Language of Caution and Certainty: Writing Proficiency in Hedges and Boosters in Student Essays

Abstract

The expression of certainty and doubt is crucial in academic writing. Writers and readers must be able to distinguish between subjective evaluation and objective information presented in academic texts. Hedges and boosters primarily serve this function. Despite the evident importance of these devices, there are no apparent studies that measure students’ proficiency in using them. Therefore, this study investigates the proficiency level of students regarding hedges and boosters and examines the two most common grammatical classifications within these features. It further analyzes how students epistemically express their degree of doubt and certainty in their argumentative essays. A corpus of 50 argumentative essays written by students majoring in English Language Studies at a state university in the northern Philippines was analyzed. Overall, the findings suggest that the general proficiency level of the students is in the developing stage, and epistemic modal verbs occur most frequently across all proficiency levels in both classifications of hedges and boosters.