Cambridge IGCSE First Language English

## Explicit and implicit meaning An **explicit meaning** is one the writer states outright, so you can point to the words that carry it. An **implicit meaning** is suggested without being stated, and the reader has to work it out from clues. The process of working it out is **inference**: a conclusion drawn from evidence in the text, not a guess and not something the text says in so many words. Here is a short passage written for practice. > The bus had been due at eight. By half past, Marta had read the timetable twice, checked her phone four times and begun to walk up and down the shelter, though it was only three paces long. The explicit meanings are that the bus was due at eight, that it is now half past, and that Marta has read the timetable twice and checked her phone four times. The implicit meaning is that she is anxious or impatient: nothing says so, but the repeated checking and the pacing in a shelter too small for it point that way. A good answer states the inference and then ties it to the evidence, because an inference with no clue behind it is only an opinion. Questions that ask what a writer suggests, implies or makes you feel about something are asking for implicit meaning. Questions that ask what happened, who did something or what a figure was are asking for explicit meaning, and the answer is usually found directly in the text. ### Inferring from word choice Often the clue is a single word. "Marta stormed to the front of the queue" and "Marta moved to…