MICUSP

Hedging and boosting are significant communicative resources to construe and attain persuasion in different fields and particular genres of academic writing. Hedges allow the researcher to address possible problems, raise objections or anticipate opposition to the research claims while contributing something new to the ongoing dialogue in a research field. Boosters enormously help to achieve the essential writers’ need to convince their readership of the truth in their propositions. They are mainly used whenever writers consider it not too risky to include them in their propositions. This study aims to investigate the frequencies and functions of hedges and boosters in academic students' essays. To meet this end, 96 students' essays (a total of 269.428 words) were selected from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers (MICUSP), including English and Psychology disciplines. The corpus was analyzed based on Abdollahzadeh (2019)classification of hedges. The results showed that hedges and boosters were frequent enough to be considered in teaching writing, either reducing or increasing the force of written utterances. The results of this study could be used directly in the syllabus designed for academic essay writing.

English as a First Language (EFL) and English as an Additional Language (The results indicated that both EFL and EAL students used a diverse array of linguistic features to express their ideas in academic prose, with the prospective categories being the most commonly used.

As one of the most prominent components of native-like language use, lexical bundles play a crucial role in academic texts. Considering the amount of written language produced by writers, this study explored lexical bundles in non-native and native academic reports. To that end, 100 sample reports of non-native and native writers taken from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP) were selected and analyzed to find non-native and native writers’ use of lexical bundles regarding frequency, structure, and function. Results indicated that native writers generally used a more extensive variety of lexical bundles in their reports. Regarding the structure of bundles, both non-native and native writers tended to employ more noun phrases with of-phrase fragments. In terms of the functions of bundles, both groups of writers tended to use more research-oriented bundles, followed by text-oriented and participant-oriented bundles, respectively. Findings highlight the value of fixed expressions in producing coherent academic texts by proficient writers, hence their importance in materials design and second language instruction.