Exploring Hedges And Their Functions In Tariq Rahman’s Friend

Abstract

This paper tries to investigate different types of hedges and the functions of hedges used in short story, Friend (1986), written by Tariq Rahman. The present research is qualitative in nature and is based on an interpretivist paradigm. The short story, Friend (1986), by Tariq Rahman is taken as the source of data. The theories of hedges and its functions, proposed by Coates (1996), and the types of hedges proposed by Salager-Meyer (1997) are used as a theoretical framework in the present study. The researchers have selected five types of hedges from Salager-Meyer (1997) classification.  This paper concludes that the hedges which occur most frequently in the short story is modal auxiliary verb which occurred with the frequency of 9(36%), then the ‘if’ clauses which occurred with the frequency 6(24%), other types such as modal lexical verbs and introductory phrases occurred with same frequency 4(16%), then compound hedges with frequency 2(8%). There are three functions of hedges out of four found out by the researchers, these functions are; expression of doubt and confidence, searching for the right word, and sensitivity to others’ feelings.