Contents Acknowledgements 前言 Abstract Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development 1.2 Hedging in ILP Development 1.3 Plan of the Book Chapter 2 Interlanguage Pragmatic Development:Review and Methodology 2.1 Reviewing L2 Pragmatic Development 2.1.1 Development of L2 Discourse Ability 2.1.2 Development of L2 Speech-Act Ability 2.2 Methodological Issues with ILP Developmental Studies 2.2.1 Corpus Approach to ILP Development 2.2.2 Emergence Pattern as Indicator of Development 2.3 Chapter Summary Chapter 3 An Overview of Hedging Studies in the Literature 3.1 Development of the Concept of Hedging 3.2 Studies of Hedges in Academic Writing 3.3 Studies of Hedges in Spoken Discourse 3.4 Studies on Hedge Comprehension 3.5 Studies on L2 Learners' Hedges 3.6 Taxonomy of Hedges in the Literature Chapter 4 Theoretical Framework for the Study 4.1 Grammatical,Pragmatic and Semantic Properties of Hedges 4.2 Establishing Hedging Categories for the Study 4.2.1 Modal Hedges 4.2.2 Mental Hedges and Performative Hedges 4.2.3 Pragmatic-Marker Hedges 4.2.4 Quantificational Hedges 4.2.5 Section Summary 4.3 Criteria and Guidelines for Hedge Identification Chapter 5 Research Design and Data Collection 5.1 Research Questions 5.2 Participants in the Study 5.3 Instruments for Data Collection 5.3.1 Rationale for Instrument Making 5.3.2 Instrument Design and Piloting 5.4 Data Collection Chapter 6 Data Analyses 6.1 Data Coding 6.2 Hedge Categories Emerging from the Data 6.3 Hedge Identification and Related Problems 6.3.1 Analyzing Modal Shields 6.3.2 Analyzing Quantificational Approximators and NI Approximators 6.3.3 Analyzing Performative Shields 6.3.4 Analyzing Pragmatic-Marker Hedges Chapter 7 Results 7.1 Development in Quantificational Approximators 7.1.1 Quantificational Approximators at JH Level 7.1.2 Quantificational Approximators at SH Level 7.1.3 Quantificational Approximators at UN Level 7.1.4 Comparing Quantificational Approximators across Three Levels 7.2 Development in'Negation+Intensifier'Approximators 7.2.1 NI Approximators at JH Level 7.2.2 NI Approximators at SH Level 7.2.3 NI Approximators at UN Level 7.2.4 Comparing NI Approximators across Three Levels 7.3 Development in Performative Shields 7.3.1 Performative Shields at JH Level 7.3.2 Performative Shields at SH Level 7.3.3 Performative Shields at UN Level 7.3.4 Comparing Performative Shields across Three Levels 7.4 Development in Modal Shields 7.4.1 Modal Shields at JH Level 7.4.2 Modal Shields at SH Level 7.4.3 Modal Shields at UN Level 7.4.4 Comparing Modal Shields across Three Levels 7.5 Development in Pragmatic-Marker Hedges 7.5.1 PM Hedges at JH Level 7.5.2 PM Hedges at SH Level 7.5.3 PM Hedges at UN Level 7.5.4 Comparing PM Hedges across Three Levels 7.6 Summarizing Major Hedge Categories 7.6.1 Summarizing Types,Tokens,and Rates 7.6.2 Type-Token Ratios and Most Frequent Hedges 7.6.3 Summarizing Differences between Data Genres 7.7 Hedge Combinations and Hedging Effect Chapter 8 Discussion 8.1 Results of This Study Compared to Findings of Previous Studies 8.2 Methodological Effects 8.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies Chapter 9 Conclusion References Appendix 1 Written Questionnaire Appendix 2 Plan for Oral Interview Appendix 3 Data Samples:Written Data Appendix 4 Data Samples:Interview Data Appendix 5 Data Samples:Debate Data List of Tables 2-1 Proposed developmental sequence in alignment expressions for JEL learners 2-2 Five stages of L2 request development 3-1 Test results for the meaning of about and around 3-2 Hedging functions and principal realization devices 3-3 Ransom's option chart 4-1 Grammatical categories of hedging 4-2 Inventory of pragmatic markers received scholarly attention 4-3 Comparing three hedging strategies 5-1 Participants in the study 5-2 Descriptive statistics for the'total score'of PETS test 5-3 One-way ANOVA for the'total score'of PETS test 5-4 The most frequently suggested controversial topics 5-5 Data and hedge counts in the pilot studies 5-6 Written data used for analysis 5-7 Interview data 5-8 Debate data 5-9 Summary of three genres of data 6-1 Categories and semantic components established for modal auxiliaries 6-2 Relationship between modality and hedging 7-1 Quantificational approximators by JH students 7-2 Quantificational approximators by SH students 7-3a Quantificational approximators by UN students:quantity 7-3b Quantificational approximators by UN students:frequency 7-3c Quantificational approximators by UN students:degree 7-3d Quantificational approximators by UN students:summary 7-4a Comparing quantificational approximators across three levels(a) 7-4b Comparing quantificational approximators across three levels(b) 7-5 NI approximators by JH students 7-6 NI approximators by SH students 7-7 NI approximators by UN students 7-8 Comparing NI approximators across three proficiency levels 7-9 Performative shields by JH students 7-10 Performative shields by SH students 7-11 Performative shields by UN students 7-12 Comparing performative shields across the three levels 7-13 Modal shields by JH students 7-14 Modal shields by SH students 7-15a Modal shields by UN students:modal auxiliaries 7-15b Modal shields by UN students:modal adv.,adj.& n. 7-15c Modal shields by UN students:summary 7-16 Comparing modal shields across three proficiency levels 7-17 PM hedges by JH students 7-18 PM hedges by SH students 7-19a PM hedges by UN students:interpersonal 7-19b PM hedges by UN students:propositional 7-19b PM hedges by UN students:propositional(continued) 7-19b PM hedges by UN students:propositional(continued) 7-19c PM hedges by UN students:summary 7-20 Comparing PM hedges across three proficiency levels 7-21 Summary of hedges in five major categories 7-22 Summary of hedge types 7-23 Summary of hedge tokens 7-24 Type-Token ratios 7-25 Most frequent hedges for the three levels 7-26 Comparing written,interview and debate genres at JH level 7-27 Comparing written,interview and debate genres at SH level 7-28 Comparing written,interview and debate genres at UN level List of Figures 3-1 Categorization of scientific hedges 7-1 Comparing'I think'and other performative shields across levels 7-2 Comparing rates of performative shields across three levels 7-3 Top five modal shields by JH students 7-4 Top five modal shields by SH students 7-5 Top five modal shields by UN students 7-6 Comparing hedge types across three proficiency levels 7-7 Comparing rates of hedge types across three proficiency levels 7-8 Comparing hedge tokens across three proficiency levels 7-9 Comparing rates of hedge tokens across three proficiency levels 7-10 Comparing written,interview and debate geners at JH level 7-11 Comparing written,interview and debate genres at SH level 7-12 Comparing written,interview and debate genres at UN level