KORPUSNO UTEMELJENA ANALIZA JEZIČNIH SREDSTAVA S POTENCIJALNOM FUNKCIJOM OGRAĐIVANJA U POMORSKOPRAVNIM TEKSTOVIMA NA ENGLESKOME JEZIKU

Abstract

Hedges are epistemic linguistic devices that mitigate categorical claims by expressing the possibility, uncertainty, vagueness, or a degree of commitment of the speaker or author of the text towards the truth value of the proposition. Previous research has shown that hedges are one of the fundamental features of scientific discourse. Howe¬ver, hedges also occur in legal discourse, in which such epistemic expressions perform specific communicative functions. The paper presents the results of the analysis of po¬tential hedges carried out on a corpus of four maritime legal texts written in English. The texts include two international conventions, one set of regulations, and one code. Based on the list of potential lexical hedges and hedging strategies identified in previ¬ous similar research, a quantitative analysis was carried out using the Sketch Engine tool and examples of actual hedges were extracted from the corpus and analysed quali¬tatively. The most common potential lexical hedges recorded in the corpus are epistemic modal verbs, while the most significant potential hedging strategies are con¬ditional clauses and the passive voice. Hedges are used to express (im)precision, limit the legal scope, and soften the author’s commitment to the truth value or probability of a proposition, implying that a particular statement is not based on reliable knowled¬ge, but rather on plausible and/or hypothetical reasoning.