ANALYSIS OF HEDGING STRATEGIES FOR MAPPING LINGUISTIC VARIATION ACROSS GENDER

Abstract

This study is conducted to understand the employment of hedges in males and females in the context of talk shows. To find the evidence for supporting or negating Lakoff’s theory (1972) that women use more polite terminologies than men which in turn make them look weak. This study explores hedges among 6 celebrities (three female and three male) selected through purpose sampling in the same context. Mixed method research method is utilized to analyze the data both numerically as well as interpretively. Five episodes of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon are viewed up to 30 to 45 minutes to collect data in form of speeches of participants. Salager-Meyer’s Hedges Theory and Martin-Martin’s model of Functional Strategies are utilized as theoretical framework for data analysis. The results of the study reveal that, despite having similar professional backgrounds and conversational contexts, the female celebrities employ great number of hedging strategies than male participants. The least common strategy employed by female participants is depersonalization to reflect uncertainty or fuzziness in a claim to protect it from absolute falsification. Additionally, male speakers prefer subjectification as a method to control epistemic dedication maintaining objectivity. These findings trend to imply that gender identity has significant impact on hedging in entertainment talk show along with other contextual variables of demand of audience, topic sensitivity, and self-presentation. These results add significant value to literature on the binary perspective of gendered hedging with contextualized analyses approving the traditional view about more use of hedges by females than males.