Hedging — epistemic modality — How Rumours Travel Through a Forest
Grammar: Hedging language — epistemic modality, gradience in certainty, and precision in claims
Free ESL grammar exercise on hedging — epistemic modality themed around how rumours travel through a forest. Printable worksheet from classplan.ai.
What's on this worksheet
A Level 6 (proficiency) ESL grammar exercise on science, practising hedging language — epistemic modality, gradience in certainty, and precision in claims. The worksheet has a short reading excerpt, a grammar reference and graded practice items.
From the reading
What seems to make the mycorrhizal system remarkable is not its speed but its selectivity.
Grammar: Hedging Language
- Modal verb hedges
- Use may, might, could, would appear to to signal uncertainty. This might constitute communication. Avoids overclaiming.
- Adverb softeners
- Possibly, apparently, arguably, admittedly qualify a claim mid-sentence. False news spreads faster — possibly because novelty rewards the system.
Sample items
- The fungal network ______ share carbon between unrelated trees.
- Simard's conclusions ______ by some ecologists as overstated.
- Novelty, ______, explains why false stories spread faster than corrections.
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