Discussion

The goal of this research is to compare and contrast the linguistic features of two texts, one a
newspaper article (Text A) and the other an academic journal article (Text B), with an emphasis
on the usage of hedges and boosters. Given that Text A is longer than Text B by a factor of 2, it
may be assumed that its hedging and boosting vocabulary is also larger. Hence, the distribution
of hedges and boosters in the articles must be taken into account for the most accurate findings to
be drawn. According to the discourse comparison, there is a more equal distribution of boosters
in Text B and more even distribution of hedging in Text A. In this way, the findings are relevant
to the genre's intended readers.
The results showed that the frequency with which Text B used hedging language per clause was
higher than that of Text A (0.46 hedges per clause vs. 0.35). While both texts include a fair
number of hedges per sentences, the ratio of hedges to total words in Article A is somewhat
higher than in Article B. This suggests that text B displayed greater restraint in revealing context-
specific details about the material to be conveyed than text A (Lakoff, 1973). Text B did not use
many hedges compare to text A and most of the hedges, like ‘improving’ (cl. 2), ‘similar’ (cl. 4),
‘reducing’ (cl. 2), were used with the intention of increasing the meaning of something but not
specifically and directly which showed prudence in giving information. Text A also showed the
usage of similar vocabularies but in less numbers. Instead, words like ‘roughly’ (cl. 24) and
phrase ‘is not necessarily’ (cl. 60) along with ‘may’ (cl. 55) and ‘maybe’ (cl. 57) appears more
often throughout the text. The choice of language presented in text A offered a varieties of model
verbs and adverb of frequency as hedges offered a more uncertain look about the information of
the author and also indecision.
The results also revealed that while the ratio of boosters to phrase of text B is way more than text
A. Similarity can also be seen in the average number of boosting vocabularies per total word
between text A and B. This shows that text B presented a more reliable side compare to text A as
it helps authors overcome these tendencies and present their work with confidence and an air of
interpersonal unity (HYLAND, 2005). Although there weren’t many boosters used in Text B,
words like ‘greatly’ (cl. 5), ‘more thoroughly’ (cl. 28), and quantifiers appeared throughout the
text which increase the credibility of the information from the text. Regarding text A, quantifiers
were also be used; however, there is a small increase in adverbs like ‘rarely’ (cl. 49), ‘highly’ (cl.
43).
This research has shown that a newspaper article and journal article about the same topic both
have similarities and differences. Both use some hedges and boosters to address author’s idea
more clearly throughout both of the text. Newspaper article has much more hedging and boosting
words as the text contain more words. However, in terms of ratio, journal article tends to have
hedges and boosters distributed evenly to make the information more cautious and reliable for
readers.
 Reference
HYLAND, K. (2005). Stance and engagement: A model of interaction in academic discourse.
Discourse Studies, 7(2), 173-192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445605050365

Lakoff, G. (1973). Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. Journal
of Philosophical Logic, 2(4), 458-508. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00262952