HEDGES IN RESEARCH ARTICLE DISCUSSION IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY AMONG ACCREDITED NATIONAL JOURNALS OF DIFFERENT SINTA RANKS

The study of hedges in Indonesia with Indonesian scholars as the subject is still
rare to find. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate how Indonesian scholars
used hedges in research article discussions published in different SINTA ranks
and investigate the difference used by the scholars. This research used a
descriptive quantitative approach that investigated 65 research article discussions
published in all SINTA ranks (SINTA 1-6) in Applied Linguistics in 2021-2022.
The data were taken by using the purposive sampling technique and they were
analyzed by using the framework of Hyland (1998). The results revealed that
Indonesian scholars in SINTA 1-6 used all hedges types in research article
discussions, and the most frequent types used were Verbs and Modal auxiliaries
and semi-modal verbs. Moreover, Indonesian scholars in SINTA 1-5 used more
Verbs in their discussions. Meanwhile, Modal auxiliaries and semi-modal verbs
type was more often used by Indonesian scholars in SINTA 6. These findings
indicate the importance of using hedges in writing the research article discussions
for Indonesian scholars in Applied Linguistics. The writers are suggested to use
more hedges when writing research article discussions.
Keywords: Applied Linguistics, research article discussion, SINTA ranks,
hedges.