The use of hedges can be an indispensable part of academic writing. Hedges are generally used to moderate the impact of an utterance or the certainty of its content and therefore play an important role in academic writing. This study was a pioneering work in Persian as a second language. Based on the academic goals perused by Persian as a Second Language (PSL) learners and the importance of hedges in writing, the present study aimed to investigate the type and order of occurrence of hedges in the writings of PSL learners. Using Estaji and Salimi’s (2018) taxonomy, a writing test was conducted with 100 (50 male and 50 female) adult learners from different nationalities consisting of Chinese, Iraqi, Lebanese, Palestinian, Saudi Arabian, and Syrian. The participants were selected using convenience sampling. The data derived from the writing samples were analyzed and categorized. The categorized output was analyzed through MANOVA to check the impact of gender and first language on hedge type and order of occurrence. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between male and female PSL learners in terms of using hedges, with females using hedges more than males; and Arab PSL learners using modal verbs, lexical verbs, and nouns more than their Chinese counterparts. The results of this study can aid instructors and learners of Persian as a second language regarding academic writing.

Keywords