An emphasis on language as a communication system is really necessary in an age of
globalization. Not only does it help uncover principles underlying social interactions, but it
also enables us to gain an access to ways of thinking, belief systems, and world views of
people from various cultural backgrounds and thus enhances empathy and mutual
understanding. Investigating issues concerning cross-cultural communication is especially
momentous in today’s time, when national boundariesare becoming less visible, and more
and more people are engaging in intercultural communication. Understanding social
conventions and attention to such concepts as politeness, and face, which are important to
members in a particular culture, will certainly enable us to better comprehend the different
ways of speaking by people from different cultures, thus helping eliminate ethnic
stereotypes and misunderstandings.
There have been so far plenty of researches on the field of politeness from various
perspectives. Yet, hedging in language is still an area available for more exploration. This
research, therefore, has chosen hedging as a potential subject. The study is done not only to
see the similarities and dissimilarities between the two cultures. Another goal of this
research is to raise the awareness of both teachers and learners of English about the
necessity of hedging in language, and to give teachers several suggestions in teaching this
language phenomenon to their students.
Nevertheless, hedging is a very broad area, and within the limit of the study, it is
impossible to discuss all aspects of hedging in language. As declining an invitation is an
act with high risk of making the hearers lose face,it requires different supplementary steps
to reduce the weightiness of the utterance. This iswhere hedging can mostly be seen. That
is the reason why hedging in invitation declining is chosen for the project.