Title: A Cognitive Study on the Subjectivity Hierarchy of Hedging in English News Discourse

Abstract: Hedging serves special pragmatic functions in English news discourse. However, current research has failed to reveal the interrelationships of the pragmatic motivations of hedging. From the standpoint of subjectivity, this paper constructs a continuum of hedging with respect to the three dimensions of subjectivity, namely perspective, epistemic modality and affect, and hence establishes a subjectivity hierarchy of hedging: reader-oriented hedges > writer-oriented hedges > accuracy-oriented hedges. The pragmatic motivations underlying the three types of hedging are suggestive of the different degrees of speakers’ subjectivity, highlighting an objective, subjective and intersubjective construal of propositional content on the part of conceptualizers respectively. Our research provides a new perspective for the study of hedging, shedding light on its theoretical construction and teaching in English news discourse.

Keywords: hedging, objectivity, subjectivity, intersubjectivity, construal

Authors: Xingang Qi, Lecturer, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China; Yunhua Deng, Professor, Foreign Studies College, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, China.