The Internet Journal of Language, Culture and Society URL: www.educ.utas.edu.au/users/tle/JOURNAL/ ISSN 1327-774X © LSC-2012 Issue 34 Hedges and Boosters in the Yemeni EFL Undergraduates' Persuasive Essay: An Empirical Study Ali S. Alward, Chua Choon Mooi, Siti Jamilah Binti Bidin College of Arts and Sciences Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah Darul Aman, Malaysia Abstract The majority of research into EFL writing was on the area of linguistic competency (i.e. mastery of gram- mar and lexis). However, there is a need for investigating other pragmatic aspects of writing such as hedges and boosters which have not received the attention they deserve in the learners' written discourse. The key reason for investigating these two markers stemmed from the assumption that linguistic compe- tency does not ensure that a piece of writing is satisfactory. This paper attempts to examine the role of explicit instruction on the learners’ use of hedges and boosters. The instrument selected for this study consists of a persuasive writing task written by forty third-year undergraduate students majoring in English at Sana’a University. The writing persuasive task was recommended as an appropriate instrument to col- lect such type of data. The findings revealed that prior instruction had a positive impact on the learners’ use of hedges and boosters. The subjects of the experimental group had a significant improvement while the subjects of the control group did not. Based on the findings of the study, it is strongly recommended that teaching hedges and boosters is a useful way for EFL learners. Keywords: Hedges, boosters, genre, persuasive writing, EFL writing, explicit instruction Introduction When EFL students transfer from high school to university, they face new challenges which involve certain conventions in writing persuasive genres such as written examinations, term papers, and persuasive es- says. Thompson (2001) pointed out that persuasive writing in English is particularly problematic for non- native speakers who are often both linguistically and rhetorically inexperienced. In the same line, Tanko and Tamasi (2008) reported that research on persuasive texts to university students has become a major concern for people in tertiary educational institutions where little research, in general, and empirical re- search, in particular, is available. Research on students’ persuasive writing is relatively little c ompared to descriptive, narrative, and expository writing (Stephens, 2003). These studies suggest that students expe- rience difficulty at the above-sentence level related to constructing claims appropriately (Hyland & Milton, 1997; Hinkel, 2004). This difficulty arises when EFL writers try to take a particular position on a usually arguable topic and attempts to persuade the readers to adopt that position. Based on the situation, the writer may resort to detach or weaken the force of the claims through the use of hedges or show confi- dence or certainty through the use of boosters. Hedges and boosters play a vital role in constructing ap- propriate stance when arguing a particular point of view. Any overuse or misuse of these two markers would result in a distortion of the value of the claim being presented.