HEDGES IN THE “DISICUSSION SECTION” OF THE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ SKRIPSI OF ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF TEACHER TRAINING AND EDUCATION FACULTY OF MURIA KUDUS UNIVERSITY

Nilawati. (2014). Hedges in the Discussion Section of the Undergraduate Students’ Skripsi of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Muria Kudus University. Advisor: (1) Agung Dwi Nurcahyo, S.S., M.Pd, (2) Diah Kurniati, S.Pd, M.Pd Key words : Academic Writing, Hedges, Types of Hedges, Functions of Hedges Academic writing is a special genre of writing that prescribes its own set of rules and practices. It has objective to inform to readers. It has eight main features. One of them is hedges. Hedges are linguistic expressions which are used by authors or speakers to soften their statement or an idea. It is necessary to make decision about our stance on a particular subject or the strength of the claims we are making. There are seven expressions of hedges that are composed by Salager-Meyer. The example of those hedges, such as can, should, assume, claim, usually, etc. Hedges here are as the expression of doubt and uncertainty. Besides that, Hyland summarized the functions of hedges into two types. They are content motivated hedges (accuracy based hedges and writer based hedges) and reader motivated hedges. Hedges are very important role in academic writing. Skripsi belongs to academic writing because it is different from ordinary writing. So, hedges has important role in making skripsi. The objective of this research is to identify the types of hedges and to find out the functions of hedges used in the discussion section of undergraduate students’ skripsi of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Muria Kudus University. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative research method. The data of this research is types of functions of hedges in the discussion section of undergraduate students’ skripsi of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Muria Kudus University. The data source of this research is the discussion section of skripsi between 2009 until 2013 of English Education Department of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Muria Kudus University. As the sample the data source of this research, the writer takes 10 skripsi to representative those skripsi. As the result of analysis the data, the writer draws some conclusion that shows frequency of the types and functions of hedges found in the discussion section; they are modal auxiliary verbs (71=37.57%), modal lexical verbs (24=12.7% ), approximators of degree quantity, frequency and time (61=32.27%), adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal phrase (2=1.06%), introductory phrases (13=6.88%), if clauses (9=4.76%), compound hedges (9=4.76%). Then, the writer also found two functions of hedges used in discussion; they are accuracy based hedges (133=70.37%), writer based hedges (40=24.34%) and reader motivated hedges (10=5.29%). This finding shows that the writers of the skripsi prefer to use modal lexical verb when they make claim and stance in the discussion section. Because in the discussion section, the writers of skripsi express theories from experts’. And, hedging devices of modal lexical verb is used the writers of skripsi to quotations from others’ as references they need to support their research. Besides that, the writers of skripsi also use accuracy motivated hedges when they make claim in the discussion section because the writers of skripsi want to imply that the proposition is based on plausible in the absence of certain knowledge. The writer considers hedges are very important in academic writing. So, the students can use hedges to make of statement and it makes do communication do more smoothly. For the Lecturer, they can use hedges in teaching learning process as an example when they teach of English subject. Then, the next researchers can analyze other material subject