“Such comparison fails to …”: The neglected open-ended negatives in the literature review section of social science research articles

Abstract

Despite increased focus on negation in academic writing, studies mainly center on closed-class negatives (e.g., not, no, never). Nevertheless, negation can also be manifested through an open-ended array of forms (e.g., fail, lack, insufficient), which are acknowledged in natural language research yet often overlooked in academic discourse analysis. This study examines the frequency and communicative functions of open-ended negatives in contrast to closed negatives within the literature review section of 180 English research articles across six social science disciplines. Given the practical complexity of identifying open-ended negatives, the study retrieved and analyzed negation instances through a combination of a large language model and manual inspection. It was found that open-ended negatives display a higher occurrence than closed negatives. In comparison to closed negatives, open-ended negatives are utilized more frequently in performing both informational and affective communicative functions and provide more alternatives for adjusting the force of propositions. These results suggest that the hitherto neglected open-ended negatives are crucial linguistic resources in academic writing, affording writers great flexibility in selecting expressions of negation and establishing positions with modulated force.