Nghiên cứu các phương tiện rào đón trong các
cuộc hội thoại của tác phẩm Cuốn theo chiều
gió của nhà văn Margaret Mitchell

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Huyền

Trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ
Luận văn ThS ngành: Ngôn ngữ Anh; Mã số: 60 22 015
Người hướng dẫn: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Trần Xuân Điệp
Năm bảo vệ: 2012

Abstract: The objectives of the research were to investigate the linguistic devices of
hedges and major pragmatic functions of identified hedges in the conversations in the
novel of Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Two levels of linguistic descriptions
– the quantitative and pragmatic analysis mainly based on taxonomy of hedging devices
by Yu (2009) and polypragmatic paradigm of hedges by Hyland (1998) – revealed that
there are four main hedging categories used in the conversations in the novel, namely,
modal hedges, performative hedges, quantificational hedges and pragmatic-marker
hedges, in which quantificational hedges (43.8%) are employed with the highest
frequency, followed by modal hedges (34.8%), performative hedges (8.2%) and other
minor types of tag questions, subjunctives, and depersonalization (5.7%). The research
findings also pointed out that speaker-orientation, accuracy-orientation and hearer-
orientation are three main functions that identified hedging devices fulfill. Among these
types of function, speaker-oriented hedges (48.1%) emerge to be the most prominent,
preceding accuracy-oriented hedges (45.7%) and hearer-oriented hedges (6.2%).

Keywords: Mitchell, Margaret; Tiếng Anh; Hội thoại; Ngôn ngữ Content
1. Rationale

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
discourse.
In terms of practical perspective, the present study may serve certain samples as a source of
authentic materials in learning and teaching hedging devices and functions of hedges since a
text-based approach is believed to be a key dealing with the lack of pragmatic competence of
non-native speakers in communication with native ones.
4. Scope of the research
First, although communication comes with paralinguistic and extra-linguistic factors, the present
study is restricted to the verbal mode of hedging. That is to say, the prosodic features (speed,
tone, loudness, etc.) and the kinesic mode (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) are outside the
research scope. Adjacency pairs, in addition, are also beyond the scope of the investigation.
Second, though pragmatic functions of hedging in spoken discourses are believed to be realized
through different communicative strategies without using hedging expressions, such as saying
sorry, showing regret, expressing interest, and so on, the present paper is restrained to linguistic
realization of hedges, from which the pragmatic effects of hedges are expected to be portrayed.
5. Methodology
The research is based on a detailed contextual analysis of conversations in the novel of Gone
with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. A comprehensive understanding of hedging devices in
Gone with the Wind involves at least two levels of linguistic description: a quantitative analysis
and a pragmatic analysis. The process of analysis is described as follows.

membership that it is partial or true only in certain respects, or that it is more true and complete
than perhaps might be expected”
According to Hyland (1998: 5), hedging is “the means by which writers can present a
proposition as an opinion rather than a fact: items are only hedges in their epistemic sense, and
only when they mark uncertainty”
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.
 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.
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. possible, likely), modal adverbs (e.g. probably, possibly, maybe, apparently) and
modal nouns (e.g. possibility, probability, chance).
As concerns writer-oriented hedges, Hyland (1998: 170) argued that their aim is to shield the

rather than written discourse” (Yu, 2009: 93), include such expressions as actually, in fact,
generally speaking, in my opinion, for me, in other words, I suppose, I mean, if you like, you
know, etc.
1.3. 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.
CHAPTER 2
Findings and Discussions
1.1. Analysis of hedging devices in Gone with the Wind
1.1.1. Analysis of modal hedges
Modal auxiliary verbs are the most important category, which alone takes up 75.7% of the total,
leaving the rest only 24.3%. Coming next is modal adverbs, covering 17%, modal adjectives
(6.4%), and epistemic lexical verbs (0.9%). No modal nouns as hedges were found as in the data,
accounting for 0% of the total.
With regards to the first hedging category, modal auxiliary verbs, there is a total of 11 items used
as hedges in the data, in which would contributes 279 (31.1%) of 896 tokens, preceding could
(166 tokens, 18.5%) and wouldn’t/ would not (139 tokens, 15.5%). The prominence of modal
verbs would is to be expected, since it expresses the meaning of epistemic possibility as Hyland
(1998: 111) states the auxiliary would is recognized as the main hypothetical modal with
epistemic meaning, expressing prediction. It is also seen from the table that can’t/ cannot (15
tokens, 1.7%), might not (4 tokens, approximately 0.4%), and may not (3 tokens, roughly 0.3%)
were found to less outstanding in the conversations of the novel. The followings are examples of
would, could and can extracted from the data.
In terms of modal adverbs, the table lists seven items of hedging expressions. It shows that
maybe, with a frequency of 58 out of 201 tokens, or 28.9% of the total, is the most important
device. Perhaps (n = 52) ranks as the second most important. Probably, certainly, and surely

26 tokens (36.6%) to become the most prominent. The next rank comes often (17 tokens, 23.9%),
hardly (16 tokens, 22.7%). The most moderate number of tokens belongs to occasionally (2.8%).
As with degree approximators, the subtable gives detailed information of degree approximators,
in which nine items functioned as hedging devices with 816 tokens are presented. It can seen that
Just is the most abudant, alone accounting for 51.5%, leaving the rest 49.5%. About is the second
most prominent when covering 29.8%. Partly and sort of were identified to cover only 1% of the
total. Some examples of degree approximators are illustrated as follows.
Finally, with reagrds to “negation + intensifier” approximators, the subtable shows that there are
five items in total with 106 tokens. Not so and its variation contributed 37 tokens, making up
34.9 of the total rate, followed by not much and its variation (20.8%). not too and its variation
offer only 12 items, accounting for 11.3%. Some extracts of “negation + intensifier”
approximators used as hedging expressions from the data are drawn below.
1.1.4. Analysis of pragmatic-marker hedges
In term of interpersonal pragmatic-marker (IPM) hedges which bring about a sense of
cooperation, sharing, intimacy or solidarity between interlocutors and are normally expressed by
consultative, modest or humble attitude in a reduced or weakened tone, they boast five types, in
which Do you think (n = 45) is the most frequently used as hedges, and 105 tokens of the total,
accounting for 41.3%. Interpersonal pragmatic-marker hedges are exemplified by the follows.
In terms of propositional pragmatic-marker (PPM) hedges, the devices, which modify utterance
propositions via correction, elaboration, specification, expansion, or reorientation of
propositional content and working on propositional content (Yu, 2009: 97), are roughly divided
into six subsets. However, it should be mentioned that the division is somewhat random, mainly
for convenience in presentation rather than for theoretical significance
The first subset aims to guard against some misconceptions toward the utterance of the speaker
and provides a frame for the speaker to clarify such misconceptions. Therefore, this subset of
PPM hedges can shield the speaker from some potential false impression and subsequent risks.
There are four types and 58 tokens of this subset.
Subset 2 is a division that signals sort of precondition or prerequisite for the upcoming statement,
implying that the speaker is not committed to the statement. Fallen in this subset are three types
with 30 tokens.

conversations of the novel. The percentage of 48.1% of the identified hedges was found to be
speaker-focused ones, which aim to shield the speakers from possible consequences of error
when making utterances. The overall prominent position of speaker-oriented hedges in the
corpus suggests that the speakers employ hedging devices primarily for the purpose of protecting
themselves from being proved wrong by limiting their personal commitment. This function of
hedged was also identified to be realized by a variety of hedging categories, such as, modal
auxiliary verbs, epistemic adverbs, epistemic adjectives, epistemic nouns, epistemic lexical
verbs, and depersonalization. All contributed a total of 1561 items functioning as speaker-
oriented hedges.
1.2.2. Accuracy-oriented function of hedges
Ranking at the second important function (45.7%), accuracy-orientation refer to the devices
which show the speaker’s concern to propositions with precision as Coetzer (2002: 57) has
mentioned “accuracy-oriented hedges try to present information as fully, accurately, and
objectively as possible”.
In the data of the research, typical linguistic means to realize this hedging function include
approximators of quantity, frequency, and degree such as some, about, nearly, almost, quite, so
on. In other words, accuracy-oriented function of hedges in the conversations of the novel Gone
with the Wind is fulfilled thanks to quantificational hedges.
It can be concluded that speaker-oriented and accuracy-oriented hedges both concern about the
precision, definiteness, or certainty of the utterance, but it is the focus of hedging that make them
different from each other. While accuracy-oriented hedges focus on modification of words or
phrases within a proposition, like He is sort of sad, the focus of speaker-oriented hedges is given
to the truth-value of the whole proposition and speaker’s commitment or attitude to the content,
like I think he is sad.
1.2.3. Hearer-oriented function of hedges
Hearer-oriented function of hedges, which mostly fulfills interpersonal interaction between
speakers and listeners and “works on syntactic level or utterance level to monitor the
interaction/communication process” (Yu’s, 2009: 105), makes up a relatively small rate (6.2%)
in comparison with the speaker-oriented and accuracy-oriented function.
The data of the present study revealed that this type of function can be realized though various

impossible to develop a complete taxonomy of hedging devices. Therefore, context-based
analysis and various references from the related literature were employed by the author to deal
with the mentioned issues.
Secondly, when it came to analyze pragmatic functions of hedges in this research, it was
perceived by the author that hedging pragmatic functions might be realized through different
communicative strategies without hedging devices’ existence; however, due to the limited time,
the present paper was restricted to linguistic realization of hedging only, from which the
pragmatic effects of hedges were partly portrayed.
3. Suggestions for further studies
There are issues left untouched in this preliminary research into hedging phenomenon because of
its size and limit. To begin with, although the results of the investigation of hedging phenomenon
in conversations in Gone with the Wind revealed different hedging devices and confirmed the
multi-functional nature of hedges, it is fully realized by the author of the paper that some
communicative strategies could be employed to fulfill hedging functions without using hedging
expressions. Therefore, future researchers are suggested to investigate possible hedging
strategies in the novel to gain a more comprehensive analysis of hedging phenomenon in terms
of linguistic features as well as pragmatic functions.
Secondly, the present study almost cannot take into account prosodic features and paralinguistic
factors which are supposed to be crucial in spoken discourse to highlight their hedging meanings.
The further studies would be better if those factors could have been taken into consideration.
Finally, it is believed that the cultural features of American face-to-face interactions can be
reflected in the way hedging means and hedging strategies are exploited in American everyday
conversations, which deserves in-depth studies in the future.

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