Yerli ve yabancı derlemlerde üstsöylem belirleyicilerinin incelenmesi: Yazar duruşu ve kaçınma kullanımı

This thesis investigates the use of hedges of interactive metadiscourse markers in a longitudinal learner corpus, consisting of one semester of written data from 35 students learning English as a foreign language (EFL). The analysis is twofold: First, a group analysis was conducted to observe collective trends in hedge use across different periods. Then, an individual analysis was conducted to observe the hedges used by 5 students over the course of a semester. Based on the frequency approach, the types of hedges and words most frequently used by students were determined and examined. Afterwards, a comparison was made between the native speaker (LOCNESS) and non-native English corpora (KTUCALE) in terms of the similarity of usage of these hedges. This analysis revealed similarities and differences in the two groups' collective tendency to use hedges. As a result, it was determined that the most frequently used hedge marker by EFL students was modal auxiliaries and should was the most used expression in this type. Moreover, it was observed that students never used noun phrases in their argumentative writings. The stances they put forward as writers were interpreted from the hedge expressions that students tend to use. Furthermore, in the comparison analysis based on loglikelihood values between native speakers and EFL students, it was seen that there was a similarity in terms of hedge use. When the most frequently used common hedges were compared, the results showed that only the hedge should was overused in the non-native corpus. Finally, it was observed whether there was a parallelism between students' use of hedges and their exam scores throughout the semester, and a positive interaction was obtained in the collective results.