Hedging and Boosting in Moroccan English Research Articles: The Case of Doctoral Students at Ben’Msik Faculty of Sciences

Researchers typically present findings and make claims in alignment with established norms of academic writing within the scientific community. This study investigates Moroccan doctoral science students’ use of hedges and boosters in their published scientific articles, focusing on their awareness of the semantic and pragmatic functions of these discourse markers and their adherence to disciplinary writing conventions. The research employs a mixed-methods approach: a textual analysis of 40 published articles using Liu and Tseng’s (2021) framework, which expands upon Hyland’s (2005) metadiscourse model to identify the frequency and distribution of hedges (e.g., may, suggest) and boosters (e.g., clearly, demonstrate), alongside a quantitative analysis involving a pre- and post-lecture questionnaire administered to 36 students to assess shifts in understanding and attitudes following a two-lecture instructional workshop focused on hedging and boosting strategies. Textual analysis revealed systematic inconsistencies: students overused hedges, and underused boosters compared to norms in international journals. Post-intervention questionnaire results showed limited improvement in theoretical knowledge, with students continuing to struggle in applying metadiscourse markers appropriately in practice. The study suggests that cultural and contextual factors, such as L1 Arabic rhetorical norms favoring assertiveness, may shape these choices, combined with insufficient prior training. To address this, the findings advocate for discipline-specific writing instruction in Moroccan academia, including contrastive rhetoric exercises, scaffolded editing tasks, and collaborative peer-review frameworks to enhance students’ adherence to international scientific conventions. Keywords: Hedges, boosters, academic writing, scientific discourse, textual analysis, pre- and post-lecture questionnaire