A Study Of Hedge In Credit Card Agreements

Hedge as one of the key instruments of vagueness serves as either a weakener or asoftener that shows the writers’ standpoint tactfully to some extent. In Credit CardAgreements, hedge is of increasingly importance. First, it usually functions as a toolof editors to leave room for further explanation and various understandings from thereaders; second, it is to protect the writers’ benefits and preserve the writers’reputation; third, it shows power and politeness to the readers. Whereas most peoplejust sign the agreements even without reading，which also causes certain legal issuesand the impairment of their interests.On one hand，the thesis is to help the reader to catch the writer’s view very clearlywith some knowledge of the hedges in their minds when signing Credit CardAgreements, on the other hand, this thesis is also to help the Credit Card Agreementswriters to write financial agreements with a good mastery of hedging devices in nativeEnglish. The author has selected30low-interest rate Credit Card Agreements from30banks from English speaking countries (U.S.A, Australia and Canada) to reveal avariety of shared hedging devices occurring in the agreements, which demonstratesthe significance of using hedging in financial agreements.The thesis mainly focuses on the linguistic features of hedges using in thisresearch. Firstly, all kinds of hedges are commonly applied in the Credit CardAgreements. Shields are much often used than approxiamtors of hedges in CreditCard Agreements. Secondly, the pragmatic functions of employing hedges aresummarized: being accurate and flexible, self-protecting and achieving power andpoliteness. Finally, some implications to enhancement of the bilingual educationcourses of financial English are given. This research would try to improve thetranslator’s accuracy and translation capability of hedges in financial agreementapplications context.