[Air-l] a ps on hedges

[Bonnie Nardi]

Thanks for this next round of information on hedges!

My student has been interviewing people about how they perceive 
themselves. The context is an audio recorded interview about personal 
topics. So turn taking is not so relevant (I don't think). The 
interviewee has the floor.

What the student has noticed is that some statements are delivered very 
directly and easily, while in other cases, the interviewee searches for 
words, hesitates, etc. Is there rigorous analysis of what such 
hesitations might mean? Or any pointers on how to interpret repeated 
words, etc. For example, the interviewee might say, "I, I, I am 
different online [in various ways].

I think the issue is more one of articulating less thought out 
commentary.  I know there are analyses that suggest hesitations may 
indicate shading the truth (as the interviewee sees it), etc. I don't 
remember where I've seen those.

Again, thanks so much for the input. Any specific articles that get at 
these issues would be appreciated.

Best wishes,

---

Bonnie

Bonnie A. Nardi
School of Information and Computer Sciences
University of California, Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-3425
(949) 824-6534
www.artifex.org/~bonnie/


On Apr 12, 2006, at 5:04 PM, Davis, Boyd wrote:

> A PS on hedges -- is the interest in written text or spoken text or 
> e-text? there will be some methodological differences concerning the 
> analysis for each. Ken Hyland, for example, has some extremely 
> interesting discussions of hedging in written text. There is, as this 
> discussion suggests, more controversy in how to interpret hedges in 
> spoken, transcribed, and electronic text. More recently, several of us 
> have been considering hedges to be part of stance analysis.
> Boyd Davis
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