Epistemic Stance and Degrees of Certainty in English and Uzbek Academic Discourse: A Comparative Study

This thesis investigates the contrastive linguistic mechanisms, pragmalinguistic functions, and discourse configurations of epistemic stance markers and degrees of certainty within English and Uzbek academic discourse. Grounded in the philological specialization of comparative linguistics and translation theory, the research addresses the modern academic necessity of evaluating how scientific authors mitigate claims, express commitment to research outcomes, and position themselves within global knowledge networks. The central objective of this study is to identify the precise structural transpositions that occur when academic hedging and boosting strategies from an analytical Germanic language are projected onto the morphological and particle-heavy systems of an agglutinative Turkic language. The methods section utilizes an expansive, text-integrated discourse tracking paradigm, completely avoiding bulleted lists, to evaluate semantic adjustments across a parallel academic corpus. The results section presents a single, comprehensive qualitative matrix that replaces superficial statistics with functional quality indicators mapping epistemic commitment. Ultimately, the study confirms that while English academic text relies heavily on precise lexical hedging to cultivate institutional objectivity, Uzbek academic discourse utilizes grammaticalized modal systems and declarative analytical verbs to convey high certainty balanced with collective scientific humility.