hedging devices in english and vietnamese economic research articles (eras.) = phương tiện rào đón trong các bài báo nghiên cứu kinh tế tiếng anh và tiếng việt

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE
_______________________





PHAM THI THANH THUY





HEDGING DEVICES IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC RESEARCH
ARTICLES (ERAs.)
(PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO NGHIÊN CỨU
KINH TẾ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)






PH.D. THESIS
English Language

Hanoi, 2008

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HANOI
COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
_____________________



PHAM THI THANH THUY




HEDGING DEVICES IN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC RESEARCH
ARTICLES (ERAs.)
(PHƯƠNG TIỆN RÀO ĐÓN TRONG CÁC BÀI BÁO NGHIÊN CỨU
KINH TẾ TIẾNG ANH VÀ TIẾNG VIỆT)




Field: English Language
Code: 62 22 15 01


PH.D Thesis

English Language




Supervisors:
1. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien
2. Assoc. Prof. Nguyen Quang




HANOI, 2008
I

Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS I
LIST OF TABLES III
LIST OF FIGURES V
ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS VI
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.1. RATIONALE OF THE STUDY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.2. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ERROR! BOOKMARK
NOT DEFINED.
1.3. THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
1.4.1. Data Collections Error! Bookmark not defined.
1.4.2. Procedures for the Analysis of the CorpusError! Bookmark not defined.
CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE - 22 -
2.1. EXPLORING THE CONCEPT OF HEDGING 22 -

2.1.1. The Concept of Hedging - 22 -
2.1.2. Social aspects of hedging - 24 -
2.1.3. Toward a Working Definition of Hedging - 25 -
2.2. HEDGING AND SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE 27 -
2.2.1. The Nature of Scientific Discourse - 27 -
2.2.2. Hedging in Scientific Research Articles - 37 -
2.2.3. Hedging in Economic Research Articles - 51 -
CHAPTER 3. CORPUS ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH RESEARCH ARTICLES
ON ECONOMICS - 58 -
3.1. LEXICAL HEDGES IN THE ECONOMIC RESEARCH ARTICLES (RAS.) 58 -
3.1.1. Comparing Hedging Usage in English RAs. with Two other Areas:
Applied Linguistics and Physics - 58 -
3.1.2. Lexical Hedges in the English Corpus - 61 -
3.1.3. Non-lexical Hedges - 95 -
3.2. PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF HEDGING DEVICES IN THE ENGLISH CORPUS 105 -
3.2.1. Content-oriented Functions of Hedging in the English Corpus - 106 -
3.2.2. Reader-oriented Functions of Hedging Devices in the English Corpus -
119 -
CHAPTER 4. CORPUS ANALYSIS OF VIETNAMESE RESEARCH
ARTICLES ON ECONOMICS - 122 -
4.1. LEXICAL HEDGES IN VIETNAMESE ECONOMIC CORPUS 122 -
4.1.1. Modality Functions as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus- 123 -
4.1.2. Lexical Verbs as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus - 135 -
4.1.3. Nouns and Pronouns Function as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese
Corpus 141
4.1.4. Impersonalizations as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 145
4.1.5. Compound Hedges 150
4.2. PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF HEDGING DEVICES IN THE VIETNAMESE CORPUS.153
II

4.2.1. Content-oriented Functions of Hedging in the Vietnamese Corpus 154
4.2.2. Reader-oriented Functions of Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese
Corpus 161
CHAPTER 5. COMPARING HEDGING USAGES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND
VIETNAMESE WRITERS 170
5.1. GENERAL COMPARISON AND CONTRAST 170
5.2. COMPARISON AND CONTRAST IN DIFFERENT CATEGORIES 172
5.2.1. Devices in the Two Corpora with No Differences 175
5.2.2. Differences among Hedging Devices in the Two Corpora 179
CHAPTER 6. CONCLUDING REMARKS AND IMPLICATIONS 186
6.1. CONCLUDING REMARKS 186
6.2. IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY 190
6.2.1. Implications for Language Awareness 190
6.2.2. Implications for research 191
6.2.3. Implications for language learning 192
6.3. SUGGESTED FOR FURTHER STUDY 194



III

List Of Tables
Table 1-1 Feature Matrix of Data Base Sections Error! Bookmark not defined.
Table 2.1 Hedging taxonomy (Salager-Meyer, 1994:56) - 45 -
Table 3.1 Relative Numbers of Hedging Devices per 100 words in RAs on Economics,
Applied linguistics and Physics - 58 -
Table 3.2 Descriptive Statistics: Economics, Applied Linguistics, Physics - 59 -
Table 3.3 One-way ANOVA: English Economics, Applied Linguistics and Physics- 60 -
Table 3.4 Categories of Lexical Devices in the English Corpus - 61 -
Table 3.5 Distribution of Modal Auxiliaries in the English Corpus - 66 -

Table 3.6. Distribution of Lexical Verbs in the English Corpus - 83 -
Table 3.7 Distribution of Adverbs found as Hedges in the English Corpus - 84 -
Table 3.8 Distribution of Phrasal Hedges in the English Corpus - 90 -
Table 3.9 Distribution of Adjectives Found as Hedges in the English Corpus - 92 -
Table 3.10 Distribution of Selected Non-lexical Hedging Devices in the English Corpus
- 96 -
Table 3.11 Distribution of Impersonalizations as Hedging Devices in the English
Corpus - 96 -
Table 3.12 Hedging Constructions with IT in the English Corpus - 98 -
Table 3.13 Relative Numbers of Hedging Devices per 100 Words in the English Corpus
- 103 -
Table 3.14 Numbers of Compound Hedges in the English Corpus - 104 -
Table 3.15 Combinations of Hedges in the Same Sentence in the English Corpus - 104 -
Table 4.1 Number of Lexical and Non-Lexical Hedging Devices per 100 words in
Vietnamese and English Corpora - 122 -
Table 4.2 Modal Adverbs in the Vietnamese Corpus - 123 -
Table 4.3 Modal Auxiliaries as Hedges in the Vietnamese Corpus - 127 -
Table 4.4 Whether CẦN or CẦN PHẢI is a Hedging Device - 128 -
Table 4.5 Reasons for Deciding CẦN or CẦN PHẢI a Hedge or not - 129 -
Table 4.6 Lexical Verbs as Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese corpus 137
Table 4.7 Assessment of Social Factors: Hedging vs Impersonalization 146
Table 4.8 Non-lexical Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 147
Table 4.9 Numbers of Hedging Combinations in the Same Sentence 150
Table 4.10 Harmonic Combinations of Hedges in the Same Sentence in Vietnamese
corpus 151
Table 4.11 Mitigating Hedging Devices in the Vietnamese Corpus 156
Table 4.12 Reasons for Using Hedging of Writers 163
Table 4.13 Number of Hedges per 100 words in RAs on economic, applied linguistics
and sociology 167
Table 4.14 Descriptive Statistics: Vietnamese Economics, Vietnamese Applied

linguistics, and Vietnamese Sociology 167
Table 4.15: One-way ANOVA Vietnamese Economics, Vietnamese Applied Linguistics
and Vietnamese Sociology 169
Table 5.1. Number of Hedging Devices per 100 words in Vietnamese and English
Economic Discourses 170
Table 5.2 Descriptive Statistics of Hedging Devices in the English and Vietnamese
corpus 171
Table 5.3 ANOVA Hedges in English and Vietnamese Economics 173
IV

Table 5.4 ANOVA of Phrasal Hedging Devices in the English and Vietnamese
Economics 176
Table 5.5 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Lexical Verbs as Hedges 177
Table 5.6 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Adverbs as Hedges 178
Table 5.7. ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Adjective as Hedges 178
Table 5.8 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Modalities as Hedges 180
Table 5.9 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Nouns/Pronouns as Hedges 182
Table 5.10 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Compound Hedges 182
Table 5.11 ANOVA of English and Vietnamese Non-lexical Devices as Hedges 183

V

List Of Figures
Figure 3.1 String Matching of CAN in the English Corpus - 68 -
Figure 3.2 String Matching of COULD, COULD BE in the English Corpus - 69 -
Figure 3.3. String Matching MAY in the English Corpus - 71 -
Figure 3.4 String Matching WILL in the English Corpus - 74 -
Figure 3.5 String Matching of SUGGEST in the English Corpus - 79 -
Figure 3.6 String Matching of APPEAR and SEEM in the English Corpus - 82 -
Figure 3.7 Strings Matching of SOME in the English Corpus - 86 -

Figure 3.8 String Matching of PERHAPS in the English Corpus - 88 -
Figure 4.1 Possible Strategies for Doing FTAs (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 60) - 131 -
Figure 4.2 Boxplot of Vietnamese Economic, Applied Linguistics and Sociology 168
Figure 5.1. Histogram of Hedges in the English and Vietnamese Economic Corpus 172
Figure 5.2 Boxplot of Hedges in the English and Vietnamese Economic Corpus 174
Figure 5.3. Boxplot of Phrasal Hedging Devices in English and Vietnamese Economics
177
Figure 5.4 Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Lexical Verbs 177
Figure 5.5. Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Adverbs 179
Figure 5.6. Boxplot of English and Vietnamese Adjectives 179
Figure 6.1 String matching of suggest 193

VI

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS
&
And
α
Alpha
AEA The American Economic Association
ANOVA Analysis of Variance
BEPress The Berkeley Electronic Press (BEPress)
CIEM
Ministry of Investment -Central Institute for Economic
Management
CIEM Institute for Economic Management
EA. English Applied Linguistics Texts
EDR Economic & Development Review
EE. English Economic Texts
EP. English Physics Texts

ERAs Economic Research Articles
ES. English Sociology Texts
ESP English for Specific Purposes
FTA Face Threatening Act
H
0
Null Hypothesis
H
1
Alternative Hypothesis
IE Institute of Economics
JCR Journal of Citation Reports
JEL The Journal of Economic Literature
JEP The Journal of Economic Perspectives
JIEEP
The Journal of International Economic and Economic
Policy
N Number of occurrence
P Relative Power
R Rating/Raking of imposition
RA Research article
VII

RAs Research articles
RePEc Research Papers in Economic
Sis Specialist Informants
VA Vietnamese Applied Linguistics Texts
VE. Vietnamese Economic Texts
VS. Vietnamese Sociology Texts

- 1 -

Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1. Rationale of the Study
The last two decades of research on academic writing have demonstrated that
written academic genres are not purely objective, impersonal, and informative as
they were once believed to be. In fact, many researchers, such as Butler (1990),
Crompton (1997, 1998), Hyland (1994, 1996, 1998), Myers (1985, 1989),
Salager-Meyer (1994, 2000), Swales (1990), have shown that writers also need to
present their claims cautiously, accurately, and persuasively in order to meet
academia’s expectations and to enhance acceptance for their propositions. One of
the means to achieve such goal is the use of hedging.
Hedging was first introduced by Lakoff (1972) as a linguistic concept referring to
linguistic strategies which qualify categorical commitment. Hedging is now often
known as an expression of tentativeness and possibility and has become a
common feature in academic discourse (Hyland, 1996). It is used to qualify the
writers’ confidence in the truth of a proposition, and the presence of hedging
devices is generally viewed as an indicator of fuzziness.
However, while hedging in spoken discourse is a well-documented phenomenon,
one which plays important interpersonal and facilitative roles, less attention is
given to hedging in different disciplines or genres in academic writing. This
thesis, therefore, provides comprehensive research on this feature in the written
discourse of economics with a systematic analysis of (1) linguistic forms and (2)
a pragmatic explanation for their use.
1.2. Objectives of the Study and Research Questions
The main objectives of this thesis are to characterize the common extent,
functions and major forms of hedging in one particular genre: economic research
articles (RAs). In particular, the study addresses the following primary
objectives:

1. To identify the hedging devices used in the discussion sections of the English
and the Vietnamese ERAs.
2. To identify the communicative functions of hedges in Discussion sections of
English and Vietnamese ERAs.
3. To compare/contrast hedging expressions in Discussion sections in English
ERAs and in Vietnamese ERAs.

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To realize the above objectives, this study will address the following research
questions:
1. Which typical lexico-grammatical forms are used to realize hedging functions
in English and Vietnamese ERAs.?
2. What are pragmatic functions of hedging devices in the English and
Vietnamese ERAs?
3. What are differences or similarities in the use of hedging between the two
languages?
1.3. The Contributions of the Study
Unlike previous studies focusing on hedging in primarily spoken conversation,
where it is extremely common and represents a significant communicative
resource for speakers (for example, Stubbs, 1986; Coates, 1987; Nittono, 2003;
Nguyen Quoc Sinh, 2004; Phan Thi Phuong Dung, 2004), this thesis places the
concept within academic strategies for modifying illocutionary force based on an
analysis of authentic written articles.
The research describes the distribution of surface forms used to hedge in ERAs in
English and Vietnamese. The thesis also identifies a valid explanatory framework
underlying rhetorical choices.
The analysis of these rhetorical principles provides a new area of insight for
linguists.
Knowledge about hedging from this thesis provides insights into how researchers

establish their claims, how they carry out their work and how they anticipate
negative reactions from readers to their propositions.
Information about hedging can also contribute to our understanding of the
practice of evidential reasoning and the structure of argumentation. In other
words, the study of hedging can help us anticipate possible rebuttals and help
reveal how writers move between grounds and claims in the process of gaining
reader ratification of their statements.
Moreover, studying hedging has pedagogical implications. This study provides
an analytic insight into hedging expressions which enables teachers of English
for Specific Purposes (ESP) in general and of economics in particular, to assist
their students in understanding economic texts.
1.4. Research Methodology

- 3 -

1.4.1. Data Collections
This chapter discusses the methodology in the present research project for
collecting, selecting and analyzing the corpus described above.
The chapter starts with an outline of criteria for collecting and selecting the
corpus for the present research. Following is a brief description of procedures
followed for the linguistic analysis of the said corpus. The last part of the chapter
discusses the use of survey questionnaires as a device for validating the
researcher’s findings.
1.4.1.1 Criteria for Collecting the Data.
In light of the experience gained during the present research, it is possible to
divide collection criteria into Authenticity, Reputation, Accessibility and
Variation.
1.4.1.1.1 Authenticity
The data to be collected must be real life examples of language as used by the
target professional community. The data in the present thesis is empirical

research papers selected from journals published in the United States and in
Vietnam. The sample collected exemplifies the typical language of Economics
and is linguistically recognizable.
The sample collected for the present analysis seems to be authentic and not
simulated since it is extracted from well known journals edited by distinguished
professors from famous universities in the USA such as Harvard University, the
University of Texas, New York University, the National Economics University
in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Many prominent economists publish
their real experience and case studies in these journals including Elhanan
Helpman (Harvard), Torsten Persson (London School of Economics), Eric
Rasmusen (Indiana), Robert J. Shiller (Yale), Blanchard (MIT), Le Trong Khoi,
Phan Dinh Huong (Hanoi), Phan Trong Tue (Ho Chi Minh City)… Moreover,
writers of these journals are usually aware that their audience is international and
that they have responsibility for almost all of their statements in the articles.
However, only the authenticity may not be enough because publication can have
an influence on the readership that the corporate writers are aware of and
consciously initiate. The second criterion for collecting the data is set up.
1.4.1.1.2 Reputation
Reputation has to do with the extent to which peers or the readership as a whole
rate the articles released by a given source as well as the extent to which this
source is renowned in the Economic field. Bley-Vroman and Selinkers state that
- 4 -

reputation means the extent to which the texts collected are valued by the
readership.
The sources from which data for the present analysis has been collected are
reputable sources in the Economic field. For one thing, they all have world-wide
coverage. For another, these articles are ranked by the Econometric Journal; the
RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) published by the Department of
Economics of University of Connecticut. The Econometric Journal ranks

journals, articles and working papers in economic field. This journal bases on
Impact Factors of the JCR (Journal of Citation Reports). Several rankings bases
on impact of journals and impact per articles (see more at the website:
RePEc is a collaborative
effort of hundreds of volunteers in 54 countries and 34 US states to enhance the
dissemination of research in economics. The heart of the project is a
decentralized database of 184,000 working papers, 201,000 journal articles and
1,350 software components. The American Economic Association has the first
ranking in the number of articles published in RePEc (8681 articles) (more
information can be seen at the website: About Vietnamese
economic corpus, all four journals chosen are suggested by leading experts in the
Faculty of macro-micro economics- National Economics University, Hanoi.
1.4.1.1.3 Accessibility
Accessibility refers to the extent to which the researcher can obtain the material
to be analysed, together with the possibility for the researcher to get in touch with
the writers of these articles, as, for example, when the researcher finds some of
these to be not fully understandable.
It is therefore possible to break the criterion of Accessibility down to material-
accessibility, content – accessibility and people – accessibility.
With regard to the data, most of the articles were downloaded from electronic
journal service in the libraries of the University of Wisconsin - Madison (either
PDF files or html. files). The updated articles published in 2005 forward were
found as hard copy in the library. As for Vietnamese articles, all journals are
available in the library in the National Economics University, Hanoi. We can
also get some of them free from the publishers (e.g. Economic and Development
Review). This is a privilege that cannot be overlooked in this world of extremely
busy and time-conscious professionals.
1.4.1.1.4 Variation
This criterion forms a bridge between collection and selection criteria and has to
do with the extent to which the data collected or selected comes from different

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sources for the purpose of generalization. Furthermore, taking care to vary the
source of material to be collected and selected may help the researcher to avoid
the pitfall of drawing conclusions from a small and poor corpus.
1.4.1.2 Criteria for Collecting the Corpus
Three criteria for the selection of the corpus for the present analysis were
identified: Universality, Text Length and Representativity.
1.4.1.2.1 Universality
The reason for choosing empirical research articles for the corpus is because of
their universality in the journal data. We have shown and summarized in table 3
the different types of research papers in the journal data. Because we are seeking
generalizations across a set of similar texts, a decision had to be made to select
for analysis not only what could be manually manageable, (i.e. not excessively
long), but especially those in particular type of research papers which were
present everywhere at once in the sample from all four sources. Moreover, there
is a hypothesis that in discussion section- one of 4 sections in an empirical
research, the writer will use a lot of hedging devices to give a series of points
referring back to statements made in the Introduction and interpret what has been
learned in the study.
This criterion and hypothesis led us to consider mostly texts from the discussion
section which was found to occur universally, as expounded in table I-1.
Type of research articles
Sample
Theory
papers
Reviews
Responses
and
reactions

Short
comm. or
notes
Empirical
research
The American Economic
Review (AER)
+ + + - +
The American Economic
Literature (AEL)
+ - + - +
The Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP)
+ + + - +
Advances in Economic Policy
& Analysis
+ + - - +
Advances in Macro-economic
+ + + + +
The Journal of Interna-tional
Economic and Economic
Policy (JIEEP)
- + - - +
Vietnamese Economic Review
+ + - + +
Nghien cuu kinh te (Economic
Studies Review)
+ + - - +
Vietnam Economic
Management Review (VEMR)

- 6 -

Economic Studies

Economic & Development
Review (EDR)
- + - + +
Table 1-1 Feature Matrix of Data Base Sections
The similarity and recurrence of titles in discussion section from different sample
data are further elements that add to the criterion of the universality of material
selected.
1.4.1.2.2 Text Length
Text length has been a major criterion in deciding which text should go in the
corpus and which should not. Text length in this corpus is various because of the
content. The shortest texts chosen are 190 words (EE. Texts 9) and 354 words
(VE. Text 6); the longest are 1417 words (EE. Text 13) and 2064 words (VE.
Text 2), respectively below and above which limits a text was excluded from
consideration. Such a selection of short and fairly long texts has a certain
purpose.
1.4.1.2.3 Representative
Like the Authenticity criterion, the criterion of Representative deals with the
genuine exemplification expressed in the target model of language use.
Representative also ties with the extent to which conclusions drawn from the
analysis of a corpus are applicable to texts which may be of the same genre but
which have not been included in the corpus. The contents in the texts setting up
the corpus are real (narrowed to economic policy), life projections and up-to-data
at the moment of data collection (from the year 2002 to 2005).
A corpus of nearly 50,000 words of the present thesis is quite manageable
manually (due to the unavailability of a sufficiently large and suitable

computerized corpus of recently published economic texts) and can be argued to
be sufficient for the purpose of a qualitative linguistic analysis. In addition, and
as shown by Smith and Kurzon (1985:233), there appears to be no common
agreement amongst discourse analysts about the large of word number needed in
a corpus to warrant viable generalization. For example, Smith observes the
number of associations of linguistic features with particular characteristics of
texts with a corpus of 8,000 words. Meanwhile, Kurzon prepares corpus (with the
large of 48, 000 words selected from 24 texts from the million-word
Lancaster/Oslo-Bergen corpus of written Business English) for a computer-based
study of the occurrence of text deixis in the entire corpus.
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It may therefore be argued that whatever observations are made on the basis of the word
stock of the corpus for the present analysis also hold for similar instances of the
Economic language in term of hedging expressions.
1.4.1.3 Corpus
Since this is a corpus-based analysis, the findings of this thesis come from a
linguistic analysis of a substantial number of written articles (50 articles). The
corpus of this study is built from the source of analyzed materials, the database
and the article extracts.
1.4.1.3.1 Sources
The sources of the corpus in this case mean the institutions or agencies
publishing the economic articles considered in this study. There are eight main
sources, three of which are journals in English and five sources from journals in
Vietnamese.
• Source I: The American Economic Association (AEA)
The purposes of this New-York-based economic journal are (i) to encourage
economic research, especially the historical and statistical study of the actual
conditions of industrial life; (ii) to issue publications on economic subjects; and
(iii) to discuss perfect freedom of economics. This spirit of these objectives has

been confirmedly kept throughout the history of the Association. At present, over
50% of the AEA membership is associated with academic institutions, 15% with
business and industry, and the remainder largely with federal, state and local
government or other non-profit organizations.
The Journals of the Association include The American Economic Review (AER),
The Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) and The Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP).
• Source 2: Springer
There are three things that shape Springer Science+Business Media’s business
activities: Knowledge, information and quality. With the world’s best academics
and authors (more than 150 Nobel prize-winners have published with Springer up
to the present), Springer’s publications are considered authoritative works in may
fields, read by academics and students, used by libraries and universities,
academic professionals and practitioners in various branches of industry.
Springer’s main publishing fields are economics, science, medicine, engineering,
architecture, construction and transport. In the economic field, Springer publishes
many journals, such as International Economic and Economic Policy, Economic
of Planning, Economic Theory, Empirical Economics, Experimental Economics.
- 8 -

• Source 3: The Berkeley Electronic Press (BEPress)
Launching its first journals in December of 2000. As word of the B.E.Press
model has spread, interest within academia has grown significantly. BEPress
produces tools to improve scholarly communication. These tools are innovative
and effective means to provide content production and dissemination.
The high quality peer-reviewed journals, working papers, and institutional
repository materials published by BEPress provide scholar work for the academic
community all over the world.
According to Ms. Mary Folster- Senior Academic Librarian- working at the
Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison, if we base on the impact

factors (the number of times when the authors are cited by other journals) as a
criteria to choose the corpus, BEPress will not be chosen because it just
published the first number in 2000 and therefore, the number of articles to be
cited is not as many as some other journal. However, BEPress is till be chosen as
the third source in my corpus because all articles are online and can be
downloaded from the internet and economic policies are updated everyday in this
journal.
In the economic field, the main journals published by the BEPress are The B.E.
Journals in Economic Analysis & Policy, The B.E. Journals in Macroeconomics,
The B.E. Journals in Theoretical Economic, Global Economy Journal, review of
Law & Economic…
• Source 4: Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences- Vietnam Institute
of Economic
Belonging to the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, the Institute of Economic
(IE) is a national research organization. The IE focues on fundamental theoretical
and practical problems in the Vietnamese economy and scientific basis for
making policies and plans on economic development. In general, the IE’s
function is promoting economic science in Vietnam.
The IE is also appointed to be a training centre for post-graduate education
programmes at master and Ph.D degree level in some economic fields.
The IE has a wide co-operation with institutions, organisations, universities and
induviduals inside and outside Vietnam, on research development programmes
related economics.
In recent years, the IE has focused its research activities on a summing up of
Vietnamese economic reforms, of structural changes in the economy,
development of key economic sectors and regions, renovation of mechanisms for
economic management, development of the agricultural economy and rural areas,
- 9 -

industrialization and modernization, Vietnam's integration into the world

economy, economic theories and models in the region and other countries.
Research results are disseminated through books, monographs, articles, journals
and active programmes of conferences, seminars and workshops.
The IE publishes two periodical scientific reviews: Nghien cuu kinh te
(Economic Studies Review) (monthly in Vietnamese) and Vietnam's Socio-
Economic Development (quarterly in English).
• Source 5: Ministry of Investment -Central Institute for Economic
Management (CIEM)
Established in 1978, The Central Institute of Economic Management belongs to
the Ministry of Investment. The CIEM functions to study and propose economic
regulation and policies, economic mechanism, business environment, economic
reform. The CIEM also focuses on educating and training management officers,
consulting economic issues.
Among 95 employees of the CIEM, there are 2 associate professors, 15 doctors,
32 people hold master degrees.
Website:
• Source 6: The National Economics University (NEU)
Established more than 50 years ago, the National Economics University is a high
standard university specializing in training students at graduate and post-graduate
level in economic and business management. Besides, the NEU also has
functions to consult macro policies to the Government.
The number of lecturers and administrators of the NEU is 1117. Among them
there are 26 professors, 69 associate professors, 207 doctors, 250 masters, 20
advanced teachers, 230 senior teachers, 329 lecturers.
The NEU has a monthly journal: Economics and Development Review
1.4.1.3.2 Database
The database in this project refers to the set of publications from which articles
for analysis have been extracted. It consists of the following journals:
• The American Economic Review (AER)
This journal is published quarterly. Each of the regular issues (March, June,

September, and December) contains a number of articles and shorter papers on
economic fields.
Each issue begins with main articles which discuss matters on economic subjects.
Each main article often is 18 pages in length with around 7500 words. There is a
- 10 -

document summary section at the beginning of each main article. Following the
main articles are short papers with approximately 15 pages in length.
Topics of the journal included are salaries, distribution of faculty by rank, sex
and race, trends in undergraduate enrollment, and information about graduate
programs in economics, monetary issues, financial crises, monetary policies.
• The Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
With the initial name The Journal of Economic Abstract, in 1969, the Journal of
Economic Literature became an official publication of the Association, with
issues appearing quarterly in March, June, September and December. Unlike
AER, JEL contains mainly survey and review articles, book reviews, an
annotated list of new books classified according to specific subject matters, and
indexes of articles from economic periodicals. For the purpose of the present
study, articles extracted from this journal are all from empirical studies which
have a length of more than 40 pages.
• Advances in Economic Policy & Analysis
Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy welcomes submissions that employ
microeconomics to analyze issues in business, consumer behavior, and public
policy. The Journal in Economic Analysis & Policy is recognized as a forum for
scholarship all around the world to consider a general issue or an economic issue
attached to a particular country or region.
The Journal focuses on the effects of domestic and international policy, the
interaction of firms, the functioning of markets, and the design of organizations
and institutions. The articles can also be in corporate finance, industrial
organization, international trade, labor economics, public finance, law and

economic, environmental economic, or other related fields.
This B.E. Journal in Economic Analysis and Policy produces specialist economic
and business publications that make advances in economic analysis and policy. It
also publishes articles suitable for publication in a top field journal or an
excellent general interest journal.
• Advances in Macroeconomics
In the same family as other journals such as Frontiers in Macroeconomics,
Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy, this Advances in Macroeconomics (or
The B.E. Journals in Macroeconomics) focuses on both theoretical and applied
macroeconomics. Articles in this paper are edited by distinguished professors
from Berkeley, Princeton, New York University, Boston College, Frankfurt, and
Oslo. This journal is assigned to cover papers from the broad research area
concerning modern macroeconomics. The paper meets the demand of researchers
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in exploring such issues as unemployment, inflation, poverty, growth, and
globalization.
For the purpose of this study, each section is taken to be an independent article.
All articles taken from discussion sections in this journal have been considered
for analysis. The tables and graphs in these articles have been ignored because of
lack of sufficient verbal information.
• The Journal of International Economic and Economic Policy (JIEEP)
As a member of Springer, the Journal of International Economic and Economic
Policy publishes empirical and theoretical contributions, especially papers
relevant to economic policy. The main focus of the journal is on comparative
economic policy, international political economy, including international
organizations and policy cooperation, monetary and real/technological dynamics
in open economies, globalization and regional integration, trade, migration,
international investment, internet commerce and regulation. JIEEP aims to create
a forum for exchanging knowledge among the academic and policy community.

• Nghien cuu kinh te (Economic Studies Review)
This is a monthly published journal in Vietnamese
• Vietnam Economic Management Review (VEMR)
Under the management of the Vietnamese Central Institute for Economic
Management (CIEM), the peer-reviewed economic journal - Vietnam Economic
Management Review (VEMR) has some following aims:
(i) to provide rigorous analyses of emerging issues in Vietnam's economy
regarding micro and macroeconomics management, factor market
development, the process of economic institution reform and integration,
and sustainable economic development; (ii) to update and analyze the
country's economic performance; and (iii) to introduce newly released
publications in both Vietnamese and English.
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Articles are selected from completed research projects of CIEM staff and
contributions from non-CIEM and foreign scholars.
• Economic & Development Review (EDR)
The Economic & Development Review is an organ for economic studies of the
Ho Chi Minh University of Economics. This journal has functions of
promulgating the economic development policies of the Party and Government,
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introducing achievements in techno-scientific, advanced technologies as well as
local experience in management.
The journal covers contents of economic research and development, world
economy, legislation, markets and prices, as well as culture, education.
Writers of articles in the EDR are well-known professors, researchers, Doctors of
Philosophy in economics, journalists and entrepreneurs worldwide and
nationwide.
The journal is published monthly on the fifteenth of the month. All contents of
the journal can be accessible on the website of the HoChiMinh City University of

Economics and the Financial Times Group.
For the purpose of the present analysis, each section extracted from the
discussion sections (although they have different names) is treated as an
independent article in its own right. The reason for this decision is that, on
conceptual grounds, the sections deal with different economic issues concerning
economic policy, which relates to possibly quite different topics. Although
authors might give their discussion about the mentioned issues in other sections
of the article, the subsequent sections do not appear to have a common beginning
or introduction, nor do they appear to have a common ending or conclusion.
Therefore, each section in the article which, in this study, is the discussion
section is treated as an ARTICLE.
However, not all the articles found in this sample have been considered for
analysis for many reasons stated later in the thesis.
1.4.1.4 Extracted Research Articles
As mentioned before, discussion sections devoted to each article are taken as
independent articles. A total of 50 economic articles (25 articles in English and
25 articles in Vietnamese) have been extracted from the sample publications
mentioned previously with a view to analyzing hedging devices in their
expressions and their functions in semantic, syntactic and pragmatic aspects.
Moreover, in order to consider the use of hedging devices in different fields, 10
other articles in applied linguistics and physics genres (in English), 5 other
articles in applied linguistics and 7 articles in sociology (in Vietnamese) are also
used.
The recent issues (2000-2007) of the above journals are deliberately selected and
only empirical research articles (RAs) are chosen due to the fact that the
language used in these journals is not only authentic but updated as well. The
empirical RA is a recognizable genre and has emerged as a result of a mutually
understood communicative purpose, reporting new experiments intended to
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contribute to the existing knowledge of the discipline. The empirical economic
RA is; therefore, distinguished from other types of economic articles such as
theoretical papers (meta-discourse), review articles (meta-analysis) and short
communications or notes. A difficulty was emerged when Vietnamese articles
were collected: There is no clear distinction between rhetorical sections in
Vietnamese articles. To solve this difficulty, economic experts (specialist
informants) were asked for assistance in identifying sections where discussions
were given in each article. The articles whose discussions scatter are not included
in the corpus of the thesis.
To keep to a minimum the rhetorical influence from other languages on those of
the English RAs or Vietnamese RAs, all articles are monolingual articles
extracted from journals published either in America or in Vietnam. It is hoped
that by choosing monolingual articles from journals published in a native
country, native journal editors or referees might minimize the impacts of the
other language because of translation process.
Seventy articles, each averaging around 800 words in length are selected and
narrowed in policy and management fields. Therefore, the corpus obtained in this
sample consists of about 55, 000 words.
Appendix 21 summarizes English corpus used (both economics, applied
linguistics and physics), including sources and the extracted texts. A detailed
referencing of each selected text can be found in appendix 1, 2, and 3. In the
appendix, detailed information about how to analyze each individual sentence is
included.
Appendix 22 summarizes Vietnamese corpus used (both economics, applied
linguistics and computer technology). A detailed analysis of each sentence can be
found in appendix 4, 5, and 6.
The database also includes survey questionnaires: A 40-question survey for
native speakers of English and a 20-question and 10-question survey for native
speakers of Vietnam (2 versions). The objectives of English survey questionnaire
are native English professors, associate professors, lecturers, journalists and

experts in economics, students in linguistics field and in other majors than
linguistics. The objectives of Vietnamese survey questionnaire are native
Vietnamese economists, university lecturers, businessmen, students in M.A.
courses in economics in National Economics University. These M.A. students are
special in various specific majors in economics and are rich in practical
experience in economic fields.
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1.4.2. Procedures for the Analysis of the Corpus
1.4.2.1 Approaches
Corpus analysis was the mainly used approach in this thesis to investigate
discourse features of hedging expressions. A corpus (sample) of naturalistic
economic discourse excerpts that are relevant to the thesis’s particular research
questions was collected. The discourse corpus was analyzed by counting the
frequency of discourse elements, categories, sequences, and combinations of
these linguistic/ discourse entities. The frequencies could be normalized by
counting the number of occurrences per 100 words. According to the hard-core
scientific researchers, the discourse corpus needs to be sampled systematically
and scientifically, rather than haphazardly or with bias. To avoid possible
mistakes, the corpus for the thesis was selected carefully, at random and with
suggestions of economic professors.
1.4.2.2 Methods
A comprehensive understanding of hedging in English and Vietnamese ERAs
involves at least two levels of linguistic description: an analysis at surface-level
hedging devices employed in a particular academic genre, and a deeper
functional analysis at pragmatic level. The analysis of the corpus was undertaken
by blending qualitative and quantitative methods. The analysis followed several
steps, beginning with a quantitative search, followed by a computerized
compilation of the corpus, then by a qualitative analysis all the texts and a
contrastive analysis.

• Descriptive analysis was used at the first level of analysis to discover the
devices and functions that were most likely employed to express hedging in
this variety, to characterise the extent of hedging, its distribution and its
principal forms in typical samples of ERAs. A parallel analysis of the
computer corpus of heterogeneous academic material was also made to
determine the range and quantitative significance of lexical hedges in more
general contexts.
• The research then employed a contextual analysis of authentic texts at the
second level of analysis to identify the purposes served by items in particular
cases and continuously refining a series of categorisations. The focus of this
analysis was on the contextual interpretation of linguistic phenomena that
may be seen as devices modifying group membership, truth value, or
illocutionary forces.
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• Comparative and contrastive analysis methods were also used to illustrate the
differences and similarities of hedging devices used in English and
Vietnamese economic texts.
• To test the hypothesis of the use of hedging expressions and their functions in
ERAs, both in English and Vietnamese, questionnaires and surveys were
conducted. The subjects of the questionnaires and surveys were chosen
among English speaking journalists and experts in economics and Vietnamese
economic journalists and experts. They evaluated and gave comments on the
hedging forms and hedging functions of the corpora selected from the above-
mentioned journals. The findings and discussions followed up the surveys
would contribute to the reliable answers for the research question 2 and 3.
1.4.2.3 Procedures
The approaches and methods were employed with some of the following
elicitation procedures:
1.4.2.3.1 Compiling a list of hedging devices.

Firstly, a list of frequent items used to express mitigation was compiled by
reference to published studies about epistemic modality, verbs, adverbs…
introduced by Holmes (1988), and Kennedy (1987). For example, Holmes’s work
indicates the likelihood of encountering epistemic verbs such as appear, assume,
suggest, or suppose in academic discourse. Kennedy shows that tentative
expressions such as seldom, infrequently, or hardly ever In the most distinctive
or significant features of hedging devices, lexico-grammatical features and
structure interpretation were mostly focused on. Hedging devices and their
contexts for later reference were stored in computer, with codes indicating the
linguistic status of the items, the title of the article it belongs to, its position in the
text and other contextual categories. This phrase of the analysis was the surface
level analysis of hedging phenomena.
To avoid the trouble of quoting a whole text every time an example is needed, all
50 texts were divided into numbered sentences and each sentence was divided
into clauses (see Appendix 2 for more detail). Moreover, because of this
dividing, the linguistic context from which a particular quotation was extracted in
the appropriate text would be found easily. Another, and probably more
important reason is that when sentences and clauses are divided into minimal
linguistic unit, some semantic relations of a proposition or a set of propositions
will probably seen clearly.
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Based on the verb or predicate, clauses were identified. Every clause was
assumed to have a verb which is either finite or non-finite (with –ing form verb, -
ed form verb or to-infinitive verb). Regarding to verbs which were elliptically
omitted, they were considered to be restored in the clause without affecting the
meaning of the sentence including that clause. For example,
(2a) In May, the three months’ interbank rate stood near 10% (2b) and
the long-term government bond rate at 12% (EE. 14)
The clause (2b) is still counted as clause because the verb stood was omitted in

this clause.
Consider another example
(10a) I can think of (at least) three strategies for curtailing unethical
conduct, (10b) involving increasing amounts of coercion: long-run market
pressure, moral suasion, and government regulation. (EE. 1)
Although there is no subject in (10b), it is still considered as a clause because
(10b) can be modified by the previous noun “three strategies”.
1.4.2.3.2 Conducting textual analysis
Because of the relatively small dimensions of the corpus, a close reading of the
whole texts could be undertaken. This is useful because it allows a more detailed
look at the texts, taking into account single words as well as strings of words,
considering their collocations. Moreover, a small specialized corpus is more
homogenous than many large corpora. Therefore, every word or phrase
expressing a hedging function in the RAs was noted in order to consider whether
these devices perform hedging functions. In this stage, the analysis aims at taking
account of the hedging potential of a variety of other possible means that may be
seen as epistemic. In other words, it is hoped that the second level of analysis
will help to sketch the possible contextual picture of hedging phenomena.
1.4.2.3.3 Computerizing data
Using specialized corpora, the primary aim of this study is not size but the
possibility of studying typical hedging devices used in the specific principle
genre within a discourse area: economics. A text analysis software -Concordance
program MonoConc 2.0 is used to process the data. The program helps to count
the frequency of a certain hedge in the whole corpus and also to find common
collocates of any word accompanying with a certain hedge. This program is also
useful because the output found from the program can be copied and pasted into
other Windows applications and can be printed out.