When reviewers negate and authors navigate: Negation in peer review comments and author responses

This study explores how negation features in peer review discourse, examining patterns of its occurrence in the rhetorical exchanges between reviewers and authors. Drawing on a corpus of reviewer comments and corresponding author responses from 50 research articles published in the British Medical Journal, we adopt a discourse-informed approach that examines the co-textual environments in which negation appears, rather than attributing interpersonal functions to negation itself. We identify six rhetorical alignments (comparison, addition, refutation, hedging, boosting, and affect) based on how negation co-occurs with discourse features that organise information or express stance. Our findings reveal that while reviewers primarily use negation to deliver critical evaluation and assert authority, authors use it to defend research choices and manage disagreement through hedging and contrast. Exemplar exchanges illustrate how both parties negotiate critique while maintaining collegiality. The study contributes to English for Specific Purposes by addressing a practical need that novice researchers and postgraduate students often struggle to interpret reviewer feedback and write response letters. By examining the rhetorical deployment of negation, we offer insights into the interactional dimensions of peer review and provide pedagogical implications for teaching critique and rebuttal strategies in academic writing instruction.