VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
***
NGUYỄN THỊ THANH HUYỀN

A STUDY OF HEDGING DEVICES IN CONVERSATIONS IN GONE WITH
THE WIND BY MARGARET MITCHELL
(Nghiên cứu các phương tiện rào đón trong các cuộc hội thoại của tác phẩm
Cuốn theo chiều gió của nhà văn Margaret Mitchell) M.A. THESIS
Field: Linguistics
Code: 60.22.15

HANOI – 2012


HANOI – 2012
iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of contents iii
List of tables v
List of figures vi
Abbreviations vii
PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1
1. Rationale 1
2. Aims of the research and research questions 2
3. Implications of the research 2
4. Scope of the research 3
5. Methodology 3
6. Research design 4
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5
CHAPTER 1 5
Theoretical Background 5
1.1. Definitions of hedge 5
1.2. Classification of hedging devices and hedging functions 6
1.3. Hedges versus conversational maxims and politeness strategies 11
1.4. About Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell 15
1.5. Chapter summary 16
CHAPTER 2 17
Findings and Discussions 17
2.1. Overview of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind by Margaret
Mitchell 17

verbs
Table 6: Quantificational hedges: approximators of quantity, frequency, degree,
and ―negation + intensifier‖
Table 7: Pragmatic-marker hedges: interpersonal and propositional
Table 8: Other minor types of hedging devices: subjunctives, tag questions, and
depersonalization vi

LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Distribution of hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the
Wind
Figure 2 Distribution of modal hedges
Figure 3 Distribution of performative hedges
Figure 4 Distribution of quantificational hedges
Figure 5 Distribution of pragmatic-marker hedges
Figure 6 Distribution of other minor types of hedging devices
Figure 7 Distribution of functions of hedging devices
vii

ABBREVIATIONS
Adj. Adjectives
Adv. Adverbs

The field of spoken discourse, in contrast, seems to receive a comparatively limited
number of comprehensive and thorough investigations. Hence, with the hope of
contributing to enrich the literature of researches on hedging in spoken discourse
and to shed some light on the hedging phenomenon in American everyday
2 conversations by investigating linguistic realization of hedging, pragmatic functions
and some linguistic features of identified hedges, the author of the present paper
decided to carry out the study entitled ―A study of hedging devices in
conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell‖. In addition to
certain theoretical contributions, the study is expected to have certain implications
in language teaching when various linguistic expressions would be used to serve as
valuable examples for hedging demonstration at work.
2. Aims of the research and research questions
As mentioned earlier, the present research aimed to investigate linguistic devices of
hedging, their linguistic realization and their major pragmatic functions in
conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.
The present study attempts to address the following research questions:
 What are main hedging devices employed in conversations in Gone with the
Wind by Margaret Mitchell?
 What are major functions of identified hedging devices in conversations in
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell?
3. Implications of the research
Both theoretical and practical implications may be offered by the findings of the
present study. From the theoretical perspective, this study may serve as an
additional source of empirical studies on hedges in a way that it indicated different
types of hedging devices used in everyday conversations to achieve different
pragmatic effects and proved the possibility of utilizing the combined
polypragmatic functions of hedges to investigate hedging phenomenon in spoken

employed to guide the process of identification of hedging devices in the
conversations in the novel.
- Pragmatic analysis: The research then employed a contextual analysis of
authentic conversations at the second level of analysis to identify the purposes
4 served by identified hedging devices. At this point, the pragmatic analysis was
adapted from the theories introduced by Hyland (1998).
6. Research design
The study is designed to include three main parts.
Part 1: Introduction, presenting the research rationale, aims of the study, research
questions, implications of the research, study scope, methodology and the
structure of the paper.
Part 2: Development
Chapter1: Theoretical Background, including definitions of hedge, hedging
taxonomies, relationship between hedges and conversational maxims and
politeness strategies, and general information on Gone with the Wind.
Chapter 2: Findings and Discussions, describing major hedging devices,
their linguistic realization and pragmatic functions in Gone with the Wind.
Part 3: Conclusion, summarizing the major points, limitations, and suggestions for
further studies.
5
PART 2: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
Theoretical Background
This part will briefly present a review of definitions of hedge, hedging taxonomies,

(3) Hedge as a linguistic means modifying the truth value of a whole
proposition, making its content appearing vaguer yet more precise.
(4) Hedge as a linguistic means moderating the speaker‘s attitude or his/her
commitment to the propositional content.
(5) Hedge as a linguistic means that contributes to good interpersonal
relationship, or good interactional behavior in communication.
(6) Hedge performing more social functions such as saving the speaker‘s or the
hearer‘s face, protecting the writer‘s or his/her institution‘s reputation,
projecting the speaker‘s or the writer‘s personality, strengthening solidarity
with the addressee, or gaining ratification from the readers.
1.2. Classification of hedging devices and hedging functions
Concerning the classification of hedging devices, it is widely accepted that ―the
taxonomy of hedges is rather arbitrary, since there are no unified criteria for the
classification of hedges‖ (Yu, 2009: 55). The following is an overview of some
most prominent approaches to classification of hedges and hedging functions
available in the literature.
 Salager-Meyer's classification
In 1994 Salager-Meyer developed a five-type taxonomy of hedges which is
presented in Table 1. This taxonomy, according to Crompton (1997: 277),
―attempted to consider both formal and functional criteria‖ of hedges.

7 Type of hedge
Category
Example
1. Shields
- Modal verbs
- Semi-auxiliaries

unlikely that
Table 1 Taxonomy of hedging devices (adapted from Salager-Meyer, 1994)
The taxonomy of hedges presented above is based on a combination of functional
and syntactic criteria, trying to match grammatical forms with functional categories.
Despite the seeming clearness, the taxonomy was criticized by Varttala (1999), who
discovered the ―obvious overlap between the categories‖ and overlook of the
complex nature of the hedging phenomenon (Varttala, 1999: 181). Nevertheless, the
taxonomy is still widely employed in many studies.
 Hyland’s classification
Hyland (1998: 156) argued that because ―hedging devices may convey a range of
meanings for particular users in particular contexts‖, they ―do not fit into a neat
scheme of discrete categories which allows one meaning to be clearly distinguished
from others‖ and ―assigning specific meaning exclusively to particular forms is not
always possible‖ (Hyland, 1996a: 437). Due to the polypragmatic nature of hedging
devices, he developed a fuzzy category model for hedging device, in which two
main categories were mentioned: content-oriented hedges and reader-oriented
hedges.
8 Content-oriented hedges, which are further subdivided into accuracy-oriented
hedges and writer-oriented hedges, serve to mitigate the relationship between
propositional content and a non-linguistic mental representation of reality.
The accuracy-oriented hedges, according to Hyland (1998: 164), refer to writer‘s
desire to express proposition with greater precision through attribute and reliability
hedges. While attribute hedges, represented by such adverbs as quite, almost,
barely, generally, approximately, etc., help writers to specify more accurately how
far their results approximate to an idealized state, the second subtype, reliability
hedges, indicating the amount of writer‘s certainty or uncertainty in a proposition
are presented by modal verbs (e.g. can, could, may, might), modal adjectives (e.g.

(Hedges writer
commitment)
1. Attribution type
- Content disjuncts
- Style disjuncts
- Downtoners
2. Reliability type
- Epistemic lexical
verbs
- Modal verbs
- Epistemic adjectives
- Epistemic nouns
- Content disjuncts
1. Epistemic lexical verbs
- Judgmental type
- Evidential type
2. Impersonal
expressions
- Passive voice
- Abstract rhetors
- ―Empty‖ subjects
3. Attribute to literature
4. Reference to method
and model
1. Epistemic lexical
verbs
- Judgmental type
- Deductive type
2. Personal attribution
3. Personal reference to

voice; (2) Non-verbal items: nouns, adverbs and adjectives expressing uncertainty
or tentativeness. Those hedging devices perform three main functions: (1) to show
deference and politeness towards the audience, which can be achieved by strategies
of depersonalization, deference and solidarity; (2) to protect the author against the
potential negative consequences of being proved wrong achieved by some of the
strategies like tentativeness and justification; (3) to show the degree of precision
achieved by strategies of indetermination.
 Yu’s classification
Another approach regarding hedging devices and their functions was proposed by
Yu in 2009. Considering that it is indeed difficult to offer a satisfactory
classification of hedging devices without a careful description of the properties and
characteristics of hedging, Yu (2009: 68) developed a different taxonomy of
hedging devices that is based on the grammatical, semantic and pragmatic
properties of hedging devices. He suggested that from the complex interactions
between grammatical, semantic and pragmatic properties of hedging, it can be
predicted that certain linguistic areas are more likely to be the sources of hedging
than others (Yu, 2009: 77).
Based on exhaustive literature overview, Yu distinguished four broad hedging
categories, namely modal hedges, performative (mental) hedges, pragmatic-marker
hedges, and quantificational hedges. The category of modal hedges includes modal
auxiliary verbs (e.g. may, might, could, can), modal adjectives (e.g. possible, likely,
probable), modal adverbs (e.g. possibly, perhaps, probably, maybe), modal nouns
11 (e.g. possibility, chance). The category of mental hedges is generally represented by
lexical verbs with epistemic meaning (e.g. think, suppose, guess, believe, etc).
Quantificational hedges encompass those devices that indicate quantity, frequency
and degree (e.g. some, about, nearly, approximately, almost, quite, sort of, kind of,
etc.). Pragmatic-marker hedges (implicit hedges), which are ―apparently a feature of

approximators
- Some, all
- Always, sometimes
- Nearly, around
- Not too much, not enough
Pragmatic-Marker
Hedges
- Pragmatic markers
- If you like, if I may
- Generally speaking, as a
matter of fact
Others
- Tag questions
- Impersonalization
- Subjunctives
- , can you?
- It is said that…
- She suggested that…
Table 3 Taxonomy of hedging devices (adapted from Yu, 2009)

1.3. Hedges versus conversational maxims and politeness strategies
It is widely accepted that communication is held mainly on the human conduct
principles needed to be fulfilled. Those principles are cooperative and politeness
principles.

12 1.3.1. Hedges versus Grice’s Maxims of Conversations
In 1975, Grice proposed that participants in a communicative exchange are guided

observed. According to Fauziyah (2007: 21) with respect to cooperative principles,
hedges are markers tied to the expectation of the maxims of quantity, quality,
manner, and relevance.
Take the following utterance as an example, ―They told me that he was upset.‖ In
this case, if the speaker only says that ―he was upset‖ and does not know for sure if
he was upset, he/she may violate the maxim of quality since he/she lacks the
evidence. Nevertheless, by adding they told me that, the speaker wants to confirm
that he/she is observing the conversational maxim of quality.
It seems that when people are involved in conversations, they not only convey
information, but also verify how informative, true, relevant and perspicuous that
information is.
1.3.2. Hedges versus Politeness Strategies
Politeness is one of the most important aspects of human communication: human
beings can only exist in peace together if certain basic conventions of politeness are
observed. Brown & Levinson (1987) produced the most comprehensive theory of
politeness to date in which the main concept is ―face‖ and politeness strategies.
Defined as the public self image that all rational adult members have when engaged
in spoken interaction, and it must be constantly adhered to, ―face‖ consists of two
related aspects: positive – the positive consistent self-image or personality (crucially
including the desire that this self-image be appreciated and approved of) claimed by
interactants and negative face – the basic claim to territories, personal preserves,
rights to non-distraction, such as to freedom of action and freedom of imposition‖.
Beside the notions of negative and positive face, Brown & Levinson (1987) also
proposed the theories on positive politeness and negative politeness strategies.
Positive politeness is in general a way how to show solidarity and express sympathy
towards the addressee. In other words, positive politeness usually tries to minimize
14 the distance between interactants by expressing friendliness and solid interest in the

2009) that help to reduce the tension of interpersonal confrontations, or create better
relationship between interlocutors and better environment for conveyance of
propositional contents. In these cases, hedging is considered as a positive politeness
strategy.
1.4. About Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Gone with the Wind is a romantic drama and the only novel written by Margaret
Mitchell. It is set in Jonesboro and Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil War
(1861 – 1865) and Reconstruction, and follows the life of Scarlett O'Hara, from the
utmost luxury to absolute starvation and poverty, and from her innocence to her
understanding and comprehension of life. Winning the 1937 Pulitzer Prize, Gone
with the Wind has been considered to be one of the most popular books of all time.
The follows are a brief introduction into some main novel‘s characters whose
utterances will be extracted as examples in the part of data analysis.
- Scarlett O'Hara: Protagonist and beautiful, willful Southern woman
- Rhett Butler: Scarlett's love interest and third husband
- Ashley Wilkes: The man Scarlett loves, Melanie's husband
- Melanie Hamilton Wilkes: Ashley's wife
- Gerald O'Hara: Scarlett's father
- Ellen O'Hara: Scarlett's mother
- Charles Hamilton: Melanie's brother, Scarlett's first husband
- Frank Kennedy: Scarlett's second husband
- Wade Hampton Hamilton: Son of Scarlett and Charles
- Meade: A doctor in Atlanta
- Pork: The O‘Hara family‘s butler
- Cathleen: Scarlett‘s friend
- Stuart: Scarlett‘s friend
- Old Miss: The O‘Hara family‘s neighbor
16
Therefore, discovering the hedging meaning and categorizing linguistic expressions
of hedging in the conversations in Gone with the Wind involves analyzing every
instance in its context, which is a time-consuming and painstaking task.
In this chapter, possible linguistic devices employed to indicate hedging functions
in the conversations in Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell will be presented
and discussed.
2.1. Overview of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind by Margaret
Mitchell
The major hedging categories emerged from the data are shown as follows:
(1) Modal hedges
(2) Performative hedges
(3) Quantificational hedges
(4) Pragmatic-marker hedges
(5) Other minor hedge patterns
Table 4 and Figure 1 presented below indicates the raw number of hedging tokens
and the overall distribution of hedging devices by category in the conversations in
Gone with the Wind.

18
Table 4 Hedging devices in conversations in Gone with the Wind
Category
Raw number
%
Modal hedges
1184
34.8
Performative hedges