Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development 1
1.2 Hedging in ILP Development 4
1.3 Plan of the Book 6
Chapter 2 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development:Review and Methodology 7
2.1 Reviewing L2 Pragmatic Development 8
2.1.1 Development of L2 Discourse Ability 9
2.1.2 Development of L2 Speech-Act Ability 13
2.2 Methodological Issues with ILP Developmental Studies 24
2.2.1 Corpus Approach to ILP Development 24
2.2.2 Emergence Pattern as Indicator of Development 28
2.3 Chapter Summary 33
Chapter 3 An Overview of Hedging Studies in the Literature 34
3.1 Development of the Concept of Hedging 34
3.2 Studies of Hedges in Academic Writing 41
3.3 Studies of Hedges in Spoken Discourse 44
3.4 Studies on Hedge Comprehension 50
3.5 Studies on L2 Learners' Hedges 55
3.6 Taxonomy of Hedges in the Literature 68
Chapter 4 Theoretical Framework for the Study 87
4.1 Grammatical,Pragmatic and Semantic Properties of Hedges 87
4.2 Establishing Hedging Categories for the Study 97
4.2.1 Modal Hedges 98
4.2.2 Mental Hedges and Performative Hedges 105
4.2.3 Pragmatic-Marker Hedges 116
4.2.4 Quantificational Hedges 125
4.2.5 Section Summary 131
4.3 Criteria and Guidelines for Hedge Identification 134
Chapter 5 Research Design and Data Collection 140
5.1 Research Questions 140
5.2 Participants in the Study 140
5.3 Instruments for Data Collection 143
5.3.1 Rationale for Instrument Making 143
5.3.2 Instrument Design and Piloting 147
5.4 Data Collection 154
Chapter 6 Data Analyses 157
6.1 Data Coding 157
6.2 Hedge Categories Emerging from the Data 159
6.3 Hedge Identification and Related Problems 160
6.3.1 Analyzing Modal Shields 160
6.3.2 Analyzing Quantificational Approximators and NI Approximators 166
6.3.3 Analyzing Performative Shields 172
6.3.4 Analyzing Pragmatic-Marker Hedges 174
Chapter 7 Results 176
7.1 Development in Quantificational Approximators 176
7.1.1 Quantificational Approximators at JH Level 176
7.1.2 Quantificational Approximators at SH Level 178
7.1.3 Quantificational Approximators at UN Level 180
7.1.4 Comparing Quantificational Approximators across Three Levels 183
7.2 Development in "Negation+Intensifier" Approximators 186
7.2.1 NI Approximators at JH Level 187
7.2.2 NI Approximators at SH Level 188
7.2.3 NI Approximators at UN Level 189
7.2.4 Comparing NI Approximators across Three Levels 190
7.3 Development in Performative Shields 191
7.3.1 Performative Shields at JH Level 191
7.3.2 Performative Shields at SH Level 192
7.3.3 Performative Shields at UN Level 194
7.3.4 Comparing Performative Shields across Three Levels 195
7.4 Development in Modal Shields 204
7.4.1 Modal Shields at JH Level 204
7.4.2 Modal Shields at SH Level 206
7.4.3 Modal Shields at UN Level 208
7.4.4 Comparing Modal Shields across Three Levels 211
7.5 Development in Pragmatic-Marker Hedges 216
7.5.1 PM Hedges at JH Level 216
7.5.2 PM Hedges at SH Level 218
7.5.3 PM Hedges at UN Level 221
7.5.4 Comparing PM Hedges across Three Levels 235
7.6 Summarizing Major Hedge Categories 237
7.6.1 Summarizing Types,Tokens,and Rates 239
7.6.2 Type-Token Ratios and Most Frequent Hedges 247
7.6.3 Summarizing Differences between Data Genres 252
7.7 Hedge Combinations and Hedging Effect 255
Chapter 8 Discussion 276
8.1 Results of This Study Compared to Findings of Previous Studies 276
8.2 Methodological Effects 283
8.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies 291
Chapter 9 Conclusion 296
References 303
Appendix 1 Written Questionnaire 320
Appendix 2 Plan for Oral Interview 326
Appendix 3 Data Samples:Written Data 332
Appendix 4 Data Samples:Interview Data 340
Appendix 5 Data Samples:Debate Data 346