Hedging in the multidisciplinary postgraduate theses of students in a Ghanaian University

Abstract

Research on hedging in recent times has concentrated on works of expert writers to the exclusion of neophytes in academic writing. The limited research on hedging in students’ academic writing could thus impede language instructors’ efforts to determine how appro-priately novice writers who happen to be students, employ caution in the making of their claims. There is minimal research on hedging in the Ghanaian context, therefore, the aim of the study was to explore hedging in postgraduate theses across seven disciplines in a Ghanaian university. It explored linguistic strategies that are employed as hedging in the Findings/Discussions, Interpretation/Analysis and Conclusions/Recommendations sec-tions of theses from seven departments of the Schools of Languages, Arts and Performing Arts from a Ghanaian university. The qualitative research method was employed and the study sample comprised postgraduate students’ theses. Forty-two (42) thesis chapters of postgraduate students were selected through multi-stage sampling. Only those who had more than two pages of Findings/Discussions, Interpretation/Analysis and Conclu-sions/Recommendations were considered. Content analysis was employed to analyse the data; and the findings revealed variations in each rhetorical section and confirmed varia-tions across disciplines in the appropriation of hedges. The results also revealed that the most used categories of hedging were modal auxiliaries and compound hedges. It was also established that the Findings/Discussions sections were the most heavily hedged sections; and the most hedged discipline was Philosophy/Classics. The study can be used to enhance postgraduate students’ appropriate use of hedging in writing in Ghana and in other non-native English speaking countries.