Reference to descriptive acts as a key hedging technique in academic discourse

Abstract

Introduction. Modern professional and scientific communication is characterized by globalization of the academic space, in which scientists, strictly adhering to the principles of scientific ethics and norms of academic courtesy, rely on certain established norms in communication and interaction with each other, arguing their judgments and actions based on any official sources, precedent texts and institutional documents through multilevel hedging markers. to absolve oneself of epistemic responsibility for the proposed proposition. In this case, the reference to descriptive acts serves as one of the fundamental hedging mechanisms in institutional academic discourse, providing mitigation of categorical and assertive statements by delegating epistemic responsibility to documented research, authoritative normative texts and established institutional practices, thus implementing implicit strategies of rhetorical influence on the recipient and maintaining dialogue in the professional community. Materials and methods. The empirical research corpus includes scientific articles from the еLIBRARY in German and English, as well as a review of a dissertation in Russian, where descriptive acts implement hedging through references to certain sources. Analysis. The article analyzes the linguistic implementation of descriptive hedges (citation constructions, references, axiomatic statements) and their role in argumentation and representation of the results of various scientific papers. It is emphasized that reliance on descriptive acts promotes compliance with the norms of academic politeness, especially in multilingual contexts (foreign and Russian-language scientific discourse), and also ensures the acceptability of scientific statements in the professional community. Results. Thus, it is established that descriptive acts are universal and have high rhetorical effectiveness in written academic genres, since their systematic use activates strategies of implicit influence, minimizes conflict and enhances persistence, providing legitimacy of judgments within the institutional framework of the scientific community.