AN ANALYSIS OF THE USE OF HEDGING UTTERANCES IN STUDENTS’ CONVERSATION AT SMA GKPI PADANG BULAN MEDAN

Abstract

The study investigated the hedging used by students’ conversation in asking and giving opinion at the second grade of SMA GKPI Padang Bulan Medan. The aims of the study are to know what forms of hedging utterances found in students’ conversation and what the most dominant form of hedging utterances found in students’ conversation. This research is descriptive qualitative study. The data was collected from recording and then transcribed of students’ conversation in classroom. It was six of seven forms of hedging founded in students’ conversation and the most dominant form of hedging was modal lexical verbs. The modal lexical verbs appeared for 15 times or 36.5 %; modal auxiliary verbs are 9 or 22.0 %; Introductory Phrases are 9 or 22.0 %; compound hedges are 5 or 12.1 %,; adjectives, nouns, and adverbs are 2 or 5.0 %; If-phrases is 1 or 2.4 %; and Approximators of Degree, Quantity, Frequency and Time is 0 or 0 %. The result of this research can motivate the lecturers or teachers to facilitate the students in EFL class to communicate by using forms of hedging particularly in expressing feeling or in every situation by using to keep sounds polite.