Hedges In American University Presidents’ Commencement Addresses

Hedges are a fuzzy language phenomenon.As the most significant member in fuzzy family members,hedges play an extremely important role in our communication.Although the studies on hedges have made great achievements at home and abroad,the relevant studies mainly focus on literary works,advertisements,abstracts of academic papers and famous people’s public speeches.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct further research on other types of discourse.In this thesis,the author made an analysis of the hedges in American university presidents’ commencement addresses and explored the main functions of the hedges.The author aims to answer the following three questions:1)Are hedges used in university presidents’ commencement addresses? Ifso,what types of hedges are employed?2)What are the characteristics of hedges used in the addresses?3)What are the main functions of hedges in university presidents’ commencement addresses?Results show that lexical hedges are employed more frequently than non-lexical hedges in selected data.Among lexical hedges,modal auxiliary verb hedges are used the most frequently.The hedges have functions of expressing addressors’ best wishes and encouragement to the graduates,promoting the confidence of addressors,showing responsibility,establishing a unique and indispensable image,expressing politely and appropriately as well as shortening the distance in American university presidents’ commencement addresses.More importantly,this research broadens the field of hedges and offers a new direction to those who are interested in university presidents’ commencement addresses.