Using discourse hedges in school debate: focus on peace and reconciliation

Abstract

Educators agree that adequate time is not given to classroom contact hours so as to cover all much desired course materials effectively. As a result, classroom activities are often geared toward ensuring that students understand course concepts with little time left to promote an in � depth critical thinking. One of the most effective ways of utilizing instructional strategies is to actively engage students in activities outside the classroom such as debate. Debate promotes critical thinking which enable students acquire persuasive genres. Additionally, argumentative communication like debate involves studying of reasons, giving people as justification for acts, beliefs, attitudes, etc. Hedges are useful linguistic repertoires that can be utilized in peace and reconciliation process because they mitigate even the harshest utterances. Additionally, the students used hedges in order to reduce the social distance in such a way that every interlocutor felt free.