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

Euphemism

A euphemism is the substitution of a mild, inoffensive, relatively uncontroversial phrase for another more frank expression that might offend or otherwise suggest something unpleasant to the audience...

.

Examples:

1. There might just be a few insignificant problems we need to address. (adjective)
2. The party was somewhat spoiled by the return of the parents. (adverb)
3. I'm not an expert but you might want to try restarting your computer. (clause)

Hedges may intentionally or unintentionally be employed in both spoken and written language since they are crucially important in communication

Communication

Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

. Hedges help speakers and writers communicate more precisely the degree of accuracy and truth

Truth

Truth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...

 in assessments. For instance, in “All I know is smoking is harmful to your health”, all I know is a hedge that indicates the degree of the speaker’s knowledge instead of only making a statement, “Smoking is harmful to your health”.

Interestingly, from pragmatics

Pragmatics

Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics which studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. Pragmatics encompasses speech act theory, conversational implicature, talk in interaction and other approaches to language behavior in philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. It studies how the...

 aspects, hedges indicate how Gricean maxims are observed. In this case, hedges are markers tied to the expectation of the maxims of quantity, quality, manner, and relevance.

1. All I know is, smoking is harmful to your health.

   In (1), it can be observed that information conveyed by the speaker is limited by adding all I know and as you probably know. By so saying, the speaker wants to inform that she is not only making an assertion but observing the maxim of quantity as well.

2. They told me that they are married.

   If the speaker only says that “they are married” and they do not know for sure if they are married, they may violate the maxim of quality since they say something that they do not know to be true or false. Nevertheless, by adding they told me that, the speaker wants to confirm that they are observing the conversational maxim of quality.

In conversation, speakers may also be aware of the maxim of manner by producing hedges like:

1. I am not sure if all of these are clear to you, but this is what I know.

   The above example (3) shows that hedges are good indications the speakers are not only conscious of the maxim of manner, but they are also trying to observe them.

2. By the way, you like this car?

   By using by the way, what has been said by the speakers is not relevant to the moment in which the conversation takes place. Such a hedge can be found in the middle of speakers’ conversation as the speaker wants to switch to another topic

   Topic

   Topic or Topicality may refer to:* Topic , what is being talked about* Topic * Topic , a brand of confectionery bar* Topics , a work by Aristotle* Topical, a medication applied to body surfaces...

   
    that is different from the previous one. Therefore, by the way functions as a hedge indicating that the speaker wants to drift into another topic or want to stop the previous topic.

It seems that when people are involved in conversation

Conversation

Conversation is a form of interactive, spontaneous communication between two or more people who are following rules of etiquette.Conversation analysis is a branch of sociology which studies the structure and organization of human interaction, with a more specific focus on conversational...

s, they not only convey information, but they want to verify how informative, true, relevant and perspicuous that information is.