Hedging in Medical and Pharmaceutical Academic Writing

Authors

  • Aseel Alshbeekat

    Department of English Language and Translation, Isra University, Amman 11622, Jordan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i7.10269
Received: 30 May 2025 | Revised: 17 June 2025 | Accepted: 1 July 2025 | Published Online: 17 July 2025

Abstract

The use of the English language as the global and universal language of science and technology has led English to be the main language in scientific articles. This study, in particular, aims to analyze how frequently different categories of hedging are used in 50 medical and pharmaceutical articles, with 25 articles written by female writers and 25 articles written by male writers. The data is analyzed qualitatively. The results show that there are no significant differences between male and female writers in the use of hedging devices in writing medical and pharmaceutical articles. The findings reveal that the modal verbs are considered the most used hedging devices with 1539 occurrences, while the lexical verbs are considered the least used hedging devices with 29 occurrences. In support of previous literature, it concludes that hedging devices are employed as communicative tactics to qualify writers' commitment, lessen the impact of the researchers' claims, convey probability, preserve the writers' reputation, influence readers, and prevent any potential rejection of their claims. Moreover, the findings indicated that the use of hedging devices was an inevitable strategy that could allow writers and authors of scientific genres to present their findings more effectively and precisely, therefore saving their face from any criticism in the future.

Keywords:

Medical; Pharmaceutical; Hedging; Academic Writing

References

[1] Wilce, 2009. Medical Discourse. Annual Review of Anthropology. 38, 199–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-091908-164450

[2] Salager-Meyer, 2011 Scientific discourse and constrastive linguistics: hedging. European Science Editing. 37(2), 35–37.

[3] Krulj, Prodanovic, Trbojevic, 2011. Realizations of Prepositions and Prepositional Phrases in Professional Medical Texts in English Language. Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Medicine. 28(3), 169–176.

[4] Zuck, Z., 1986. Hedging in news writing. In: Cornu, A.M., Van Parijs, J., Delahaye, M., et al. (eds.). Beads or Bracelets? How Do We Approach LSP, Selected Papers from the Fifth European Symposium on LSP. Oxford: Oxford, UK. pp. 172–180.

[5] Hyland, 2000. Hedges, Boosters and lexical invisibility: noticing modifiers in academic texts". Language Awareness. 9(4), 179–197

[6] Salager-Meyer, F., 1994. Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English written discourse. English for Specific Purposes. 13(2), 149–170. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/0889-4906(94)90013-2

[7] Markkanen, R., Schröder, H., 2006. Hedging: A challenge for pragmatics and discourse analysis. In: Markkanen, R., Schröder, H. (eds.). Hedging and Discourse: Approaches to the Analysis of a Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts. Walter de Gruyter: Berlin, Germany. pp. 3–18. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110807332.3

[8] Réfega de Figueiredo-Silva, M., 2001. Teaching academic reading: Some initial findings from a session on hedging. In Proceedings of the Postgraduate Conference 2001. Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics, University of Edinburgh: Edinburgh, UK.

[9] Vold, E.T., 2006. Epistemic modality markers in research articles: A cross-linguistic functional and corpus approach. Internation Journal of Applied Linguistics. 16(1), 216–228. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2006.00106.x

[10] Hyland, K., 1996. Writing without conviction? Hedging in science research articles. Applied Linguistics. 17(4), 433–454. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/17.4.433

[11] Csongor, A., Rébék-Nagy, G., 2013. Hedging in popular scientific articles on medicine. Acta Medica Marisiensis. 59(2), 97–99. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/amma-2013-0023

[12] Zhao, J., Wu, T., 2013. A genre analysis of medical abstracts by Chinese and English native speakers. Journal of Medical Colleges of PLA. 28(1), 60–64. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/s1000-1948(13)60018-0

[13] Yang, 2013. Exploring linguistic and cultural variations in the use of hedges in English and Chinese scientific discourse. Journal of Pragmatics. 50, 23–36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2013.01.008

[14] Riccioni, et al, 2021. Self-mention and uncertain communication in the British Medical Journal (1840–2007): The decrease of subjectivity uncertainty markers. Open Linguistics. 7(1), 739–759. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2020-0179

[15] Atkinson, D., 1996. Medical discourse, evidentiality and the construction of professional responsibility. In: Sarangi, S., Roberts, C. (eds.). Talk, Work, and Institutional Order. Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin, Germany. pp. 75–107. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110208375.2.75

[16] Hinkel, E., 2005. Hedging, inflating, and persuading in L2 academic writing. Applied Language Learning. 15, 29–53.

[17] Rabab’ah, G., 2013. Hedging in nursing and political discourse. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern. 6, 195–215. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/ebs-03-2013-0006

[18] Jalilifar, 2007. Hedging as a pragmatic strategy: variations across disciplines and cultures. TELL. 1(3), 43–6.

[19] Huang, D., 2014. Genre analysis of moves in medical research articles. Stylus. 5(1), 7–17.

[20] Abdollahpour, Z., Gholami, J., 2018. Rhetorical structure of the abstracts of medical sciences research articles. La Prensa Medica Argentina. 105(2), 1–5.

[21] Santos, 1996. The textual organization of research paper abstracts in applied linguistics. Text-Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of Discourse. 16(4), 481–500.

[22] Hyland, K., 1998. Hedging in scientific research articles. John Benjamins: Amsterdam, Netherlands. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.54

[23] Crompton, P., 1997. Hedging in academic writing: Some theoretical problems. English for Specific Purposes. 16(4), 271–287. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0889-4906(97)00007-0

[24] Hyland, 2005. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. Bloomsbury Academic: London, UK.

[25] Al-Ghazo, A., Ta’amneh, I., 2021. An Exploration of Teachers’ Perspectives towards Cognitive, Affective and Linguistic Teaching Principles while Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures. 13(1), 17–40. DOI: https://doi.org/10.47012/jjmll.13.1.2

[26] Biber, D., Johansson, S., Leech, G., et al., 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Longman: Harlow, UK.

[27] Varttala, T., 2001. Hedging in Scientifically Oriented Discourse: Exploring Variation According to Discipline and Intended Audience [PhD thesis]. University of Tampere: Tampere, Finland.

[28] Holmes, 1990. Doubt and certainty in ESL textbooks. Applied Linguistics. 9(1), 20–44. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/9.1.21

[29] Tannen, 1994. Gender and Discourse. Oxford University Press: New York, NY, USA.

[30] Hyland, Milton, 1997. Qualification and Certainty in L1 and L2 Students' Writing. Journal of Second Language Writing. 6(2), 183–205. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/s1060-3743(97)90033-3

[31] Kojima, T., Popiel, H.A., 2023. Effective Use of Hedging in Scientific Manuscripts: Advice to Non-Native English-Speaking Researchers. Journal of Korean Medical Science. 38(17), e152. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3346/jkms.2023.38.e152

[32] Hardjanto, 2016 Hedging Through The Use of Modal Auxiliaries in English Academic Discourse. Humaniora. 28(1), 37–50. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.22146/jh.11412

[33] Sapir, E., 1929. The Status of Linguistics as a Science. Language. 5(4), 207–214. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/409588

[34] Al-Qeyam, F., Ta'amneh, I., Al-Ghazo, A., 2024. Does Input Enhancement Develop Writing Skill? A Case Study of Jordanian EFL University Students. Theory and Practice in Language Studies. 14(9), 2781–2790. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1409.14

[35] Hassani, M., Razmdideh, P., 2020. The Effect of Gender and Style Variables on Hedging Devices among Persian Speakers. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature. 8(3), 130–137.

[36] Alshbeekat, A., Awwad, A., 2024. Metadiscourse markers in online promotions: exploring linguistic and visual metadiscourse in Jordanian school promotions. Texto Livre. 17, e51670. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-3652.2024.51670

Downloads

How to Cite

Alshbeekat, A. (2025). Hedging in Medical and Pharmaceutical Academic Writing. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(7), 758–769. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i7.10269

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 7 (July 2025): In progress

Article Type

Article

License

Copyright © 2025 Aseel Alshbeekat

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.