A vietnamese american cross cutural study on the use of hedging in argument

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF
POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
-----



-----

NGUYỄN THỊ DUYÊN

A
VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN CROSS
CULTURAL STUDY ON THE USE OF HEDGING IN
ARGUMENT
NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH RÀO ĐÓN
KHI TRANH LUẬN

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15

HANOI-2012


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF
LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF
POST- GRADUATE STUDIES
-----



-----

NGUYỄN THỊ DUYÊN

A
VIETNAMESE-AMERICAN CROSS
CULTURAL STUDY ON THE USE OF HEDGING IN
ARGUMENT
NGHIÊN CỨU GIAO VĂN HÓA VIỆT - MỸ VỀ CÁCH RÀO ĐÓN
KHI TRANH LUẬN

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 60.22.15
SUPERVISOR: PHAN THỊ VÂN QUYÊN, M.A

HANOI– 2012


DECLARATION

I certify that the work contained in this thesis is the result of my own research. I
confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees to any other
university or institution.

Signature: ______________
Name: Nguyễn Thị Duyên

Date: Octocber 2,2012

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to send my great gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs.
Phan Thị Vân Quyên for her insightful instructions, detailed comments and
correction of my drafts of this thesis. I am deeply indebted to her enthusiastic
assistance as well as her encouragement during my course of writing this thesis.
In addition, I wish to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues at
ThaiNguyen Univeristy of Information and Communication Technology for their
useful suggestions and cooperation to obtain indispensable data for this study report.
I would also like to convey my big thanks to those who are candidates of
Master course 19 – ThaiNguyen for their invaluable materials and references of this
study.
Last but not least, my thanks go to my family, my friends who stimulated and
supported me to accomplish this research.

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ABSTRACT
This study aims to find out the similarities and the differences in the use of
hedges in argument by American and Vietnamese students. Additionally, the goal of
the thesis is to help Vietnamese learners of English avoid potential problems when
using hedges to argue with English native speakers. Participants of the study were
30 American students and 30 Vietnamese students who are at the age of 20-25. The
data was collected via a discourse completion task (DCT) which was accompanied
by the sample of questionnaire. The survey questionnaire was designed in two

versions- one in English delivered to American participants, one in Vietnamese
version for Vietnamese informants. Finally, contrastive analysis was discussed and
some suggestions were made for Vietnamese learners of English in using hedges to
argue with English native speakers.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION...................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT...........................................................................................................iii
ABBREVIATION................................................................................................... vi
PART A: INTRODUCTION................................................................................... 1
1. Rationale.......................................................................................................... 1
2. Aims of the Study............................................................................................ 2
3. Scope of the Study.................................................................................................................... 2
4. Design of the Study.......................................................................................... 2
PART B: DEVELOPMENT…………………………………………………….....3
1.1. Communication........................................................................................ 3
1.1.1. Verbal communication....................................................................... 4
1.1.2. Non- verbal communication.............................................................. 5
1.2. Culture....................................................................................................... 6
1.3. Cross-cultural communication................................................................ 7
1.4. Potential problems in cross-cultural verbal communication.................8
1.5. Cross-cultural study................................................................................. 9
1.6. Politeness................................................................................................. 11
1.6.1. Face................................................................................................... 11
1.6.2. Politeness Strategies........................................................................ 12
1.7. Argument................................................................................................ 13

1.8. Hedges and Use of hedges in argument................................................. 15

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1.9. Review of previous studies..................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY................................................................... 20
2.1. Research question................................................................................... 20
2.2. Subjects of the Study.............................................................................. 20
2.3. Data collection instruments................................................................... 20
2.4. Procedures............................................................................................... 22
2.5. Methods of the study.............................................................................. 22
3.1. Realization of hedges used in argument................................................ 23
3.2. The frequency of using hedges in argument......................................... 25
3.3. Use of hedges as seen from informants’ parameters............................27
3. 4. Use of hedges as seen from communicating partners’ parameters....30
3.5. Contrastive analysis............................................................................... 35
3.5.1. Similarities....................................................................................... 36
3.5.2. Differences........................................................................................ 36
3.6. Implications............................................................................................. 37
PART C: CONCLUSIONS.......................................................................................................... 38
1. Summary....................................................................................................... 38
2. Suggestions for further Studies.................................................................... 39
RERERENCES..................................................................................................... 40
APPENDIX.............................................................................................................. I

v


ABBREVIATION

DCT

Discourse completion task

FTAs

Face threatening acts

H

Hearer

S

Speaker

vi


LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES AND CHARTS
TABLES
Table 1: Holliday‟s view of culture........................................................................... 7
Table 2: DCT‟s features.......................................................................................... 21
Table 3: Frequency of using hedges in argument.................................................... 25
Table 4: Frequency of hedging types used by American and Vietnamese informants
28
FIGURES
Figure 1: Elements of Commnunication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992:7-10)..............4
Figure 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levison, 1987).................12
Figure 3: Use of hedge in argument from gender perspective.................................27

Figure 4: Use of hedges to different kinds of partners............................................. 30
Figure 5: Use of hedges from communicating partner as parents............................ 31
Figure 6: Use of hedges from communicating partner as close friend.....................32
Figure 7: Use of hedges from communicating partner as classmate........................34
CHART
Chart 1: Distribution of hedging categories in argument......................................... 26

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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale
In many species, human beings have the highest development with the use of
language. It is the language that made human different from the other species and
put an important mark in the human‟s evolution. The appearance of language helps
man communicate to each other easily. The more developing the society is, the more
complicated the language is.
In the trend of globalization, all countries together would like to be loyal
friends and potential partners not only in economy but also such other field as
cultures and politics. It is the opening-policy applied by many governments that
stimulates the exchanging and studies different cultures which has been increased
promptly. Hence, cross-cultural communication attracts more and more attentions
and the studies of the linguists. As the world has been so far changing, it is
extremely essential to do researches on how people from different cultures
communicate to each other.
Therefore, there have been plenty of studies on cultural diversities as well as
the differences between cultures. Language is indispensable factor affecting the
intercultural communication. Language is used to communicate but how to get a
successful conversation concerns with different elements, for instance, the topic of
the conversation, the mutually interesting connections among the speakers and the

hearers, the understanding of each other. Obviously, argument is unavoidable in
communication. The participants of the conversation, especially those in familiar
relationship are at a high rate of having conflict in every communicating. Actually,
the struggle may be developed to be a debate or a strong disagreement through the
conversation. However, as considered to be the most intelligent living creatures,
human know how to put an end to a debate. That is when hedge is employed as a
useful means of communicating.

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Actually, variety of researches on hedging has been carried out before.
Hedging, however, is still a broad issue that needs further exploration. Therefore,
hedging in argument is chosen for the research. In this minor study – A VietnameseAmerican Cross-Cutural Study on the Use of Heding in Argument - the basic
emphasis is on comparing Vietnamese and American cultures on using hedges to
argue, with the hope to pay contribution on the string of hedging studies.
2. Aims of the Study
The aim of the study is to find out the similarities and differences of using
hedges in English and Vietnamese. At that time, the study examines whether
cultures affect the way of using hedges in argument by the American and
Vietnamese. In addition, the paper wishes to help Vietnamese students avoid
potential conflicts in cross-cultural communication when argue with English native
speakers.
3. Scope of the study
The study is only confined the area of verbal communication, potential
problems in communication by both American and Vietnamese. The data analysis of
how participants of the study use hedges in argument is mainly done using the
combination of qualitative and quantitative methods.
The study mainly concentrates on the relations of student-student
communication including Vietnamese and American students. The situations of the

questionnaire are issues between the students and their parents and friends.
4. Design of the Study
This paper contains 3 parts
PART A: INTRODUCTION
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter 1: Theoretical background
Chapter 2: Methodology
Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion
PART C: CONCLUSION

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
This chapter provides an overview of basic theories of the study. At the very
two first of this chapter, the key notions of communication and culture are discussed
in section 1.1 and section 1.2. Section 1.3 reviews the theories of cross-cultural
communication. This is followed by section 1.4, in which potential problems in
cross-cultural verbal communication are mentioned. Section 1.5 focuses on the
content of cross-cultural study. Politeness, argument and hedges are in turn appeared
in section 1.6, section 1.7 and section 1.8. Section 1.9 reviews previous studies
about hedges and different strategies of using hedges in communication
1.1. Communication
Obviously, human always interact to each other by various means. Without
communication, it is extremely difficult for man to share ideas, information, and
other complicates feelings. Human can communicate to each other in a various
channels such as language, signs, writing, or behavior. Yet, language is not the
unique tools for man to express their thoughts and opinions. Consequently, the
question raised is that “What is communication?”

Hybels & Weaver II claimed that communication is “the process of sharing
information, ideas and feelings” (1992:5). This process concerns with a sender and a
recipient who are sharing and exchanging of messages. The recipient, of course,
need not to be present of the sender‟s intention at the time of communication.
However, communication requires both participants to share the commonality. In
another word, one of the most important factors leading the success of
communicating is the mutual understanding of the sender and addressee who share
the shame custom and culture.
In a communication process, it takes into accounts the elements of
communication. It is assumed that the communication consist of such elements as
sender – receiver, message, channels, feedback, noise and setting of the

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communication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992). From the figure 1, it certainly shows
that sender- receivers are those who get involved in communication. The ideas and
feelings shared by a sender- receiver is called message, and feedback is the response
of the receiver- senders to each other. Channels are the means which used to share
massage including sound, sight, verbal and non-verbal signals. The figure also
points that the interference that keeps a massage from being understood or
accurately interpreted – the noise. Setting is defined as where the communication
occurs.
Setting
Message-

SenderReceive

Channel

Figure 1: Elements of Commnunication (Hybels & Weaver II, 1992:7-10)
From the figure, it can be shown that there exist different channels of
commnunication which is consisted of verbal and non- verbal communication.
1.1.1. Verbal communication
Verbal communication is one way for people to interact to each other by
different means such as sounds, words and language. Verbal communication, itself,
refers to the transform the message and feedback of both senders and recipients.
Language, as a result, is a useful means for participants in communication to
express their thoughts, ideas, and especially feelings. Words, or sentences
themselves cannot be messages in communication without the participants‟ emotion
and attitudes. It is likely that the purpose of using verbal communication is to

4


inform, inquire, argue, and discuss topics of all kinds, and so on. However, there has
been variety of challenges in verbal communication. Misunderstandings and
language barriers appear to be attracted the most solutions even the senders and
receivers face–to- face communicate and share the common language and culture.
Anglicist, especially Americans, can have problems when talking to each other
because of differences. For instance, New Yorkers tend to faster and respond more
quickly (“high involvement”) than Californians (“high considerateness”). To some
New Yorkers, Californians seem slower, less intelligent and not as responsive. To
some Californians, New Yorkers seem pushy and domineering (Nguyen Quang,
1998:40).Levels in verbal communication are mainly divided into interpersonal
communication and public speaking. Additionally, verbal communication belongs to
the intralanguage which takes grammar, lexis, phonetics, rules of language use and
etc into account. Hence, it seems certain that study verbal communication is the
study of the skeleton of language paralleling with the cultural patterns of the target
language and the comparative language.

1.1.2. Non- verbal communication
Besides verbal communication, one indispensable channel of communicating
is non-verbal communication. It can be claimed that the participants of
communication process, means, message – feedback and setting of non-verbal
communication is larger and wider-spread than verbal one. Dislike the using of
language as verbal communication to have interaction with others, non-verbal
communication is performed without speaking words.
In his research, Albert Mehrabian (1981) draws the conclusion of the
effectives of a massage in communication. Specifically, the intralanguage and
paralanguage only occupies in turn 7% and 38% of the effectiveness while the
extralanguage or non-verbal communication takes up to 55% of total effectiveness
of a massage. Consequently, non-verbal communication plays an extremely
important role of the success of relaying message in communication. Non-verbal
communication or “silent” communication includes the use of gestures, facial

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expressions, eye contact and conversational distance (Nguyen Quang, 1998: 61).
The movement of the body or part of the body is defined as gesture. In fact, the
movement of hands is the most popular part of gesture. Gesture, facial expression,
eye contact and conversational distance have distinctive features belonging to
different cultures.
Obviously, both verbal and non-verbal communication plays an extremely
important role in the ways people of different cultures interacting to each other,
even those who share the same communicative commonality.
1.2. Culture
Every country has its own customs, tradition of ceremonies, and cultures. In
term of cultural communication, culture is understood as the values, belief,
attitudes, which are considered as the hidden part of iceberg (Nguyen Quang,

1998:3). The informal and hidden pattern of human interaction of one culture is not
always shown clearly. Therefore, studying the relationship between culture and
communication becomes more important not only to help one to find out the
characteristics of one‟s culture, but also the effects of others‟ culture on his ways of
communication.
Hybels & Weaver II (1992:25) claimed that the goal of giving definition of
culture is to clarify the crucial link between culture and communication, as follow:
Culture is a learned set of shared interpretation about beliefs, values, norms
and social practice, which affect the behaviors of a relatively large group of
people.
The writers explained that the shared interpretation mentions to cultures existing in
people‟s minds. When the communication takes place, the meanings of symbols on
ones‟ mind are shared with other people, which form the basis for culture.
However, there exist symbols only shared to a few, and not all people are aware of
the same symbols. Similarly, Nguyen Quang (1998) suggested that the cultural
differences are obvious phenomenon, and “what is appropriate in one culture may
be inappropriate in another culture”. According to Hybels & Weaver II (199:27),

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beliefs refer to “the basic understanding of a group of people about what the world
is like or what is true or false”. Values mention to what is good or bad or what is
regarded as important defined by a group of people in sharing their culture. The
rules for appropriate behavior which provide the expectations of the participants in
communication process are defined as norms. Social practices are the predictable
behaviour patterns that are followed by members of a culture. Hall (1959) defined
culture as the sum of people‟s behaviour patterns, attitudes and material things. In
addition, culture is also made definition as the values, beliefs, orientations, and
underlying assumptions of those in one society (Samovar, Porter, & McDaniel,

2007:20). Below is the point of view of culture shown by Holliday (2004:4). He
classified the culture basing on essentialist and non-essentialist view with three
categories as nature, place and relation.
Nature

Place
Relation

Table 1: Holliday‟s view of culture
Of all the ideas of linguists, it can be drawn that culture and communication
have a crucial relation, in which culture has strong effect on the ways people
communicate from coast to coast. This is raised the problems of cross-cultural
communication.
1.3. Cross-cultural communication

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The communication nowadays is not limited among those who share the same
belief, norm, values and so on. The development of the modern society creates the need
of exchanging and communicating of people from different cultures. Hence,
intercultural communication appears as a useful means of communication.

The differences between intercultural communication and cross-cultural
communication have been studied. Intercultural communication is defined as
“interaction between people whose cultural assumptions are distinct enough to alter
the communication event” (Samovar, Porter, &McDaniel, 2007:10). In other words,
intercultural communication focuses on “sharing of meanings” across cultures while
the cross-cultural communication concentrates on the comparison of communication
styles. Specifically, “intercultural communication occurs whenever a message is

produced by a member of one culture for consumption by a member of another
culture, a message must be understood” (Samovar and Porter, 1991:10). On the
other hands, it is assumed that the process of exchanging, negotiating, and
mediating one‟s cultural in non-verbal gestures, and relationships is defined as
cross-cultural communication. Seeking of similarities and differences between
cultures is the basis of cross-cultural communication. Consequently, intercultural
communication involves face-to-face communication between people from different
cultures while cross-cultural communication involves comparison of face-to-face
communication (Gudykunst & Mody, 2002).
Generally, communicating to people whose beliefs, norms, and values
culturally different from ours easily leads to misunderstandings. In other words, that
is when we communicate across cultural boundaries. The misinterpreting can
develop to cultural conflict or can cause cultural shock to everyone, especially those
who are inexperienced in cross-cultural communication. Therefore, problems are
easy to occur in cross-cultural communication. The following section refers to
potential problems in commnunication across cultures.
1.4. Potential problems in cross-cultural verbal communication

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Communicating among people who share the same culture, belief, norms,
and values still conceal itself problems. The participants of the conversation cannot
solve the problems themselves, and even lead to an argument or struggle.
Consequently, there have been existing problems in cross-cultural communication.
In this paper, due to the limitation of the study, the main focus is on the crosscultural verbal communication between American and Vietnamese students.
To study the directness and indirectness speech acts, Nguyen Quang
(2004:202) carried out a case study by one Request-Reason conversation in both
Vietnamese and English. 112 Vietnamese learners of English and 26 American and
8 Australian were requested to read the conversation and give feedback and

comments. Most Vietnamese students agree with the indirect way of the researcher
in the conversation to make the offer more acceptable. In contrast, the American and
Australian assume that it is not necessary to talk around such as talking about the
weather, the elder people, and their health. They all directly come to the
communicative point without adding any more reasons guiding to the point as
follow
- Excuse me, sir. Could I have 3 days off please? My mother’s ill, you know.
Another problem in cross-cultural communication is that “the judgements
that people make about regional differences within a country are similar to those
they make about people from another culture” (Nguyen Quang, 1998:40).
Consequently, misunderstanding and argumentation is easier to appear between
those of different cultures. Hence, there have been varieties of cross-cultural
communication studies that do research to find out the solutions and suggest advices
for communicators to be successful in communicating to people from different
cultures.
1.5. Cross-cultural study
Obviously, the study of cross-cultural communication plays an important role
in study of linguistics and cultural studies. Cross-cultural study, itself, examines the
human behaviour, belief, and attitudes, and so on cross cultures. Carol

9


R. and Melvin Ember (2002) suggested the outline of a cross-cultural study which
consists of organization and classification, numbers of questions, measures of study,
and the analysis of the result. The classification including three main parts: selection
of cultures, source materials and classification. The section of cultures mainly bases
on the criteria of maximum cultural diversity, maximum geographical dispersal and
adequacy of literature within the scope of the two preceding criteria.
The background knowledge of theories in cross-cultural communication

study suggested by Ember, C & M (2002) consists of the detailed description of
culture in which a particular community sharing that culture written by a
professional social scientist. In classification part, the writer preferred to assign each
document with coding. Then, each category should be included a brief descriptive
statement, indicating the range of information.
First what are the foci of study? Second, what are the issues of coherence or
decoherence within the foci studied? Third, how do these issues apply
between foci
(Ember, C & M, 2002:2)

The authors suggested that firstly, the one has to define clearly what the problem to
study in term of foci is. Comparing communities is not the only the approach of
cultural comparison, but the focus on the people, the specific communicative
commonality shared in that community. The second question concentrates on the
coherence and decoherence within that foci. Making a comparison is to find out the
correlation and uncorrelated features of the two cultures which can apply suitably in
the foci of the study.
Aneas (2009) suggested that the data collection and analysis of a crosscultural communication essentially base on the certain situations with participants of
the study. In other words, the researcher plays an extremely important role in
carrying out the research, gathering and analyzing the data, recording and
conveying the message in interaction between those who are culturally different.

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It cannot be denied that the study of cross-cultural communication has been
strongly developed since “The silent language” by Hall (1959) was published.
Nowadays, the world is changeable, the way people interact to each other,
consequently, is not the same as it was. Therefore, studying the events and
phenomena all over the world attached with cultures and communication helps

researchers themselves clearly understand the distinctive features of the customs,
cultures that differ from their own culture.
In the string of cross-cultural communication studies, politeness plays an
important role in getting a successful conversation. The following section discusses
politeness and politeness strategies in communication.
1.6. Politeness
Politeness, in this paper, is discussed from the point of the view of linguistics
and in close relation with cultures and communication. It is a number of principles
for being polite in communication, especially when interact to a particular culture.
According to Richards (1992:81), politeness is how languages express the social
distance between their speakers and their different role relationship. In addition,
politeness refers to how face work, in which the attempt to establish, maintain and
save face during conversation is carried out in a speech community. The following
sub-section presents face and politeness strategies.
1.6.1. Face
Studying politeness, many linguists suggested that in conversation, the
politeness related the face of the speakers and the hearers. Face is “the public self–
image that every member wants to claim for himself” (Brown & Levinson, 1987).
In other words, the expectation of being respected their self-image in the public of
people is face want. Face is consistently at risk of possibly losing in
communication. Yule (1996:61) also pointed that
A person’s negative face is the need to be independent, to have freedom of
action, and not to be imposed on by others, and a person’s positive face is

11


the need to be accepted, even liked, by others, to be treated as a member of
the same group, and to know that his or her wants are shared by others.
Both negative and positive faces require the maintenance, respect and sharing in

communication. However, the possibility of threatening, imposing or even losing
face is at high rate. Politeness which is responsible for enhancing, maintaining and
protecting face provide politeness strategies to reduce face threatening act.
1.6.2. Politeness Strategies
Lesser rick

Greater risk
Figure 2: Possible strategies for doing FTAs (Brown & Levison, 1987)
Basing on this, Brown and Levinson outlined the politeness strategies
including four types: bald on record, negative politeness, positive politeness, and
off-record or indirect strategy (Brown & Levinson, 1987:69). Bald on record
strategy is most often utilized by speakers who closely know their audience. E.g.
Do the dishes. It’s your turn. or Give me those!
Positive politeness strategy which is applied in positive face attempts to
minimize the threat to the hearer's positive face and satisfy his/her want. Positive
politeness tends to show solidarity, emphasies that participants have common goal
in conversation so it is most commonly used in situations where the audience knows
each other fairly well.
+ A positive politeness strategy might be the request: E.g.
It would be great if you could do the dishes for me.

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+ The speakers appeals to a common purpose friendly:
E.g.

You must be hungry now. How about something for lunch?
Negative politeness strategy standing for negative face presumes that the

speaker will be imposing on the listener, even apologizing for imposition or
interruption. Negative politeness concerns not to impose on others or restrict their
freedom, but maintain distance.
+ A question extended and containing a modal verb:
E.g.

I know you’ve been kinda strapped for cash, but could I borrow $5?

+ Expression apology for the imposition:
E.g.

I’m sorry to interrupt you, but can you explain this again
Linguistically, negative politeness can be expressed by:

+ Using a passive construction:
E.g.

Dinner is served (avoids directly imposing on a guest)

+ Indirect speech acts:
E.g.

It’s hot in here (request somebody to open the door or turn on the fan)

+ Hedges:
E.g.

I somehow understand what you’ve said

+ Avoiding using address form directly:

E.g. Someone’ eaten apples on the table
In short, politeness strategies play a fundamental in communication. Different
acts of speech require different politeness strategies. In interaction, arguing is
unavoidable if the participants do not meet the common communicative point. The
following sections will discuss this issue.
1.7. Argument
Argument is one of the focal points of this study. Van (1996) defines
argument as follow:
Argumentation is a verbal and social activity of reason aimed at increasing (or
decreasing) the acceptability of a controversial standpoint for the listener

13


or reader, by putting forward a constellation of propositions intended to
justify (or refute) the standpoint before a rational judge.
In this definition, the writer clearly shows what argumentation is and what
characteristics of argumentation are. Obviously, argumentation is a verbal activity
which occurs mostly in communication. In other words, argument is a form of
verbal communication which may appear in intercultural communication.
Van (1996) pointed that argumentation is a social activity which involves two
or more participants in the conversation responding the claim or supporting a claim
with evidence. It is also an activity of reason in which the speakers aim to support
for the claim. The goal of argumentation is to justify one‟s standpoint or to refute
someone else‟s. In addition, argument consists of controversial issues. Arguing is,
of course, persuasive and contested. When having arguments, the relationships
among participants are stimulated in communication. This is reflected by the high
rate of arguing in conversations in everyday life.
Arguments between participants of the conversation help themselves clearly
solve the problem or find out a new point. However, the participants‟ speech act in

argumentation is different from one to another, from coast to coast and from
different cultures. To gain their point in arguing, naturally, the participants attempt
to use flexibly techniques, especially politeness strategies. Perelman (1969)
suggested three techniques in arguing as quasi-logical techniques, techniques
structuring reality, and techniques of dissociation. Quasi-logical techniques involve
the argument ofthe string of problems happening logically. A sufficient agreement is
the starting point of further persuasion or arguments is the technique basing on the
structure of reality. Techniques of dissociation aim to qualify apparent point to
reality.
Argument activities between students about their daily life happen variously.
It can be an argument among students about a classmate‟s new coat, hairstyle, and
bags and so on. Aggression such as teasing, insulting, swearing may appear. This
may develop as conflicts in cross-cultural communication. Hence, useful strategies

14


for argumentation, including calming oneself, showing respect to each other in
communication and finding out the best solution or method to satisfy all are
suggested. Additionally, tips of controlling the one‟s emotion, finding the common
ideas between participants and modesty are considered best techniques applied in
argument.
Generally, such suggestions for strategies implemented in argumentation
base on politeness strategies with the aim to save face of the interlocutor. One
effective strategy employed much in communication as well as in argumentation is
hedges. In discussing politeness strategies in communication, Nguyen Quang (2004)
listed various forms of hedges which are employed in politeness strategies. The
following section reviews theories of hedges.
1.8. Hedges and Use of hedges in argument
Studies show that two main approaches about hedges have been discussed so

far. Lakoff (1972) paid attention on the logical properties of words and phrases. In
term of semantic analysis, he argues hedges as words whose function is to make
meaning fuzzier or less fuzzy (e.g. sort of). Lakoff (1972:195) defined hedges as
follows:
For me, some of the most interesting questions are raised by the study of
words whose meaning implicitly involves fuzziness-words whose job it is to
make things fuzzier or less fuzzy. I will refer to such words as ‘hedges’
Besides, hedging has been view from the perspective of pragmatics. In
discussing cooperative principle in conversation, Yule (1996:37) assumed that
“there are certain kinds of expressions speakers use to mark that they may be in
danger of not fully adhering to the principles. These kinds of expression are called
hedges”.
E.g.

As far as I know, they’re married
I won’t bore you with the details, but it was an exciting trip
Not to change the subject, but is this related to the the budget?
This may be a bit confused, but I remember being in a car

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(Yule, 1996:38)
In dealing with politeness strategies in verbal communication, Brown &
Levison (1990:145) define hedges as:
…a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a
predicate or noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that it is
partial, or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true or complete
than might be expected.
Brown & Levison (1987) suggested that hedges can act as one of the

politeness strategies in communication. According to the linguists, communicative
functions of hedges are to strengthen or weaken the statement as well as to soften
complaints, requests and commands.
E.g. + Strengthened statement: You know, he’s only my partner at the company.
+ Weakened statement: It maybe late now. Shall we go home?
+ Softened complaints: I think you behaved badly last night
+ Softened request: Would you please lend me your car for a while?
+ Softened command: Close the door, will you?
Nguyen Quang (2004: 46) pointed that using hedges in conversation helps to
mitigate the disagreement of the speakers, and then reduce the face threatening of
the hearers.
E.g.

You really should sort of lay all the cards on the table.
It’s easy a pie, in a way.
In short, saving face for the other is crucial role of hedge in communication

in general and in argumentation in particular. Consequently, hedging is considered
as a politeness strategy from the perspective of pragmatics.
In argument, hedges are used variously. Such expressions of hedges as If I
may say so, As you probably know, This may be a bit confused are normally
employed to propose an argument.
E.g.

If I may say so your handwriting is bad.
This may be a bit confused, but are you the last one to leave the room?

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