Cross-Cultural Divergence in the Use of Discourse Markers and Hedges in Public Health Academic Articles

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of English language - Faculty of Education, Tanta University

Abstract

English is the universal language of science. Consequently, the investigation of scientific discourse by native and non-native English -speaking researchers is the core of this paper. Hedges, linguistic items which denote non/commitment to the truth value of a certain proposition, are considered to be one of the primary features which shape the research article. Discourse Markers are expressions which mark the semantic relationship between two sentences. AntConc is a corpus analysis software. This paper focuses on Wordlist and concordance as tools to investigate discourse markers, based on Fraser’s model (2006), and hedges, based on Hyland’s model (2005), in Public Health research articles published by the international journal of Public Health and The Journal of High Institute of Public Health (JHIPH) in Alexandria University. This corpus linguistic analysis seeks to examine the way non-native and native English speakers use hedges and discourse markers in the field of Public Health articles.

Keywords