The ability to hedge, or qualify commitment to a claim, is an important aspect of academic writing because it allows writers to position themselves to their audience. Research indicates that L2 English writers struggle to hedge effectively, with studies such as Hyland and Milton (1997) and Hinkel (2005) demonstrating that they use less sophisticated hedges and a more limited range of hedges than L1 English writers do. This corpus study is composed of two parts. First, a methodological study was conducted with three expert raters examining the use of linguistic items traditionally considered hedges in sentential context. Two measures of rater’s judgments are reported in relation to raw frequency of each item. The second part contrasts patterns of hedging across genre (timed versus untimed) and English nativeness (L1 versus L2 English writers). Results of the first section indicate significant differences in judged versus raw frequencies. Results of the second section indicate significant differences for some hedging devices between genres and between native speakers (NSs) and non-native speakers (NNSs). Implications are given for data collection, pedagogy, and assessment.
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