Preserving Face and the Use of Hedges in Masculine World of Men

Hedges or epistemic modal items arelinguistic features which carry various functions. One of the important functions of hedges is preserving the interactants’ faces in different social settings. In Sociolinguistics, hedges are mainly associated with women and their talk as protective devices for speakers and listeners’ faces. Women use these features more frequently than men because they are more attentive to preserving their own faces and the addressees’ in order to create solidarity. While men, on the other hand, avoid these features because they show uncertainty,leading to perceptions of weakness. This paper, however, looks at instances of hedges in men's interaction in order to determine the ways these features are employed by men. In order to conduct this study, 200 minutes of transcribed conversations of Iranian male interactantswere used to examine how these elements are applied in their face to face informal interaction. The findings suggest that Iranian men, despite being masculine, use hedges in their speech. They opt to protect their faces by inserting hedges in their interactions. They also try to preserve the addresses’ face which is an indication of solidarity. However, Iranian men in this study protect their own faces more than the addresses’ faces.