A Corpus-based Contrastive Study on Hedges in Chinese and English RA Abstracts
Zhou Wang · Journal of Huazhong University of Science and Technology · 2008
This corpus-based research finds that approximators do not differ significantly in frequency in the two corpora of RA abstracts, which may be determined by the common genre and features of research articles. However, frequency of shields in the English corpus is significantly higher than in the Chinese corpus, thus resulting in a potentially more successful effect in lessening the impact of a statement and making the writing more acceptable in English RA abstracts. In terms of types of hedges, both corpora rely most on the indirect shields.