Move Analysis and Hedge Use in the Research Paper Abstracts of Thai EFL English-majored Undergraduates

While much effort has been devoted to the analysis of moves and hedging devices in research articles and graduate-level dissertation abstracts, little work has been done on the research paper abstracts of Thai EFL English-majored undergraduates. This research aimed to analyze the move structure and use of hedges in each of the identified moves in 60 abstracts from Thai EFL undergraduate English-majored research papers. Pho’s (2008) analytical framework was employed for move identification, and Wang’s (2019) taxonomy was adopted for the analysis of hedges. The findings indicated the presence of three obligatory moves: Move 2 (Presenting the research), Move 3 (Describing the methodology), and Move 4 (Summarizing the findings). The dominant move sequence was Move 2 followed by Move 3 and then Move 4. In terms of hedges, it was found that hedging devices were employed in Move 2, Move 4, and Move 5. Modal verbs were the most frequently used hedging devices, followed by epistemic lexical verbs and epistemic adverbs, with epistemic adjectives appearing rarely. Notably, epistemic nouns were absent. This study provides a comprehensive understanding of how Thai EFL English-majored undergraduate students compose their research paper abstracts. Pedagogical implications for abstract writing are also discussed.