IN TORUBLED WATERS: CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF PRESIDENT RODRIGO ROA DUTERTE'S SPEECHES ON THE WEST PHILIPPINES SEA

Hedges are used in political speeches as metadiscourse markers to present ideas with caution and modesty. This study examined the use of hedges in President Rodrigo Duterete's speeches. Twenty-six (26) corpora in the context of the West Philippine Sea issue were qualitatively analyzed using Fairclough's Three- Dimensional Model on Critical Discourse Analysis. The data were linguistically classified according to Prince, Frader, and Bosk's Classification of Hedges and then thematically analyzed using Braun and Clarke's Six Phases of Thematic Analysis. The findings showed that a difference appeared in the hedges used by the President and that such hedgings changed in time and context, serving different functions depending on the intention or purpose of a speaker. The foremost result of this research evinces that by combining the classified hedges and evoked underlying themes, different types of manifestation of power play a role in maintaining representations in communication. This proves that hedgings are helpful in oral discourse, and if every politician is aware of the benefits one can get from using them, one will attain effective and powerful communication. Moreover, the study successfully fills the gap in the study of hedges on political speeches by explaining their forms and functions in terms of time and context.