GCF. ARUMDANI W Pengarang DEWI I N BILI BORA Dosen Pembimbing 2 Santri E. P Djahimo Dosen Pembimbing 1 Dewi I N Bili Bora Penguji 1 Santri E. P Djahimo Ketua Penguji Jermy I. balukh Penguji 2

The Analysis of Hedging Found in Students’ AcademicPapers Presented in The 4th International Conference on Language, Education and SocialSciences (ICLESS) 2022. English Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training andEducational Sciences, Nusa Cendana University. Supervisor: (1) Santri E. P Djahimo, S.Pd., M.App. Ling., Ph.D (2) Marcelinus Akoli,S.Pd.,M.Ling.Thisresearch investigates the use of hedging in academic papers written by studentsof the English Department at Nusa Cendana University and presented at the 4th InternationalConference on Language Education and Social Sciences (ICLESS) 2022. Hedging, alinguistic strategy employed to convey uncertainty, politeness, or indirectness, is crucial inacademic writing as it allows authors to present their claims cautiously and avoid potentialcriticism. This study aims to identify the types of hedging used, determine the most prevalentforms, and explore the functions and meanings of hedging within these student papers. UsingHyland’s (1996) taxonomy, hedges were classified into writer-oriented, attribute-oriented, reader-oriented,andreliabilityhedges.Theanalysisrevealedthatreliability hedges were themost frequently used, accounting for most hedging instances. These hedges allow writers tosignal caution and express their claims with appropriate levels of certainty, often throughmodal auxiliaries like "may," "might," and "could." There were a total of 126 hedges found inthe students’ academic papers presented at the presented at the 4th International Conferenceon Language, Education, and Social Sciences (ICLESS) 2022. The attribute-oriented hedge isthe most dominantly used hedge in the papers which is found in 63 phrases or sentences. Theleast used hedge in the papers is reader-oriented which is only found in 1 phrase. The writer- oriented hedge is found in 40 phrasesorsentencesandthereliability hedge is found in 22phrases or sentences in the students’ academic papers. Keywords: Hedging, Academic Writing, Rhetorical Devices, English Department, ICLESS 2022, Discourse Analysis, Politeness Strategies