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Hedging in the peer review process (on Academic L2 writing courses)
Research Question:
How do affective factors (i.e. praise and mitigation) influence the peer review process?
Roger Yallop
PhD Student
University of Tartu
What is Peer Review (and implementation of comments)?
Example
•Ann reads Bob’s introduction
•She writes review comments
i.e., ‘you need to add more references’
•Bob decides to implement (or not) these comments in his next draft.
Subsequent texts are improved
What is hedging?
• Linguistic device • Makes things ‘fuzzier’• Politeness strategy• Threat minimizing strategy
Crompton (1997)
Example from a reviewer’s comment:
Add a reference (no hedging)
You should add a reference (hedging)
Study Rationale
Hypothesis•Relationship between the reviewer and writer is critical!
•The more trust in the relationship, the more likely the writer will implement the reviewer’s comments.
Need reliable taxonomy to measure affective factors (Salager-Meyer 1994)
Taxonomy of Hedges: Salager-Meyer (1994)
1. Shields: ‘fuzziness’ in relationships (pragmatics)
should, seem, probably, suggest
2. Approximators: ‘fuzziness’ in
proposition (semantics)
roughly, quite, often
Taxonomy of Hedges: Salager-Meyer (1994)
3. Authors personal doubt and direct involvementI believe …, I think …
4. Emotionally-charged intensifiers: emotionally charged words to project the reviewers’ reactions
extremely interesting, surprising
Taxonomy of Hedges: Salager-Meyer (1994)
5. Double shields: extreme fuzziness’ in relationships (pragmatics)
It could possibly be …
The Context
• Two PhD students (Ann and Bev)
• Academic Writing Course
• Writing an academic article
• Small group (4 persons)
• Discipline specific
• Three-month course
Group Bonding
Methodology
• Lectures
• Online Material
• Reviewer Training
• Focus on Global Changes
• No Teacher Intervention
Strongly Constructivist
Procedure (1)
1. Ann and Bev write an introduction
2. Ann comments on Bev’s introduction
3. Bev comments on Ann’s introduction
4. Face-to-face meeting
Procedure (2)
5. Ann revises (or not) her text based on Bev’s comments.
6. Bev revises (or not) her text based on Ann’s comments.
7. Seven drafts in total (IMRAD structure)
Only Ann-Bev interactions investigated Other interactions NOT CONSIDERED
Data Analysis
Reviewer’s comments coded into two categories (Lui and Sadler, 2003):
1. Revision-Oriented Comments:
I think the last paragraph could be developed more.
(direct change to text proposed)
2. Non-Revision-Oriented Comments:
The overall structure is good. Well done!
(no direct change to text proposed, i.e., praise)
Revision-Oriented Comments (1)Implemented comments are coded into two categories (Faigley and Witte, 1981):
1. Global Comments (meaning changes to text):
I think the last paragraph could be developed more.
2. Local Comments (surface level changes to text ):
The use of comma when listing things.
Subsequent drafts examined for implementation % implementation of reviewer’s comments calculated (‘reviewer effectiveness’)
Revision-Oriented Comments (2)
Ann
6 stages (280 words)
40 words /stage
15 comments
Bev
5 stages (401 words)
80 words/stage (2x more)
13 comments
Revision-oriented Comments (3)
What does this show?
• Ann seems to be a more effective reviewer than Bev?
Why is this?• Comments coded for mitigation using
(Salager-Meyer 1984)• Data examined for patterns to explain the
phenomena
Follow-up with Qualitative Analysis (i.e., Interviews)
Revision-Oriented Comments (Hedging)
Non-Revision-Oriented Comments (2)
Ann
4 comments (78 words)
19.5 words/comment
Bev
17 comments (178 words)
10.5 words/comment
Non-Revision Comments (Hedging)
Data Interpretation (sample)
Ann•Less hedging (revision-oriented comments)•No double shields•Much less non-revision-oriented comments (i.e. praise) Does Bev over-use affective language from Ann’s perspective? Use qualitative analysis (i.e. interview Ann) to investigate
References (1)
Crompton, P. (1997). Hedging in academic writing: Some theoretical problems. English for Specific Purposes, 16/4: 271-287.
Faigley, L., & Witte, S. (1981). Analyzing revision. College composition and communication, 400-414.
Leijen, D. and Leontjeva, A. (2012). Linguistic and review features of peer feedback and their effect on implementation of changes in academic writing: A corpus based investigation. Journal of Writing Research, 4/2: 177 - 202.
Liu, J., & Sadler, R. W. (2003). The effect and affect of peer review in electronic versus traditional modes on L2 writing. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 2(3), 193-227.
Salager-Meyer, F. (1994). Hedges and textual communicative function in medical English written discourse. English for specific purposes, 13(2), 149-170.
