TY - JOUR ID - 10409 TI - The Effect of Hedging Instruction on Reading Comprehension for Iranian University Students JO - Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics JA - RALS LA - en SN - 2345-3303 AU - Jalilifar, Alireza AU - Shooshtari, Zohreh G. AU - Mutaqid, Sattar AD - Shahid ChamranUniversity of Ahvaz AD - ShahidChamranUniversity of Ahvaz AD - Islamic Azad University, Behbahan Branch Y1 - 2011 PY - 2011 VL - 2 IS - 1 SP - 69 EP - 89 KW - Metadiscourse KW - hedging KW - ESAP KW - Pragmatic Awareness DO - N2 - This study examined the effect of explicit instruction of hedging on English forSpecific Academic Purposes (ESAP) reading comprehension performance ofEnglish Language Learning (ELL) university students. A reading comprehensiontest was developed and validated as the pretest and the posttest. The test, includingitems for assessing the comprehension of the students in their area of specialization,was administered to 180 undergraduates (B.S.), of whom 100 students were selectedand randomly assigned to experimental and control conditions. Then, all theparticipants attended 10 sessions of awareness-raising treatment. During the first 3sessions, the participants in the experimental condition were instructed on theessential meaning of a hedge, as well as the types and functions of hedging devices.The next sessions focused on the practical use of these markers as they appear inacademic texts. After the treatment, the test was again given to the same students asthe post-test. The results of two t tests and a two-way ANOVA provided empiricalsupport for the facilitative effect of explicit instruction in recognizing hedgingdevices that improved their language proficiency and therefore improved theirreading comprehension scores. UR - https://rals.scu.ac.ir/article_10409.html L1 - https://rals.scu.ac.ir/article_10409_b0d08c1d549916d6867b3adfdbe022d0.pdf ER -