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 the front of the queue" describe the same action, but the first tells you about her mood and the second does not. Looking for the word that carries the extra information is the quickest route to an implicit meaning.

Denotation and connotation

The denotation of a word is its literal, dictionary meaning. Its connotation is the idea or feeling it carries beyond that. "Cottage" and "shack" both name a small building, but "cottage" suggests warmth and a rural setting, while "shack" suggests poverty and neglect. "Slim", "skinny" and "scrawny" denote the same thing about a body and leave three different impressions of the person.

When a writer chooses between near-synonyms, the connotation is the reason. A newspaper that calls a crowd "protesters" and one that calls it "a mob" are making an argument before they have made one.

Tone, mood and attitude

Tone is the attitude a writer or speaker takes towards the subject, and it is heard in the choice of words, the length of sentences and what the writer stresses or leaves out. Mood (or atmosphere) is the feeling the text creates in the reader. They can differ: a writer can describe a grim event in a flat, matter-of-fact tone, and the mood for the reader is still unsettling.

Attitude is the writer's view of the subject, and a text can carry more than one. A writer can be fond of a place and disappointed by what has happened to it.

Words for tone need to be exact, so it helps to know a spread of them and what each one claims.

A tone is shown by the language, so naming one is never enough on its own. "The tone is cynical" needs a short quotation, and then a sentence on what in that wording makes it cynical.

Irony, sarcasm and understatement

Irony is a gap between what is said and what is meant, or between what is expected and what happens. A character who announces that the picnic will be perfect, a moment before the rain starts, is a case of situational irony. Sarcasm is a sharper, spoken form of verbal irony, used to wound or mock: "Well, that went brilliantly" after a disaster. Understatement makes something sound smaller than it is, and the reader supplies the difference: describing a flooded town as "a little damp" is understatement, and it is usually funny or grim.

Fact and opinion

A fact can be checked and shown to be true or false: a date, a measurement, an event, a quantity. An opinion is a belief or judgement, and reasonable people can disagree about it. "The town library closed in March" is a fact. "Closing the library was a disgrace" is an opinion.

Writers often blur the line, because an opinion that sounds like a fact is harder to argue with. Several habits do this.

• Stating a judgement with absolute language: "Everyone knows that the new road is useless."
• Dressing an opinion in a figure that has no source: "Most people agree that…"
• Putting an opinion in the middle of a run of facts, so it borrows their authority.
• Using a confident, flat sentence where "I think" would be honest.

A useful test is to ask whether the statement could be checked against a record, a measurement or a source. If the only possible check is asking people what they feel, it is an opinion, however firmly it is written.

Bias

Bias is a one-sided presentation that leaves out or plays down the other side. It is not the same as holding a view: a writer can argue strongly and still be fair. Bias is shown by what a text does with the evidence.

• Selection: only the facts that suit the argument appear, and awkward ones are left out.
• Loaded language: words chosen for their emotional charge rather than their accuracy ("slashed", "chaos", "so-called").
• Unfair treatment of opponents: their views are given in a weakened form, or attributed to people the reader will dislike.
• Generalisation: a few cases are made to stand for all.
• Emphasis: the point the writer wants is placed first or last, and the damaging detail is buried in the middle of a paragraph.

Recognising bias in a text is a reading skill and also a writing one. When a piece of writing has to respond to a source, noting that the source has left out a counter-argument, or relies on one vivid case, is analysis. It becomes evaluation when you say why that weakens the argument or where the omission matters.

Viewpoint, purpose and audience

Three questions can be asked of any text, and they give the context that explains the choices.

The viewpoint is whose eyes the text sees through and what that person believes. The purpose is what the text is trying to do: inform, persuade, entertain, warn, advise, describe. The audience is who the text is written for, which decides its register, its vocabulary and what it assumes the reader already knows. A charity appeal and a medical leaflet may cover the same illness, and nearly every choice in them will differ because the purpose and the audience differ.