Explicit Instruction of Pragmatic Features: Its Impact on EFL Learners’ Knowledge of Hedging Devices in Academic Writing

Publish Year: 1396
نوع سند: مقاله ژورنالی
زبان: English
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شناسه ملی سند علمی:

JR_ILT-6-1_002

تاریخ نمایه سازی: 25 آذر 1397

Abstract:

Hedging academic claims has been recognized as one of integral pragmatic features of academic writing in which most EFL academic writers seem to face substantial problems. Explicit instruction has been proposed by some scholars as an effective approach to make EFL writers aware of the importance, different forms, and pragmatic functions of hedging devices some of which are polysemous and polypragmatics (e.g., Hyland 1996a). The present study with the aim of shedding more light on the effectiveness of explicit instruction in improving the pragmatic knowledge of Iranian EFL learners in terms ofhedging devices, investigates the acquisition and use of English modal auxiliaries as hedging strategies via applying a direct teaching strategy in the classroom. To this end a sample of 37 undergraduate students majoring in different fields of study were recruited and assigned into a control and experimental group. Explicit instruction of the modal auxiliaries as hedging resources was applied for the treatment group while the control group received only the regular academic writing instruction. A pretest and a posttest were administered to the two groups. The descriptive analysis of the scores as well as the results of the t-tests revealed a significant progress in the participants’ linguistic and pragmatic knowledge of modal auxiliaries as hedges in the treatment group. The results also indicated that the experimental group outperformed the control group in acquiring and using modal verbs to hedge their claims. The findings of the study provide insightful implications for theadministrators of educational programs

Authors

Abdullah Sarani

Associate Professor, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Iran

Amrollah Talati-Baghsiahi

Ph.D. Candidate in TEFL, Chabahar Maritime University, Iran