Adverbials as hedging devices in Lithuanian academic discourse: a cross-disciplinary study

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Akademinis diskursas; Apsidraudimo priemonės; Autoriaus nuomonė; Autoriaus pozicija; Episteminis modalumas; Evidencialumas; Prieveiksmiai; Sąšvelniai; Tarpdisciplininiai tyrimai; Tarpdisciplininis; A cross-disciplinary study; Academic discourse; Adverbials; Author stance; Cross-disciplinary Comparison; Epistemic modality; Evidentiality; Hedging; Hedging devices.

ENThe present paper focuses on epistemic and epistemic-evidential adverbials used as hedges in Lithuanian academic discourse. In different studies of academic discourse in English adverbials are mentioned as frequent hedging devices. This study is based on the Corpus Academicum Lithuanicum (about 9 million words) representing a variety of academic genres in five science areas (Biomedical sciences, Humanities, Physical, Social, and Technological sciences). Qualitative and quantitative analysis as well as contrastive methodology are employed in the study to reveal distributional information and usage patterns of epistemic and epistemic-evidential adverbials performing the pragmatic function of hedging. The results of the research highlight cross-disciplinary differences in the expression of hedging in Lithuanian academic discourse. [From the publication]