THE PRAGMATICS OF HEDGING IN CROSS-CULTURAL EMAIL NEGOTIATION: A COMPARATIVE CORPUS STUDY OF L1 AND L2 ENGLISH SPEAKERS

Abstract

This study investigates the use of hedging devices in cross-cultural email negotiations between first-language (L1) English speakers from the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada, and second-language (L2) English speakers, with a focus on Pakistani L2 English speakers. The business negotiation emails used in this study comprise 700 emails, totalling about 267,800 words, and are analysed using a corpus-based quantitative approach. The study’s theoretical approach is based on Hyland’s (1998) taxonomy of hedging, which identifies and classifies hedging strategies into five major categories: modal verbs, approximators, attitude markers, shields, and compound hedges. The results indicate significant differences in the number of L1 and L2 speakers who employ certain hedges, as well as in the types of hedges used. In terms of patterns, Pakistani L2 speakers are more inclined to use compound hedges and deference-based expressions, which can lead to over-hedging and limit their ability to negotiate productively in Western professional situations. The results of this study show a statistically significant relationship among speaker background, cultural power distance values, and hedging behavior. The implications of these findings for cross-cultural business communication training are significant, especially for people in Pakistan who must communicate via email with their Western counterparts. The study also contributes to the corpus-based research literature by providing data on the influence of pragmatic transfer (Urdu and South Asian pragmatic norms) on English email writing in professional contexts.