FICTIONALITY MARKERS IN PROFESSIONAL SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES: A NEW APPROACH TO HEDGING

Abstract

The present study is concerned with a select set of hedges – linguistic markers of stance. However, instead of accepting the functions of these constructs exclusively as indicators of uncertainty or negative politeness (Hyland, 1998; Varttala, 1999), I argue that in many cases hedges may be locations for fictionality. Later research already points to additional subfunctions of hedges (Aull & Lancaster 2014; Hyland, 2005; Hyland & Jiang, 2016; Lancaster, 2016a, 2016b). Data collected from 15 professional scientific articles (a corpus of 144,520 words) was examined for presence of the additional subfunction of fictionality. The phenomenon of fictionality in non-fiction is identified by Skov Nielsen, Phelan, and Walsh (2015a) as “what-if projections, if-only regrets, thought experiments, and hypotheses of all kinds.” In the process of examining instances of fictionality signaled by hedges, I identified the parameters of Real Condition and Fictional Condition each determined by context, verbal process types, and the number of hedging devices used. Real Condition embodies the already established functions of hedges, while Fictional Condition points to a new dialogic subfunction associated with fictionality. This exploratory study invites further research into functional aspects of hedging and raises awareness of fictionality in professional scientific writing.