Epistemic Modality in Academic Writing: A Discipline-Based Analysis

Abstract

Hedges and boosters, as significant indicators of epistemic modality, have recently grasped the attention of scholars conducting research to explore the language use in academic discourse. Hence, the study aims to reveal the hedges and boosters that are utilized in academic articles and the frequency of the use of these linguistic devices. The article presents findings from both education and engineering. Twenty-four journal articles retrieved from leading research journals were analyzed. The results were in line with the previous studies indicating similarities as well as differences between the selected journals in terms of the use of hedges and boosters.  

Keywords

• hedges,boosters,epistemic modality

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