摘要

否定是最常见的语言现象之一，其在日常语言交际中占有十分重要的位置。英语中表达否定概念的方式既多样又复杂，并且不同形式的否定表达在具体会话中有不同的语用价值。本文将对英语否定的一般形式进行归纳分析，并以西方语言哲学家Grice的会话原则和Leech的礼貌原则为基础，分析几种不同形式的否定表达在语境中的语用功能，进而加深对英语否定表达的认知与理解。

关键词：否定; 否定句; 语用原则; 语用价值

Abstract
 
Negation, one of the most common linguistic phenomena in languages, occupies an important position in daily linguistic communication. The forms of English negation are complex and diverse, and different forms of negation have different pragmatic value in conversation. To start with, this paper analyzes and sums up the general forms of English negation. Then, based on Grice’s Cooperative Principle and Leech’s Politeness Principle, this paper makes an analysis of the pragmatic function of different types of negation in some situation, by means of which the author hopes to help us deepen our understanding of English negation.

Key words: negation; negative sentence; pragmatic principle; pragmatic value

1.    Introduction

As a significant linguistic phenomenon, negation plays a very important role in sentence processing in language and everyday social interactions. In the west, the first man who made an important contribution to the research of negation was Aristotle, a Greek philosopher, who distinguished contradictory negation from contrary negation. After him, a lot of foreign scholars such as Jespersen and Quirk have carried out studies of negation from their points of view, Moreover, in recent years, many Chinese scholars have done some researches on it from aspects of the pragmatic significance of negation, forms of negation and difference between Chinese and English negation in translation.
People use negation to refuse others, contradict other people, lie and distinguish truth from falsity. However, different countries have different ways to express negation. On the one hand, compared to Chinese negation, English negation is more complicated and multiform. Jespersen divides negation into general negation and special negation, while in special negation there are several forms, like double negation, transferred negation, partial negation and so on.