hedges in two types of academic writing, specialised academic texts from international Anglo-American journals and web servers and corresponding popular academic texts from a popular science magazine, the New Scientist. Medical English was used in this pilot study to investigate whether popular versions contain either more or less hedging than their specialised originals. Different types of hedges were analysed qualitatively and quantitatively