Contrastive Analysis of Scientific Articles in the Area of Health

Authors

  • Patrícia Almeida de Rezende
  • Barbara Hemais

Keywords:

hedges, scientific article, health studies, genre analysis.

Abstract

This paper compares scientific articles in six sub-areas of Health Studies. The articles were written in Portuguese and English by Brazilians or in English by native speakers of English. The analysis includes quantitative and qualitative differences in the use of hedging. The results suggest that Brazilians have a tendency to use a greater quantity and variety of hedges in English, quantitatively exceeding the hedging used by native speakers of English. It was also found that there are preferences in terms of the purposes with which these hedges are used in the two languages, with an inclination of Brazilians to use this resource mainly in the formulation of hypotheses.

Author Biographies

Patrícia Almeida de Rezende

Patricia Almeida de Rezende is working towards her M.A. in Applied Linguistics at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-RIO). She holds an MA in Genetics from the Federal University of Paraná. Her research interests include ESP, the study of scientific discourse and genre analysis.

Barbara Hemais

Barbara Hemais holds a Doctoral degree from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. She teaches at the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro and coordinates undergraduate English courses and the Post-Graduate Lato Sensu course in English Language. Her research interests focus on genre studies applied to academic, pedagogical and professional contexts.

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Issue

Vol. 25 No. 2 (2004)

Section

Papers

License

The authors grant the journal all copyrights relating to the published works. The concepts issued in signed articles are the absolute and exclusive responsibility of their authors.