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Library's collection Library's IT development CancelThis study was carried out to find out the forms in relation to the functions
of hedges used by Biden and Palin in campaign debate entitled Vice-Presidential
Debate. One of both debaters, Biden is inspiring politician nowadays because he
is known as an honest and critical person. Besides, he is serving under President
Barack Obama as a vice-president right now. This significant fact encourages me
to know the hedges used by politician through study. The theory applied in this
study is retrieved from Keeffe, McCarthy, Carter (2007). It explains about the
forms of hedges. It is also supported by Murphy’s theory of hedges (2010) to
explain functions of hedges. After combining both theories, the forms of hedges
appeared are 12 while the functions of hedges are 7. As the result, the most
frequent form of hedges used by both politicians is modal verb. In the functions of
hedges, Murphy (2010) stated that they consist of to express doubt and
confidence, to protect the feelings of the Addressee, to signal for searching the
right words, to avoid the appearance of playing expert, to soften the statement, to
show sensitivity, and to facilitate the opening discussion. From those 7 functions
of hedges, the most frequent function of hedges used by both politicians is to
soften the statement. In order to know the comparison numbers of hedges
occurring in each politician’s utterances, I provide two tables of total hedges in
utterances, that is table 3.1 and 3.2. As for the result, I find that Palin used hedges
more than Biden.