Analyzing Iraqi University EFL Learners’ Recognition of Implicit Negation in English Language

Negation has been a challenging and difficult subject for philosophers, logicians and linguists alike. As a form of negation, implicit (implied, hidden, indirect) negation is a common type that would occur when lexical items, including different parts of speech, and depending on their position, would imply the negative meaning that would affect the meaning of the sentence and the text. Implicit negation in terms of lexical, phrasal, and clausal structure, has not been given due attention by researchers. While EFL learners are able to recognize and construct negative forms in English, they are to some extent unable to recognize negative sentences with embedded negative sense, i.e., EFL learners can recognize explicit negatives (negative in form) but unable to do the same with implicit negatives (negative in sense not in form). The aim of this study is to find out whether or not Iraqi university EFL learners of English are able to recognize implicit negation and also decide on the type of implicit negation, lexical, phrasal, clausal. A 30-item test was distributed among 80 EFL learners at the Department of English Language / College of Education / University of Anbar. The participants were asked to recognize implicit negation and then to decide its type. Results indicate that the number of observations that were able to identify the presence of implicit negation reached (64 observations), representing a percentage of (51.2%) of the total sample surveyed. The arithmetic mean of the responses was (2.12), indicating that the target group was close to identifying the correct answer. The number of observations that were able to identify and determine the type of implicit negation reached (17), representing a percentage of (26%) of the total correct answers, which indicates that less than a quarter of the responses that indicated the presence of implicit negation were able to correctly identify the type of implicit negation. Consequently, while the participants were able to recognize the sense of implicit negation, they, however, were unaware of the type that generates the sense of implicit negation.