slang - Is this usage of "lol" considered a hedge?


In doing some research on another question I bumped into the term "hedge":



A hedge is a mitigating device used to lessen the impact of an utterance. Typically, they are adjectives or adverbs, but can also consist of clauses. It could be regarded as a form of euphemism.



I commonly see "lol" online but recently I have noticed it used as such:



I completely forgot about our meeting... lol.


I am completely embarrassed, lol.


Oh wow I was a complete retard will you forgive me lol



The final example could use some punctuation but these uses seem different than the original use of lol. It seems to signal an embarrassment or defensiveness in an attempt to (a) avoid conflict (b) claim no hard feelings (c) lighten the mood or (d) something else?


In any case, while I am curious about this usage in general I am more specifically asking about its classification. Is this considered a hedge? Or am I not understanding this term correctly?



Answer



This link might just be an undergraduate's work, but it has the benefit of being reasonably accessible to non-specialists looking for a definition. This one is more technical, to say the least.


It's important to note that there's no real consensus among professional linguists about what exactly constitutes a hedge. And there's much confusion on the internet about who coined the term anyway. It was actually George Lakoff in 1973, but Google mostly shows stuff from Robin Lakoff. She looks more like a feminist than a linguist to me, and I suspect she co-opted the term for her specific agenda.


G. Lakoff's coinage metaphorically refered to 'boundary' words between two identifiable 'structural' elements in an utterance. Semantically they might mitigate, amplify, or be neutral. The important thing is they're not really identifiable 'syntactic elements' in standard textual analysis terms.


Connotations with the verb to hedge, in the sense of speak evasively, steer one towards the Wikipedia interpretation. But I don't think that was ever intended (by George, disregarding Robin), and it may even be unhelpful.


I really think we should be careful about accepting Wikipedia's definition of hedge in this sense. Not least because several of their pages in this general area are flagged as being below standard.


TL;DR - don't get too hung up on whether something is a hedge or not. Even the professionals don't agree.


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