Hedging in written academic discourse as manifestation of its dialogue nature (based on dissertation reviews)

The article presents the analysis of the dialogue nature of written academic communication based on Russian evaluative academic discourse. The texts of 70 official dissertation reviews in humanities and sciences, published on the sites of dissertation councils of Russian universities in 2020–2024, were used as an empiric base for the research. The research aims to identify the role of hedge markers – specific discourse units used to mitigate the claims of the author – in manifestation of the dialogue character of the dissertation review as a speech genre. The author proves that the dialogue character of the review is determined by its polemical and potentially traumatic nature, embedded ness into a broad academic context, orientation on a concrete addressee, public character of dissertation defenses in RF as well as personal acquaintance of many scholars involved in the academic communication. The dialogue nature of the review, which is explored in close relation to such categories as mitigation, tolerance, vagueness, and politeness, simultaneously realizes the addressing strategy (concern about the addressee) and self-presentation strategy (concern about the author’s reputation). The following types of hedge markers are singled out: self-mentions, mitigation signals, reflexives, performatives with speech and thinking verbs, evaluations of the academic message. It is shown that in humanities hedges demonstrate a higher frequency rate and a greater variety than in sciences which may be explained by the anthropocentric and subjective nature of humanities. The author emphasizes the imperative necessity to use hedges in dissertation reviews to avoid or mitigate communicative and professional risks in academic sphere. The use of hedges may be considered as an ecolinguistic strategy, an element of positive communication and a necessary component of the academic competence of a scholar.

academic discourse, dialogue, hedging, hedge, discourse marker, speech genre, dissertation review, Russian language