Doppelte Negation im wissenschaftlichen Schreiben und Sprechen: Plädoyer für ein nicht unnützes Stilmittel

German guidelines to scientific writing often point out that double negations should be avoided. The affirmative use of a double negation is considered by many a superfluous and marginal phenomenon. And yet the use of a double negation is a linguistic device that allows certain nuances of content that could be useful even in scientific writing. If, for example, one wishes to keep a certain distance from the truth content of a statement, its use may well prove to be appropriate. The opinion of many linguists converges on the fact that the structure NEG + NEG_ADJ forms a less strong adjective than its counterpart. An adjective with a negating affix represents the opposite of the original lexeme, but still cannot be considered a mirror image of its counterpart. Since negated expressions are always marked and more limited in their use than non-negated expressions, this paper aims at a corpus-based analysis of the effective use and potential applications of double negation in scientific written and oral texts.