On the functions of hedging in research articles (RAs): A study on RA discussions

The current study aimed at finding probable differences between native-Persian-speaking (n = 72) and native-English-speaking (n = 72) academic writers’ use of hedging devices in the ‘discussion’ sections of research articles (RAs). 144 RA discussions from Persian-text Iranian academic journals published by Iranian state universities and English-text foreign academic journals published by several famous international academic publishers were randomly selected. The publication dates of the RAs ranged from 2017 to 2022. Using a counter-balanced design, two human coders identified and coded the functions of hedging devices in the corpus according to the theoretical framework proposed by Hyland (1998). Results indicated that Iranian authors of Persian-text RAs systematically use much fewer hedging devices in their discussions than their foreign counterparts. It is argued that this pattern might be due to Iranian RA authors’ (a) personality traits, (b) incompetence in academic writing, or (c) cultural mindset. The paper concludes that professional workshops in which native-Persian-speaking authors are taught to be aware of the importance of hedging devices in academic writing might be necessary and that journal editors should also have an eye on the use of hedging in the process of screening the manuscripts they receive for possible publication in the journals they edit.