VietTESOL International Convention 2026

This study advances corpus-based critical discourse analysis by integrating corpus-based analysis with Fairclough’s three-dimensional model to examine hedging in English diplomatic discourse. Two research corpora are compiled, comprising over 200,000 words of American and British ambassadors’ speeches delivered to Vietnamese audiences. By integrating quantitative statistical tools from WordSmith 8.0 with qualitative linguistic analysis, the study investigates how American and British ambassadors utilize modal lexical verbs, modal adjectives, intensifiers, downtoners, and patterns of mitigation markers functioning as hedges. The findings reveal significant cross-cultural differences: American ambassadors show more personal and direct communicative styles using more patterns of hedges in the sense of strong commitment, intensifiers and downtoners, whereas British ambassadors are more tentative and indirect, employing higher frequencies of hedges conveying weak commitment with modal lexical verbs, modal adjectives, and mitigation markers. Hedges in ambassadorial speeches operate simultaneously at multiple levels: at textual level, it encodes degrees of commitment and stance; at discursive practice level, it mediates the production and interpretation of diplomatic communication; and at social practice level, it contributes to the negotiation of power relations and the articulation of ideological positions. The study also underscores the effectiveness of corpus linguistics and corpus-based approach to providing empirically grounded, objective insights into the relationship between language use and social interaction.