75 

 

 EEJ 4 (2) (2014) 

  

English Education Journal 
  

http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/eej 

 

 

HEDGES IN THESIS ABSTRACTS OF GRADUATE STUDENTS OF SEMARANG STATE 

UNIVERSITY 

 

Sri Wahyuningsih , Ahmad Sofwan  

 

Prodi Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Program Pascasarjana, Universitas Negeri Semarang, Indonesia 

 

Info Artikel 
________________ 
Sejarah Artikel: 

Diterima Oktober 2014 

Disetujui Oktober 2014 

Dipublikasikan  

 November 2014 

________________ 
Keywords: 

Abstract; 

Graduate students; 

Hedges 

____________________ 

Abstract
 

___________________________________________________________________ 
This study is meant to describe the hedges used by the English, Mathematics, Science, Social and 

Education Management graduate students of State University of Semarang in writing their thesis 

abstracts, find out whether or not there is a difference in the use of hedges, and explain why they 

used hedges in the ways they do. It used a descriptive qualitative-quantitative approach and the 

data were taken from the thesis abstracts. The unit of analysis is lexical hedges analyzed based on 

the Salager-Meyer’s (1994) taxonomy as well as Hyland’ taxonomy (1998) and non-lexical hedges 

as suggested by Navratilova (2013). The results show that hedges both lexical and non-lexical 

hedges were used. There is a difference among these graduate students in using hedges. Those in 

English, Social and Education Management had the tendency to use more hedges than those in 

Mathematics and Science. This tendency of using more hedges by those in English might be 

influenced by their cultures. Meanwhile, the preferences of those in Social and Education 

Management in using more hedges are possibly caused by its nature in which these two programs 

are categorized as ‘soft sciences’ that are surely not very numerical. 

 

© 2014 Universitas Negeri Semarang 

 
 Alamat korespondensi:  

   Kampus Unnes Bendan Ngisor, Semarang, 50233 

   E-mail: pps@unnes.ac.id 

ISSN 2087-0108  

 



 

Sri Wahyuningsih, dkk. / English Education Journal 4 (2) (2014) 

 

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INTRODUCTION 

 

Theses are avenues for graduate students 

to publicly propose and share new ideas which 

are likely to support or contradict findings of 

others. Hence, the employment of cautious 

language as the acceptance of the graduate 

students’ research contributions depends 

widely on how these are presented to the 

academic community. According to Vassileva 

(2001) in Mojica (2005), using cautious 

language means mitigating the strength of a 

proposal by increasing or decreasing its 

illocutionary force through hedging and 

boosting devices. Moreover, related to the 

academic discourse, Hyland (2000) advocates 

that one of the most important features of it is 

the way that writers seek to modify the 

assertions that they make, toning down 

uncertain or potentially risky claims, 

emphasizing what they believe to be correct, 

and conveying appropriately collegial attitudes 

to readers.  

As a matter of fact, theses are academic 

papers involving a process in which the writers 

in this case, the graduate students, review the 

works of experts regarding to their topic and 

then formulate their own argument in relation 

to the work of others. In addition, theses require 

not only the way to present propositional 

information but also how the writers build the 

relationship to the readers in such way that 

their academic papers are acceptable. With 

regard to this, in writing theses, it is possible 

that the writer has successfully presented 

textual information but failed in constructing 

interpersonal aspects such as building up the 

writers – readers’ relationship.  

The growing interest on hedges in 

academic writing is apparent in various studies. 

Among of those studies is the one done by 

Nivales (2011) extending the study of hedging 

in college research paper to examine how the 

students of the Institute of Arts and Sciences of 

Far Eastern University show their commitment 

and detachment to their ideas as revealed in 

introduction and conclusion sections. Another 

study was conducted by Abdollahzadeh (2011) 

extending hedging in postgraduate students’ 

theses to examine the way of how Iranian and 

British postgraduate students of applied 

linguistics hedge their propositions in the 

discussion section of their dissertations. In this 

study the writer tries to examine hedges in 

graduate students of State University of 

Semarang especially in their thesis abstracts. 

Different from other parts of theses, abstract 

writing has received less attention and the focus 

has largely on length, summary and keywords. 

It is often believed that academic writing, 

particularly scientific writing, is factual. 

However an important feature of academic 

writing is the concept of cautious language, or 

"hedging". It is necessary to make decisions 

about the writers’ stance on a particular subject, 

or the strength of the claims he or she is making. 

The appropriate use of hedging strategies for 

academic argumentation is a significant 

resource for student writers and plays an 

important part in demonstrating competence in 

a specialist register.  

Myers (1989) has suggested that 

academic writers employ hedges to minimize 

the potential threat new claims make on other 

researchers by soliciting acceptance and 

challenging their own work. Equally however, 

engagement in disciplinary forums involves 

norms of interpersonal behavior underpinned 

by the sanctions inherent in a system of 

academic recognition and rewards which hinges 

on publication (Hyland, 1997). Writers may 

thus find it easier to satisfy disciplinary 

gatekeepers when negotiating peer review 

procedures by observing community 

expectations concerning collegial deference and 

limits on self-assurance.  

In line with Myers, Hyland (2005: 52) 

highlights that hedges belongs to interactional 

resources which helps control the level of 

personality in a text as writers acknowledge and 

connect to others, pulling them along with their 

argument, focusing their attention, 



 

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77 

 

acknowledging their uncertainties and guiding 

them to interpretations. 

Hedges are devices such as possible, 

might and perhaps, which indicate the writer's 

decision to recognize alternative voices and 

viewpoints and so withhold complete 

commitment to a proposition. Hedges 

emphasize the subjectivity of a position by 

allowing information to be presented as an 

opinion rather than a fact and therefore open 

that position to negotiation. Writers must 

calculate what weight to give to an assertion, 

considering the degree of precision or reliability 

that they want it to carry and perhaps claiming 

protection in the event of its eventual 

overthrow. (Hyland, 1998a in Hyland, 2005: 

52). 

Salager-Meyer (1997) suggests that 

hedges in scientific English are typically 

expressed through the following strategic 

stereotypes. 

1. Modal auxiliary verbs:  

e.g., may, might, can, could, would, should.   

For example: Advances in technology could 

allow exploration of the anatomical basis of 

subjective fatigue 

2. Modal lexical verbs:  

So-called speech acts verbs used to perform acts 

such as doubting and evaluating:  e.g., to seem, 

to appear, to believe to suggest, to assume, to 

indicate, etc.  For example: Our analyses suggest 

that high doses of the drug can lead to relevant 

blood pressure reduction.  

3. Adjectival, adverbial and nominal modal 

phrases:  

Probability adjectives: e.g., possible, probable, 

unlikely  

Nouns: e.g., assumption, claim, possibility, 

estimate  

Adverbs: e.g., perhaps, possibly, probably, likely, 

presumably  

For example: The setting of the neural 

mechanisms responsible for this sensation is 

possibly altered in patients with chronic fatigue 

syndrome. 

4. Approximators of degree, quantity, frequency 

and time:  

e.g., approximately, roughly, about, often, 

generally, usually. For example: Fever is present 

in about a third of cases and sometimes there is 

neutropenia.  

5. Introductory phrases:  

e.g., I believe, to our knowledge, it is our view 

that, we feel that.    For example: We believe that 

the chronic fatigue syndrome reflects a complex 

interaction of several factors. There is no simple 

explanation.  

6. If clauses:  

e.g., If true, if anything  

For example: If true, then our study contradicts 

the myth that fishing attracts the bravest and 

strongest men. 

7. Compound hedges:  

These are phrases made up of several hedges. 

Salager-Meyer (1997:110) distinguishes double 

hedges (it may suggest), treble hedges (it seems 

reasonable to assume that) and quadruple 

hedges (it would seem somewhat unlikely that).  

The alternative categorization of surface 

realization is proposed by Hyland (e.g. 1995, 

1996a, 1998). He then suggests the following 

categories as principal realizations of hedges in 

research journals: 

1. Category of lexical hedges, Modal verbs (e.g. 

would, may, could), Epistemic lexical verbs 

(e.g. indicate, suggest, appear, and propose), 

Epistemic adjectives (e.g. likely, possible, 

apparent), Epistemic adverbs (e.g. 

apparently, probably, relatively, generally), 

Epistemic nouns (e.g. possibility) 

2. Category of strategic hedges  

“Limited knowledge”:  For example: It is not 

known, whether such a weak temperature 

response...  

“Limitations of a specific model, theory or 

method”:  For example: In spite of its 

shortcomings, the method has been widely 

employed to evidence this type of...  

“Doubts surrounding experimental 

conditions”:  For example: Under these 

conditions phosphorylations of PEPc by...  

 

 



 

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78 

 

METHODS 

 

This study used qualitative-quantitative 

descriptive approach. The data were obtained 

from the graduate students’ thesis abstracts of 

State University of Semarang consisting of 25 

abstracts. Only the most recent texts that were 

used (2012-2013) and only the abstract section 

which was analyzed where its function is to save 

time in reading and gives a salient information 

about the article enabling the readers to decide 

as to whether they would want to further 

pursue a full reading. Technique of data analysis 

includes identifying hedges, classifying hedges, 

describing findings and drawing conclusions. 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 

Lexical Hedges 

According to Salager-Meyer (1994) and 

Hyland (1998) as cited in Navratilova (2013), 

the categories of lexical hedges were grouped 

into modal auxiliaries, epistemic lexical verbs, 

epistemic adverbs, epistemic adjectives, 

epistemic nouns and numerical hedges. With 

regard to it, I provided the table showing the 

frequency and percentage of lexical hedges used 

by the graduate students from five different 

study programs (English, Mathematics, Science, 

Social and Education Management) in their 

thesis abstracts. 

.

 

Table 1. The Relative Frequency of Categories of Lexical Hedges in Thesis Abstract 

No 
Categories 

of Lexical Hedges 

English Mathematics Science Social 
Education 

Management 

F P F P F P F P F P 

1. Modal Auxiliaries 17 33.3% 6 31.6% 6 2.5% 8 24.3% 13 41.9% 

2. Epistemic lexical verbs 12 23.5% 8 42.1% 13 54.2% 14 42.5% 6 19.4% 

3. Epistemic adverbs 10 19.6 % 2 10.5% 1 4.2% 3 9 % 3 9.7% 

4. Epistemic adjectives 1 2% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0 % 0 0% 

5. Epistemic nouns 0 0 % 0 0% 0 0% 1 3 % 3 9.7% 

6. Numerical hedges 

Adj. and Adverbs of 

indefinite frequency 

1 2% 0 0% 2 8.3% 1 3.% 0 0% 

 Adj. and adverbs of 

indefinite degree 

7 13.7% 1 5.3% 2 8.3% 5 15.2% 4 12.9% 

Approximators 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 0 0% 1 3.2% 

 other numerical 

hedges 

3 5.9 % 2 10.5% 0 0% 1 3 % 1 3.2% 

Total 51 100 % 19 100 % 24 100 % 33 100% 31 100% 

 

The table above shows that the graduate 

students from five different study programs 

(English, Mathematics, Science, Social and 

Education Management) used the lexical hedges 

in their thesis abstract. However, the types of 

lexical hedges they used are not always similar. 

English graduate students used modal 

auxiliaries, epistemic lexical verbs, epistemic 

adverbs, epistemic adjectives, and numerical 

hedges, except approximators, encompassing 

adjectives and adverbs of indefinite degree, 

adjectives and adverbs of indefinite frequency 

and other numerical hedges.  

Further, the table indicates that the type 

of lexical hedges of epistemic noun was not used 

by the English graduate students. Unlike the 

English graduate students who used the lexical 

hedges except epistemic noun and one of the 

numerical hedges that was approximators, the 

Mathematics graduate students had the 

tendency to use the lexical hedges of modal 

auxiliaries, epistemic lexical verbs, epistemic 

adverbs, and numerical hedges of adjectives and 



 

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79 

 

adverbs of indefinite degree and other 

numerical hedges. In this matter, they did not 

use epistemic adjectives, epistemic nouns and 

numerical hedges of adjectives and adverbs of 

indefinite frequency as applied by the English 

graduate students in writing their thesis 

abstract. However, none of the English and 

Mathematics graduate students used 

approximators in their thesis abstract.  

From the table above, it also 

demonstrates that the graduate students from 

the Science study program used the types of 

lexical hedges of modal auxiliaries, epistemic 

lexical verbs, epistemic adverbs, epistemic 

adjectives and numerical hedges of adjectives 

and adverbs of indefinite frequency and 

adjectives and adverbs of indefinite degree. In 

this case, epistemic nouns, approximators and 

other numerical hedges were excluded in their 

thesis abstract.  

Different from the graduate students of 

the English, Mathematics and Science study 

programs who did not use epistemic noun, 

those from social and Education Management 

study programs used epistemic noun in writing 

their thesis abstract. With regard to it, the 

graduate students of Education Management 

study programs exhibited more usage of 

epistemic noun than the graduate students in 

the Social study programs.   

The types of lexical hedges used by the 

graduate students in the Social study program 

cover modal auxiliaries, epistemic lexical verbs, 

epistemic adverbs, epistemic nouns, and 

numerical hedges of adjectives and adverbs of 

indefinite frequency, adjectives and adverbs of 

indefinite degree and other numerical hedges. 

In this matter, approximators were not used by 

them. Meanwhile, the graduate students in the 

Education study programs were the ones who 

had the tendency to use the six types of lexical 

hedges except in numerical hedges of adjectives 

and adverbs of indefinite frequency.  

Non-Lexical Hedges 

Non-lexical hedges consist of ‘compound 

hedges’, ‘Introductory phrases’, ‘if clauses’, 

‘questions’, ‘personal attribution’, ‘agentless 

passive and impersonal constructions’ and 

treated as ‘non-lexical hedges’.  

Non-Lexical Hedges in English Study 

Program 

The occurrences of non-lexical hedges in 

English study program are not as significant as 

lexical hedges. The graduate students from 

English study program used three kinds of non-

lexical hedges, namely, agentless passive (94.4 

%), personal attribution (2.8 %) and compound 

hedges (2.8 %). 

Non-Lexical Hedges in Mathematics Study 

Program 

Those from mathematics study program 

only used one of non-lexical hedges, namely 

agentless passive. The use of this agentless 

passive is as a strategy to protect themselves 

from the risk of being wrong. 

Non-Lexical Hedges in Science Study 

Program 

In line with the graduate students from 

Mathematics study program, those from Science 

study program only used one of non-lexical 

hedges, namely agentless passive.  

Non-Lexical Hedges in Social Study 

Program 

Unlike in mathematics students 

employing ‘agentless passive’ as the only kind of 

non-lexical hedges, those from the Social study 

program employed two kinds of non-lexical 

hedges. They encompass ‘agentless passive’ and 

‘compound hedges’.  

Non-Lexical Hedges in Education 

Management Study Program 

With regard to the previous study 

programs (English, Mathematics, Science, and 

Social), those from the Education Management 

study program mostly employed agentless 

passive as their strategy to diminish their own 

role in order to be protected from consequences 

of being wrong.  

The Differences of the Use of Hedges 

In term of lexical hedges, English 

graduate students used widely this kind of 

hedges with the occurrences (51), followed by 

the Social students (33), Education 

Management (31), Science (24) and Mathematic 



 

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80 

 

(19). Meanwhile, in term of non-lexical hedges, 

agentless passives are more widely used by the 

graduate students from the five study programs. 

Further, the distribution of these agentless 

passives is relatively significant. Those in 

English used agentless passives (34) 

occurrences, Mathematics (28) occurrences, 

Science (25) occurrences, Social (20) 

occurrences, and Education Management (38) 

occurrences. 

The Reasons Why the Graduate Students 

Use Hedges in the Ways They Do 

The graduate students from English study 

program are more prone to a style of 

presentation that favor hedging than the others 

from the other four study programs. In the case 

of those in English study program, to some 

extent, there might be some influences from 

their cultures since they learned and used 

English in their teaching and learning process. 

Meanwhile, the preferences of those in Social 

and Education Management in using more 

hedges are possibly caused by its nature in 

which these two programs are categorized as 

‘soft sciences’ that will surely not be very 

numerical or mathematically verifiable, but 

rather based on opinions, arguments and 

interpretations. On the other hand, Mathematics 

and Science used the least hedges in their thesis 

abstract. It may be caused by the nature that 

these two programs are considered as hard 

science in which the results are demonstrated 

by using more exact research methods such as 

measurements or calculations of numerical 

data. 

 

CONCLUSION 

 

To sum up, hedges both lexical and non-

lexical hedges were used by the graduate 

students from the five different study programs 

in writing their thesis abstracts in English. 

However, it is presumed that there is a 

significant difference among these graduate 

students in using hedges in their thesis abstract. 

Lexical hedges were more frequently used by 

those in English than those in other study 

programs. Meanwhile, in term of non-lexical 

hedges, agentless passive was the most widely 

used by these graduate students. 

 The findings also show that the tendency 

of using more hedges by those in English might 

be influenced by their cultures since they 

learned and used English in their teaching and 

learning process. Meanwhile, the preferences of 

those in Social and Education Management in 

using more hedges are possibly caused by its 

nature in which these two programs are 

categorized as ‘soft sciences’ that are surely not 

very numerical or mathematically verifiable, but 

rather based on opinions, arguments and 

interpretations.  

 

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