規避詞在學術論文中主要用以表達作者對其論述內容的不確定性，以及作者對其論述內容真實性或精確性的謹慎態度。同時，規避詞也使作者得以減低對其論述內容可靠性的責任，進而避免其他研究者的反駁。然而，儘管中外學者大量探討規避詞在英文學術寫作中的使用情形，現有中文規避詞的研究卻僅限於口語言談中的使用。基於此，本研究欲探討規避詞在中文學術論文中的使用情形，包括其表現型態與比例分布、在不同學術領域中使用的異同、以及比較其在學術論文和口與言談中的異同。
本研究探討的學術領域為生物學、商學、及歷史與文學，用以代表自然科學、社會科學、及純人文研究。每個學術領域的語料皆包含三十篇於2000-2008期間出版的知名學術期刊論文。研究發現中文學術論文中使用的規避詞以字(詞)彙類為大宗，其中副詞為使用得最為頻繁的詞類，助動詞及動詞其次。然而，學術論文作者最常使用的規避詞卻是「可能」、「應該」、及「可以」三個助動詞。
本研究亦發現不同學術領域的作者偏好不同類型的規避詞。生物學學者經常使用規避詞來修飾測量數據的正確性，以及修飾其研究的可試驗性，避免無實驗根據的論述。此外，生物學學者使用的規避詞種類最為狹隘，應是為了保持語言使用的簡潔所致。商學學者則經常利用規避詞來修飾研究假設的正確性及作者對其研究建議的確定性。儘管過去的研究僅指出規避詞的使用在科學領域及社會人文科學領域有明顯不同，本研究發現歷史與文學學者偏好使用的規避詞與商學學者的大有不同。由於歷史與文學學術論文中的論述主要為作者對文獻的詮釋，歷史與文學學者經常使用第一人稱指稱詞及具主觀性的規避詞來表達作者對其論述的主觀態度及判斷。此外，歷史與文學學者亦較常使用常見於口與言談中的規避詞，如感官詞、疑問詞、及表達作者立場的副詞等，顯示歷史與文學中的論述與口語言談的語體較為類似。因此，若要對規避詞在不同學術領域中使用的異同有完整的了解，對於純人文領域的探討是不可或缺的。
儘管規避詞在口語言談中及學術論文中皆經常可見，其使用的動機卻不盡相同。在注重人際互動的口語言談中，「禮貌」扮演著舉足輕重的角色。而在學術論文中，表達論述內容的真實性及正確性的程度才是使用規避詞最重要的目的。

Hedges in academic texts enable authors to express uncertainty and indicate the authors’ cautiousness and responsibility for degrees of reliability of their claims. Meanwhile, hedges also decrease their responsibility for the truth of the claims to prevent negation. Although there are some studies about Chinese spoken hedges, hedges in academic texts do not draw attention from the research community. Therefore, this study aims to investigate Chinese writers’ use of hedges in Chinese academic research papers. We explore the linguistic realizations of hedges in Chinese academic texts and the similarities and differences of hedges used among three different academic fields and between Chinese academic texts and spoken discourse.
The three academic fields selected are biology, business, and history & literature, representing natural science, social science, and pure humanity. Our corpus comprises 30 research papers from three well-known Chinese academic journals published from 2000 to 2008 in each of the three fields.
Our results showed that academic writers rely greatly on lexical hedges, accounting for nearly 90% of all hedging devices, to qualify their argument. Among all grammatical categories, adverbs occur most frequently, followed by auxiliaries and verbs while the auxiliaries keneng 可能 ‘may’, ying(gai) 應(該) ‘should’, and ke(yi) 可(以) ‘can’ are the most frequently used hedges.
Disciplinary difference in our corpus is observed in the types of hedges used instead of the frequency of hedges. We found that biology writers generally rely on a much more restricted set of hedges whereas writers of history & literature make use of the greatest variety of hedges. In biology, writers frequently hedge the precision of numerical expressions because their studies frequently involve measurement in the experimental process. They also often hedge the testability of their studies to avoid make speculation without any experimental evidence.
In business, the disciplinary convention requires that writers make predictions or hypotheses based on previous researches and test whether their findings is in accordance with the hypotheses. As a result, they frequently qualify their proposed predictions and research suggestions.
Although previous studies do not report distinction of the use of hedges between social science and pure humanities, we do observe differences in the types of hedges used between history & literature and business. Since claims in history & literature are mostly based on the authors’ interpretation of the available literature, writers of history & literature most frequently use hedges indicting subjective attitude and personal reference to express their subjective judgment of the information. The comparison between hedges in Chinese academic texts and spoken discourse suggests that writers of history & literature have styles that are closer to the spoken register. In our corpus, writers of history & literature use more sensory verbs and nouns, stance adverbs, and question words, which are typically observed in spoken discourse. Therefore, more studies in pure humanity are required if we want to have a complete understanding of disciplinary difference in the use of hedges.
Although hedges can be used to indicate language users’ uncertainty in both academic and spoken discourses, the motivations for speakers and academic writers to use the same hedging devices may not be the same. In spoken language, politeness may play a more influential role in the use of hedges due to the interpersonal nature of conversation whereas in academic texts, avoiding negation and presenting statements with appropriate degree of certainty are more important.

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