English globalization entails the use of English by speakers from mother tongues other than English. Trained and professional non-native speakers of English have reportedly achieved communicative competence owing to bilingual or multilingual experiences. Their pragmatic competence developed through diverse interactions with speakers from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds (Kecskes 2015). In this study, hedges were explored in international briefings where English was used as a lingua franca by professionals of an organization. Three hedging devices including modal verbs, modal adverbs, and pronouns were analyzed to investigate their pragmatic competence. In addition, the professional non-native English briefings were compared with the U.S. briefings for their similarities and differences. Results showed developmental patterns from learner English while they shared similarities with native data. These findings were accounted for by the varieties of English and the genre differences. Implications for pragmatic competence are discussed as well.

In argumentative writing, writers are expected to use hedged expressions and stance devices through specific linguistic expressions to convince their proposition effectively. Yet little research attention has been paid to whether the inclusion of such devices is related to the overall quality of second or foreign language learners’ argumentative writing. In this study, hedges and stance devices that are included in 28 advanced Korean EFL writers’ argumentative writing were analyzed to identify their potential relation to the overall writing quality. Analyses demonstrated that although hedges and stance devices were related to argumentative writing quality in general, the specific linguistic forms that predicted two different aspects of writing quality – formal and content quality – were different. Specifically, hedges played a significant positive role in only content quality of writing, and the specific stance devices that significantly predicted formal quality did not contribute to the content quality, and vice versa. The findings from this study provides important pedagogical implications for EFL writing instruction.

The purposes of this study are to analyze high-frequency hedges in dissertations and provide basic data for Korean education for academic purposes. For these purposes, the investigator analyzed ‘-(으)ㄹ 수 있 다, -(으)ㄹ 것이다, and -(으)로 보이다’ in terms of frequency, distribution by the structure, and forms of combination in 50 dissertations for a master’s degree. The findings were as follows: first, ‘-(으)ㄹ 수 있다, -(으)ㄹ 것이다, and -(으)로 보이다’ were used total 3,880 times across all the dissertations. Of them, ‘-(으)ㄹ 수 있다’ were used 2,496 times, recording an overwhelmingly higher frequency than the others. Secondly, the study analyzed the frequency of hedges by the part in dissertations and found that hedges were most used in “Findings”(56.6%). Finally, there were standardized forms frequently combined with each hedge. ‘-(으)ㄹ 수 있다,’ for instance, was frequently used in the forms of ‘-(이)라고 할 수 있다/다고 할 수 있다,’ ‘-(으)ㅁ을 알 수 있다,’ and ‘-다는 것을 알 수 있다.’