Chapter 1 The Attention Hedging Has Been Getting Introduction 1.1 Development of the concept of hedging 1.2 Academic writing and hedging 1.2.1 The social nature of knowledge and academic writing 1.2.2 HDs in academic writing across different rhetorical sections 1.. Studies on the use of HDs by L2 learners 1.3 Grammatical forms of hedging devices 1.4 Functions of hedging devices 1.4.1 The politeness interpretation of hedging in academic writing 1.4.2 Hyland's approach Conclusion Chapter 2 The Corpus Linguistics Point of View Introduction 2.1 A lexical approach to the description of English 2.2 Corpus linguistics and discourse analysis 2.2.1 Move analysis 2.2.2 Using a corpus-based approach to move analysis Conclusion Chapter 3 Interpreting Corpus Data Introduction 3.1 Aims of the book 3.2 The corpora of the present study 3.2.1 The non-native speaker corpus (NNS corpus) 3.2.2 The native speaker corpus (NS corpus) 3.3 Frequency 3 3.1 Overview 3.3.2 The selection of hedging devices in the corpus Study Conclusion Chapter 4 Modal Verb Hedging Introduction 4.1 Concordance analysis of would, may & should 4.1.1 Meanings of would, may & should 4.1.2 Discussion on the similarities and differences of co occurrence patterns of hedging modal verbs between the NS corpus and the NNS corpus 4.1.3 Polypragmatic functions of hedging following modal verb patterns 4.2 Move analysis of modal verbs 4.2.1 Modal verb hedging realisations in the Introduction sections 4 2.2 Modal verb hedging in Discussion sections Conclusion Chapter 5 Lexical Verb Hedging with Suggest and Seem Introduction 5.1 Frequency of hedging lexical verbs 5.2 Judgment verb--suggest 5.2.1 Personalised and depersonalised constructions of suggest 5.2.2 Authors' +suggest 5.. Compound hedges 5.3 Evidential verb--seem 5.4 Move analysis of hedging lexical verbs suggest and seem 5.4.1 Lexical verb hedging realisation in Introduction sections 5.4.2 Lexical verb hedging realisation in Discussion sections Conclusion Chapter 6 Adjectives and Adverbs Hedging Introduction