Hedging in a Research Article

The article focuses on linguistic hedging which helps avoid sounding arrogant or too certain of what you state in a research article. The relevance of the theme is based on the fact that nowadays the increasing number of Russian-speaking authors make attempts to publish their research articles in international journals. Writing research papers in the English language should follow some rules adopted in the English communicative culture. One of such rules is using hedging as a means of criticism mitigation and a “saving face” strategy. As hedging is not generally used in the Russian scientific discourse it is necessary to teach Russian scholars to apply hedging techniques in their writing. The aim of the article is to investigate the essence of hedging through analysis of sources written both in English and in Russian. The methods used include examination of Russian and English research papers, their comparative analysis, summing up recommendations on hedging in scientific discourse. As a result, the main lexical means of hedging are pointed out. A conclusion is made on necessity to include teaching linguistic hedging into courses of written academic communication for master degree students and postgraduates.