| ABBREVIATIONS | 第1-4页 |
| 英文摘要 | 第4-5页 |
| 中文摘要 | 第5-8页 |
| CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION | 第8-18页 |
| 1．1 INTRODUCTION TO HEDGING | 第8-13页 |
| 1．1．1 What Is Hedging | 第8-10页 |
| 1．1．2 Reasons of Hedging | 第10-11页 |
| 1．1．3 Significance of Studying Academic Hedging | 第11-13页 |
| 1．2 NOTES ON EARLIER WORK ON HEDGING IN ACADEMIC DISCOURSE | 第13-15页 |
| 1．3 WORKING DEFINITION OF THE THESIS | 第15页 |
| 1．4 PURPOSE OF THE THESIS | 第15-16页 |
| 1．5 MATERIALS AND METHODS USED | 第16-17页 |
| 1．5．1 The Corpus | 第16页 |
| 1．5．2 Methods of Analysis | 第16-17页 |
| 1．6 THE LAYOUT OF THE THESIS | 第17-18页 |
| CHAPTER 2 AN OVERVIEW OF ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH BACKGROUND | 第18-28页 |
| 2．1 HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF ARA | 第18-21页 |
| 2．1．1 Embryonic Form of ARA | 第18-19页 |
| 2．1．2 Development of ARA | 第19-20页 |
| 2．1．3 Reconfiguration of ARA | 第20-21页 |
| 2．2 TWO MODELS OF ARA WRITING | 第21-23页 |
| 2．2．1 Empirical Model of ARA Writing | 第21页 |
| 2．2．2 Rhetorical Model of ARA Writing | 第21-23页 |
| 2．3 RHETORICAL FEATURES OF ARA | 第23-28页 |
| 2．3．1 Introduction Sections | 第23-24页 |
| 2．3．2 Methods Sections | 第24-25页 |
| 2．3．3 Results Sections | 第25-26页 |
| 2．3．4 Discussion and Conclusion Sections | 第26-28页 |
| CHAPTER 3 THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF HEDGING STUDY IN ACADEMIC AND RESEARCH ARTICLES | 第28-58页 |
| 3．1 HEDGING FROM PERSPECTIVE OF PRAGMATICS | 第28-45页 |
| 3．1．1 Interpretation of Hedging in Terms of Politeness | 第29-35页 |
| 3．1．2 Interpretation of Hedging in Terms of Speech Act | 第35-39页 |
| 3．1．3 Interpretation of Hedging in Terms of Epistemic Modality | 第39-45页 |
| 3．2 HEDGING FROM PERSPECTIVE OF DISCOURSAL FUNCTION | 第45-51页 |
| 3．2．1 Content-oriented Hedges | 第45-48页 |
| 3．2．2 Reader-oriented Hedges | 第48-51页 |
| 3．3 FEATURES OF LEXICAL HEDGING | 第51-58页 |
| 3．3．1 Modal Auxiliaries | 第51-52页 |
| 3．3．2 Epistemic Lexical Verbs | 第52-56页 |
| 3．3．3 Epistemic Adjectives and Adverbs | 第56-58页 |
| CHAPTER 4 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF ELVS IN CARA | 第58-95页 |
| 4．1 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF ELVs IN CARA AS COMPARED WITH BROWNA AND LOBA | 第58-70页 |
| 4．1．1 Distribution of ELVs across the Three Corpora | 第59-65页 |
| 4．1．2 Distributions of ELVs in Each Rhetorical Section of ARAs as Compared with BROWNA, LOBA | 第65-70页 |
| 4．2 TENSE AND VOICE OF ELVs IN CARA, BROWNA AND LOBA | 第70-74页 |
| 4．2．1 Tense of ELVs in the Three Corpora | 第70-72页 |
| 4．2．2 The Voice of ELVs in the Three Corpora | 第72-74页 |
| 4．3 DISCUSSION OF ELVs WITH HIGH FREQUENCIES IN CARA | 第74-95页 |
| 4．3．1 Distribution of ELVs with High Frequencies in CARA as Compared with BROWNA,LOBA | 第74-78页 |
| 4．3．2 Detailed Study of ELVs with High Frequencies in CARA | 第78-95页 |
| CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS | 第95-100页 |
| 5．1 CONCLUSIONS OF THE STUDY | 第95-97页 |
| 5．2 PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS | 第97-100页 |
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | 第100-101页 |
| REFERENCES | 第101-104页 |
| APPENDIX Ⅰ DATABASE SOURCES | 第104-105页 |
| APPENDIX Ⅱ SNOBOL PROGRAM ENCODING CORPUS SENTENCES | 第105-108页 |
| APPENDIX Ⅲ SNOBOL PROGRAM SORTING OUT SENTENCES | 第108-109页 |
