Cross- Cultural Pragmatic Study of Using Hedges in the Performance of Speakers of English and Arabic

Abstract

Using hedging strategies is one of the most frequently occurring in communicative acts in most human languages / cultures. These hedging strategies have pragmatic functions that are crucial in establishing and maintaining social bonds. Hedging strategies have the effect of enhancing positive rapport between interlocutors in any communicative interaction. In addition, they are a language function that has important social value. There is a difficulty of knowing when and how to use hedging strategies and how to get on smoothly with others. Despite of its importance and the high frequency of their use in daily interactions, interlocutors commit mistakes in using this strategy. The focus of this study is on investigating the using and perception of the hedging expressions in the political interviews (American English and Iraqi Arabic speakers), and investigating whether these two groups employ similar or different patterns in performing and perceiving hedges under investigation. In addition to exploring the distribution and the frequency of occurrence of hedging strategies in different cultures within the concept of gender. The main hypothesis of this study is that hedging strategies have a firm relation within concept of culture and gender. In this study, it is concluded that there is Quadruple relation among hedging strategies, gender, culture, and politeness is presented in the political interviews. Hedging strategies have a firm relation in respect to context , topic, gender, and culture of the participants.