| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS | 第8-9页 |
| Abstract | 第9-10页 |
| 摘要 | 第11-16页 |
| CHAPTER Ⅰ INTRODUCTION | 第16-19页 |
| 1.1 Research Background | 第16-17页 |
| 1.2 Objectives of the Study | 第17-18页 |
| 1.3 Organization of the Thesis | 第18-19页 |
| CHAPTER Ⅱ LITERATURE REVIEW | 第19-40页 |
| 2.1 Definitions of Hedges from the Linguistic Perspective | 第19-21页 |
| 2.2 Classification of Hedges | 第21-26页 |
| 2.3 Functions of Hedges | 第26-30页 |
| 2.3.1 Semantic Functions of Hedges | 第26-27页 |
| 2.3.2 Pragmatic Functions of Hedges | 第27-28页 |
| 2.3.3 Functions of Hedges in Theses | 第28-30页 |
| 2.4 Studies of Hedges in Theses | 第30-35页 |
| 2.4.1 Studies Abroad | 第30-32页 |
| 2.4.2 Studies at Home | 第32-35页 |
| 2.5 Language Transfer | 第35-40页 |
| 2.5.1 The Representations of Language Transfer | 第36-37页 |
| 2.5.2 Studies on Language Transfer in Second Language Acquisition | 第37-40页 |
| CHAPTER Ⅲ RESEARCH DESIGN | 第40-45页 |
| 3.1 Research Questions | 第40-41页 |
| 3.2 Corpus Construction | 第41-42页 |
| 3.2.1 The Chinese Postgraduate Theses Corpus (CPTC) | 第41页 |
| 3.2.2 The American Postgraduate Theses Corpus (APTC) | 第41页 |
| 3.2.3 Basic Information of the Two Corpora | 第41-42页 |
| 3.3 Research Procedures | 第42-45页 |
| 3.3.1 Retrieving the Lexical Hedges | 第42页 |
| 3.3.2 Identifying the Retrieved Lexical Hedges | 第42-44页 |
| 3.3.3 Processing Data | 第44-45页 |
| CHAPTER Ⅳ RESULTS AND DISCUSSION | 第45-71页 |
| 4.1 Features of Lexical Hedges in CPTC and APTC | 第45-67页 |
| 4.1.1 Statistical Analysis of Epistemic Modal Auxiliaries | 第45-52页 |
| 4.1.2 Statistical Analysis of Full Verbs | 第52-55页 |
| 4.1.3 Statistical Analysis of Epistemic Adverbs | 第55-60页 |
| 4.1.4 Statistical Analysis of Epistemic Adjectives | 第60-63页 |
| 4.1.5 Statistical Analysis of Epistemic Nouns | 第63-67页 |
| 4.2 Possible Reasons of the Differences between CPTC and APTC | 第67-71页 |
| 4.2.1 Complexity of Hedges | 第68页 |
| 4.2.2 L1 Transfer | 第68-69页 |
| 4.2.3 Insufficient Word Knowledge | 第69-71页 |
| CHAPTER Ⅴ CONCLUSION | 第71-75页 |
| 5.1 Major Findings of the Study | 第71-72页 |
| 5.2 Pedagogical Implications of the Study | 第72-73页 |
| 5.3 Limitations and Suggestions of the Study | 第73-75页 |
| REFERENCES | 第75-81页 |
| APPENDIX 1 | 第81-84页 |
| APPENDIX 2 | 第84-91页 |
