Linguists call "I think" when used this way a "stance marker"[0]. It's definitely not redundant: it reveals pragmatic information[1] about the context you're sp

Linguists call "I think" when used this way a "stance marker"[0]. It's definitely not redundant: it reveals pragmatic information[1] about the context you're speaking in, namely by tempering your stance and revealing your level of confidence in the statement you're making. See this for example: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/SC59wwEkK64tvQsDb9hC/full [0] Here, "stance" means: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stance_(linguistics) [1] For more info, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics