Syntactic and Semantic Properties of on the Contrary in British University Student Essay Writing: A Corpus-Based Systemic Functional Analysis

Abstract

In contrast to previous descriptions of on the contrary (OTC) as a corrective or replacive marker requiring explicit negation, this study revealed that more than 50% of the occasions the expression was used in British tertiary level student essays, represented by British academic written English (BAWE) corpus, were not associated with a preceding negation. The frequency information provides a starting point for the qualitative analysis of the two functional types of OTC, i.e., adversative versus replacive. The notions of (topical) theme, rheme, and focus within systemic functional linguistics were proposed as descriptive frameworks to identify the distinct characteristics of each functional type. The replacive type typically employs a preceding negation and a topical theme equal to that of the clause complex preceding the conjunctive, whereas the adversative type is distinguished by the use of a different topical theme and a contrastive rheme. The analysis conducted in this study provided language teachers with a model for helping students comprehend logic semantics expressed by conjunctives by analyzing semantic features of connected clause complexes.

1. Introduction

Grammar studies usually prescribe explicit rules for the use of a particular grammatical item. The grammatical item under investigation here is on the contrary (hereafter OTC) which has been invariably described as a discourse marker of contrast or contradiction by grammar books and dictionaries [1,2]. The traditional descriptions further highlight the difference between OTC and in contrast (and its variants by comparison and by contrast) lies in the presence of negation in the context of the former. For instance, A Grammar of Contemporary English [1] describes OTC as an expression that entails ‘a denial of the validity of what preceded by emphasizing that the opposite is true’ (p. 553), while by comparison, by way of contrast and by contrast are used to ‘introduce a comparison or contrast without entailing a denial of the validity of what preceded’ (p. 554). Similarly, the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary [3], document the common mistake by learners in using OTC as such: ‘Use on the contrary to show that you think or feel the opposite of what has just been stated. If you are comparing two things and you want to say that the second thing is very different from the first, don’t say on the contrary, say by/in contrast’ (p. 304) [with emphasis added].

Research on contrastive discourse markers or conjunctive adjuncts specifies the functional role of OTC as that of correction or replacement [with emphasis added]. For instance, in their discussion of adversative relations as one type of conjunctive relations, Halliday and Hasan [4] identify the special sense of OTC as that of correction, which means ‘as against what has been said, one formulation is being rejected in favor of another’. In a later work, Halliday and Matthiessen [2] describe OTC as a conjunctive adjunct encoding the replacive subtype of extension, meaning ‘not X but Y’, which differs both from the adversative subtype of extension meaning ‘X, but conversely Y’ and from the concessive subtype of enhancement meaning ‘in spite of’ (p. 405). Rudolph [5] also refers to OTC as a marker of correction, emphasizing that negation is an integral part of OTC ‘only if S1 contains a negation, a continuation in S2 is introduced by OTC, acting as a marker of correction’ (p. 326). Similarly, Fraser [6] describes OTC as a contrastive discourse marker signaling corrective direct contrast between two sentences, where the first sentence constitutes the version of the action or state which is incorrect or inaccurate, in contrast with the second sentence which constitutes an action or state which is correct or accurate.

These previous accounts have contributed significantly to understanding OTC’s use as a contrastive discourse marker that occurs in the context of negative declarative statements, as opposed to the more general contrastive markers, such as but and however. However, little is known about the actual use of OTC in L1 or L2 student writing, and to what extent negation is employed in the replacive sense of the expression. Furthermore, still less is known about the syntactic and semantic features that determine the grammaticality of OTC in absence of negation in the preceding sentence. To fill these gaps, this study starts from a different perspective in terms of what the empirical data has to say about the use of OTC in the academic writing of British university-level students represented by British Academic Written English-Essays Corpus (hereafter BAWE-E) [7]. The reliance on the corpus data is central to the distinction between the functional types to be described in this paper. In accordance with Leech’s [8] inductive grammar approach, the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic parameters of OTC are identified. Based on careful analysis of the corpus concordance lines, the different functional types of OTC are accounted for by drawing on thematic analysis [2]. Thematic analysis is conducted to identify the textual function of OTC, i.e., how the topical theme and rheme of one clause complex containing OTC is linked to that of a preceding clause complex in a cohesive sequence (cf. Section 2). Specifically, this study is guided by the following research questions: (1) How is the conjunctive adjunct OTC used in the essay writing of British university students with respect to overall frequency and semantic types? (2) What syntactic and semantic features differentiate adversative OTC from the replacive type?

The rest of the paper is organized as follows: A brief description of the theoretical framework is provided in Section 2, followed by a discussion of the data and methods in Section 3. Section 4 provides quantitative evidence for two functional types of OTC, with a particular emphasis on the objectivity of the method used for obtaining the evidence. The next section discusses the features of replacive and adversative OTC as well as the interrelationships between syntactic positions and the functional distinctions between the two functional types. Section 6 concludes the paper with a summary of the major findings and pedagogical implications.

2. Descriptive Framework

The starting point of determining a proper descriptive framework is to clarify the unit of text to be included in the analysis of OTC. A label is assigned to each unit so that it can be referred to consistently in the analysis.

With respect to the unit to be included in the analysis, it is important to consider the function of OTC as a conjunctive adjunct. According to Halliday and Matthiessen [2], conjunctive adjuncts are textual in function. They state that “they [conjunctive Adjuncts] set up a contextualizing relationship with some other (typically preceding) portion of text … the conjunctive Adjuncts construct these relationships by cohesion—that is, without creating a structural link in the grammar between the two parts” (p. 132). Halliday and Matthiessen emphasize “their [conjunctive Adjuncts] contribution to cohesion is made by indicating logico-semantic relations that extend beyond the [grammatical] domain of a single clause complex” (p. 539). Following Halliday and Matthiessen’s [2] view on the function of conjunctive adjuncts to indicate textual transitions beyond the domain of a single clause complex see also [9], the analysis of OTC in the present study considers not only the clause complex in which it occurs, but also the preceding text consisting of one clause complex or more. In the descriptive framework, the former will be labeled as I and the latter as II.

Within the clause, the organization of each clause as message is considered and each clause is analyzed individually in terms of its component units. According to Halliday and Matthiessen [2], two related systems, the system of THEME and the system of INFORMATION manage the discourse flow below the clause complex. The THEME system, also referred to as thematic structure of a clause in Halliday and Matthiessen [2], is made up of theme and rheme. The theme is defined as “the element which serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context”, whereas rheme is “the remainder of the message, the part in which the Theme is developed” (p. 64). Therefore, the theme and rheme analysis aims to explore the textual meaning of OTC both within and beyond the clause complex. This is done by identifying how theme and rheme of the clause (clause complex) containing OTC are linked to theme and rheme of a preceding clause complex to mark a semantic relation of contrast.

The concept of focus, in information structure, is understood to be the focus within new information, the non-presupposed part of the clause complex or utterance. It is in this sense that focus complements the concept of theme, where the theme/focus dichotomy refers to the position and information status of discourse elements. In the analysis of the conjunctive adjunct OTC, the term focus is used to refer to a particular discourse element, either within the theme or rheme that is highlighted, foregrounded or simply given more prominence than other elements. A writer’s focus relates to how he modulates information relative to the reader—what he would like to draw the reader’s attention to in a particular context.

3. Data and Methods

The data is based on essays from British Academic Written English Corpus (BAWE-E), which consists of 3 million words from proficient L1 student essays for degree programs at UK tertiary institutions [7]. The original British Academic Written English Corpus (BAWE) serves as a record of proficient university-level student writing at the turn of the 21st century. Approximately 3000 well-quality student assignments (6,506,995 words) are distributed fairly evenly across four broad disciplinary areas (Arts and Humanities, Social Sciences, Life Sciences, and Physical Sciences) and across four levels of study (undergraduates and taught master’s).

The rationale for choosing this corpus is that the BAWE corpus portrayed an authentic representation of university-level student writing, i.e., their English language use in academic contexts. A further justification for using the BAWE essays corpus (hereafter BAWE-E) is that the original research by Zhang [10] used the BAWE-E as the reference corpus of Chinese Leaner English Corpus [11] to examine the use of a group of conjunctives of contrast and concession (e.g., but, although, however). An extension of Zhang [10], this study investigated the syntactic and semantic features of a particular conjunctive in depth. The selection of the same corpus for this study allowed the results to be compared fairly with those of other conjunctives of contrast and concession used in the writing of British students at the university level in Zhang [10].

In order to avoid subjective judgment as far as possible, it is essential to establish a procedure for accounting for the features of OTC used in the corpus. The analysis will be carried out both from a quantitative and a qualitative point of view. The procedures are presented as follows:

The first step in the quantitative analysis concerns the overall frequency of OTC established by using Wordsmith Tools 5.0 [12]. The second step is based on the frequency analysis of negation associated with OTC. Important quantitative findings which support a distinction between the two functional types of OTC emerge at this stage. In the final stage, following the descriptive framework established, a qualitative analysis of two functional types of OTC is carried out with examples from the corpus.

4. Results: Quantitative Evidence of Two Functional Types of OTC

Overall, the BAWE-E corpus yields 75 instances of OTC, with a relative frequency of 24 per million words, which is a sharp contrast to the frequency of however (1937.4 per million words). This result reflects that OTC is more restricted in meaning than other contrastive markers such as however, and hence the relatively low frequency [13].

The functional types of OTC (75 instances) can be distinguished in the first stage by following the principle of negation. As suggested in the introduction, at the basis of previous beliefs about OTC as a corrective/replacive discourse marker lies the concept of negation. Negation is referred to as negative polarity in Halliday and Matthiessen [2]. The various means to express negative polarity is summarized in “the system of polarity” in Halliday and Matthiessen [2]. The system distinguishes between generalized negative and special kind of negative. A generalized negative is realized by not or the contracted form n’t. A specialized negative is further distinguished according to the clause functions between those functioning as participation (participation includes both subject and object in traditional terms) such as none, no + N, neither (+N), no-one, nobody, nothing and those functioning as circumstantiation such as never, nowhere, seldom. The frequencies of different forms of negation co-occurring with OTC in two adjacent clause complexes are set out in

Table 1. Frequency of negative polarity associated with OTC in BAWE-E.

Negative Polarity	BAWE-E (3 Million)
	N
not	22
no + noun	4
neither (+noun)	1
nothing	1
n’t, none, nobody, nowhere, never, seldom	0
Total	28

.

As can be seen from Table 1, only 28 instances (from a total number of 75 instances) of OTC in the corpus are associated with a preceding negation, most of which are expressed primarily by the generalized type of negation not. By investigating these 28 instances of OTC, I find that there is a close connection between negative polarity and the function of the conjunctive to encode replacive relation, a finding that supports previous accounts of OTC [2,5]. An example is given below:

(1) Sex is not driven underground in modern civilization. On the contrary, it comes to be continually discussed and investigated. (BAWE-E)

The remaining 43 instances of OTC which are not associated with a preceding negation, are used to signal the adversative relation, meaning ‘X, but conversely Y’ based on Halliday and Matthiessen’s [2] classification. Therefore, a point revealed by the frequency analysis of negation in the corpus is that despite the previous common belief about OTC being a replacive marker, the conjunctive is more frequently used as a marker signaling the adversative sense in BAWE-E. The overview of the frequency of OTC in the corpus, with particular attention paid to the frequency of negation, forms the basis of the distinction between the two functional types to be discussed in detail in the next section.

5. Discussion

5.1. The Replacive vs. Adversative OTC

5.1.1. Replacive OTC

Much of the discussion in frequency analysis has focused on negation as a means of identifying OTC as a replacive marker, without going into detail of its functions. This section illustrates how negation, combined with other features within the framework of thematic analysis, makes it possible for OTC to function as a replacive marker.

Example (2) illustrates the replacive type of OTC.

(2) Unfortunate events in world politics should not result in merely a rejection of the possibility for democratic cooperation among states. On the contrary, these events should give us material for reflection on how world politics should be made more democratic. (BAWE-E)

Following the descriptive framework presented in Section 2, example (2) is analyzed below:

As can be seen from

Table 2. Thematic analysis of example (2).

I		II
Unfortunate events in world politics	should not result in merely a rejection of the possibility for democratic cooperation among states.	OTC,	these events	should give us material for reflection on [[how world politics should be made more democratic]].
Topical Theme	Rheme	Textual Theme	Topical Theme	Rheme
			Given	New

below, topical theme of II ‘these events’ refocuses for the reader the content of the preceding clause complex, i.e., ‘unfortunate events in world politics’. In this way, equivalence between the two topical themes is established. Because of the equivalence of topical themes, theme represents the given information and thus cannot convey any information of contrast. This is because contrast always involves contrary-to-expectation information that the writer intends to draw the reader’s attention to, as suggested by Halliday and Hasan [4].

On the other hand, the equivalence of topical themes suggests to the reader that rheme of II involves opposition with rheme I, since the use of OTC would otherwise be problematic. However, an interesting point revealed by an examination of the rhemes is that the rhemes of I and II are in opposition only in syntactic terms, i.e., a negative rheme as opposed to a positive rheme. Semantically, the rhemes are equivalent. Comparing the rhemes in example 2, it is clear that ‘should not result in merely a rejection of the possibility for democratic cooperation among states’ does not contradict ‘should give us material for reflection on how world politics should be made more democratic’. By using negation, the negative value of rheme of I (rejection of ‘democratic cooperation’) is reversed and is thus not in opposition with rheme of II (‘more democratic’).

In (2), the special sense of replacement signaled by OTC is created by the combination of the denial of the first clause complex plus the assertion of the second clause complex. The effect of negation, expressed explicitly by not in I, is decisive for conveying the opposition between rhemes of the two adjacent clause complexes. II, while still maintaining the same topical theme, does not contradict but further specifies what the topical theme is, which functions to intensify the degree of the negated value contained in the proposition. Looked upon from an interpersonal dimension, the contrast signaled by OTC indicates the writer’s preference towards the reader adopting his or her stance, in view of the background information presented in the negative form in I. The relation signaled by OTC is thus ‘internal’ as opposed to ‘external’ [4]. II, introduced by OTC, carries the focus of information. Therefore, given the common topical theme, the rheme of II represents the focus.

As opposed to the links established between the topical themes of I and II, their corresponding rhemes are in opposition. Again, as explained in the analysis of (2), the contrast should not be interpreted semantically. In this example, the negative value conveyed by ‘grabbing the floor and appearing rude’ in rheme of I is rejected with the explicit negation ‘not’, so that rheme of I does not contradict the positive value of rheme of II, i.e., to provide support and contribute to the construction of message. From a communicative point of view, rheme of II conveys the writer’s point of view about a common topical theme and is thus highlighted as focus.

To sum up, it has been shown that the replacive OTC requires negation expressed in the rheme of the preceding clause complex. The contrast is found between the positive and negative statements, identified as rhemes, which are usually concerned with one common topical theme. Structurally, explicit negation in the clause complex preceding OTC contrasts with the clause complex expressed in the positive form following the conjunctive. Semantically, affirmation of the positive (negative) value of the topical theme complements the rejection of the negative (positive) value. The information focus corresponds to the rheme of the clause complex containing OTC, which is also the source of contrast.

5.1.2. Adversative OTC

The earlier discussion of the replacive OTC has revealed negation to be an essential part of its replacive sense. In the absence of negation, however, other devices must be used to establish a contrast between the two clause complexes on either side of OTC. Instead of contrasting the negative and positive forms of the two rhemes of one common topical theme, the adversative sense holds when there is a clear opposition between two different topical themes as relevant alternatives explicitly mentioned and contrasted in the same stretch of discourse. Example (3) exemplifies the use of OTC to signal explicit contrast between two different topical themes.

(3) Primates such as red colobus monkeys and chimpanzees prefer old-growth forest areas and so are less able to adapt to habitat change and thus are more vulnerable to hunting (Struhsaker, 1997). On the contrary, the cercopithecines tend to be highly adaptable colonists, equipped to survive in a wide variety of habitats, and therefore often escape the limitations of living in a damaged habitat where hunting takes place. (BAWE-E)

It is obvious that OTC in (3) cannot be given a replacive interpretation due to the absence of explicit negation in the clause complex preceding the conjunctive. Instead, the semantic relation indicated by OTC depends on the contrast between different topical themes plus their respective rhemes. See

Table 3. Analysis of example (3) in terms of logico-semantic relations and thematic structure.

I	1			Primates such as red colobus monkeys and chimpanzees	prefer old-growth forest areas
	×2		and so		are less able to adapt to habitat change
	×3		and thus		are more vulnerable to hunting
			Textual Theme	Topical Theme	Rheme
II	1	α	OTC	the cercopithecines	tend to be highly adaptable colonists,
		= β			equipped to survive in a wide variety of habitats
	×2		and therefore		often escape the limitations of living in a damaged habitat [[where hunting takes place]].
			Textual Theme	Topical Theme	Rheme

below for the logico-semantic relations and thematic analysis of two adjacent clause complexes of example (3):

The annotation scheme is based on Halliday and Matthiessen [2]: I & II represent clause-complex; α represents main clause, β hypotactic clause; 1, 2 & 3 represent paratactic clauses; =, × represent extension and enhancement relation, respectively.

In I, three clauses, represented by 1, 2 and 3, are linked paratactically. The logico- semantic relation between the clauses is that of enhancing, signaled by the structural themes ‘and so’ and ‘and thus’. The linear sequence of the clause complex of II breaks down first at the point of the introduction of topical theme which forms a contrastive pair with topical theme of the preceding clause complex. The rhemes in II pick up the corresponding elements in I as the source of comparison and contrast. In this way, a two-fold contrast operates in the adversative context of OTC. The two-fold contrast provides two pairs of alternatives to be contrasted, i.e., topical themes and rhemes. Corresponding to the two-fold contrast, there is a divided focus on the topical theme and rhemes of the clause complex containing OTC.

As illustrated above, one formal restriction of the adversative OTC is that the clause complex introduced by this conjunctive adjunct must have a contrastive topical theme. The contrastive topical theme receives the focus of information, which is not presupposed or inferred from the preceding clause complex. In this respect, the adversative use of OTC is exceptional regarding the information structure. As stated by Chafe [14], in English the subjects of clauses usually express “given and activated information in terms of the views of both speaker (writer) and the hearer (reader)”. By contrast, the replacive use of OTC conforms to this general principle of information structure, since the topical theme is always required to be the same or anaphorically or by association related to the topical theme of the preceding clause complex. Therefore, in replacive context, the focus has to rely on the remainder of the clause complex, i.e., the rheme, whereas in the case of the adversative OTC, both the topical rheme and rheme carry the content of contrast and are thus the focus of information.

5.2. Further Evidence of the Functional Distinctions of OTC

This section investigates the syntactic positions of OTC and how they are interconnected with different functional types of the conjunctive.

5.2.1. Clause-Initial OTC

Conjunctive adjuncts, as suggested by Halliday and Matthiessen [2], are characteristically thematic, which typically operate in the clause as part of the theme. In the case of OTC, 50 out of 77 instances of the expression are found to occur in the initial position in BAWE-E. The common initial position can be understood as the best way to emphasize the contrast of the clause complex introduced by the conjunctive. This is because OTC in the initial position functions as the textual theme to signal to the reader the forthcoming contrast. However, as discussed in the previous sections, the contrast signaled by OTC can fall into two semantic categories, i.e., replacive and adversative. Replacive and adversative OTC in the initial position are exemplified by (4) and (5), respectively.

(4) As will be shown later in this essay, more recent critics of Dickens do not argue in favour of the association of London with prosperity. on the contrary, they underline the connection of the city with death or hell. (BAWE-E)

(5) Off-site pollen data is obtained from bogs and lakes at distance from archaeological sites, particularly at upland, northern, and western locations. on the contrary, on-site pollen data is obtained within archaeological soil contexts, although data has the difficulty in interpretation compared to off-site pollen data (Edwards 1998:69-88). (BAWE-E)

In (4), the clause-initial OTC functions to signal a contrast between the clause complex it introduces and the preceding clause complex. The topical theme in the second clause complex, i.e., ‘they’, by being a pronoun, refers back to the topical theme of the preceding clause complex, i.e., ‘more recent critics of Dickens’. It is thus obvious that the corresponding rhemes of the two clause complexes carry the content of the replacement, that is, what more recent critics of Dickens believe to be false about London is replaced by what they believe to be true about London. The focus of information is conveyed by the rheme of the second clause complex, i.e., ‘underline the connection of the city with death or hell’. In this manner, the contrast is established between the negative and positive aspects of the same topical theme. Overall, the second clause complex introduced by OTC intensifies a denial explicitly expressed by the negation ‘not’ in the preceding clause complex.

In contrast, unlike (4), the second clause complex in (5) does not involve a denial of the proposition made in the first clause complex. Instead, while still having OTC functioning as textual theme, the second clause complex focuses on a contrast effected by a different topical theme, i.e., ‘on-site pollen data’, which is not recoverable from any part of the preceding clause complex.

5.2.2. Non-Clause-Initial OTC

In addition to the predominant initial position discussed above, the corpus yields 27 instances of non-initial position OTC. Despite its low frequency (27 non-initial vs. 50 clause-initial), two major patterns of non-initial OTC can be distinguished. The most explicit and obvious pattern follows the sequence of “NP ^ OTC ^ VP”, in which NP corresponds to the subject or topical theme, whereas OTC and VP constitute the rheme of the clause complex. Overall, 9 instances of non-initial OTC are associated with this pattern.

One of the main functions of the post-subject OTC in this pattern is to highlight the preceding NP in initial position as the item that is being compared to an equivalent item in the preceding clause complex. However, since a conjunctive relation is most commonly expressed in the first part of the theme, as was evident from the textual > interpersonal > experiential order of thematic components [2], OTC in the post-subject position loses its thematic status, that is, it is no longer thematic.

The point to be made here is that unlike clause-initial OTC, which could be either adversative or replacive, post-subject OTC universally functions as a marker of adversative extension, which compares two different topical themes, the subjects in some aspect realized by their respective rhemes.

The function of contrastive topical themes stands out more strongly in post-subject OTC. The post-subject OTC functions to give special emphasis to the subject as a contrastive topical theme. For instance, in example (6) below, the post-subject OTC functions to foreground the subject, while the writer is making a comparison between two different topical themes.

(6) The seductive and sensual women in the Gothic are normally punished for their outward behavior, Rebecca, for instance, tortures Maxim with her love affairs and ends up dead. Gothic heroines, on the contrary, are virtuous even though they may even portray sexual anxieties. (BAWE-E)

As argued earlier that, in the absence of negation, a different topical theme must be overtly presented in the clause complex containing OTC. By inserting a post-subject OTC, the topical theme is highlighted. In (6), the foregrounded subject/topical theme ‘gothic heroines’ is explicitly contrasted with the previously mentioned subject/topical theme, i.e., ‘seductive and sensual woman in the Gothic’, which forms the first pair of contrast signaled by OTC. A secondary contrast between the rhemes is dependent not on the negative and positive syntactic forms within the structure of rhemes, but on the negative and positive values represented in the rhemes.

The other pattern of non-initial OTC, despite its low frequency in the corpus, is equally identifiable. As pointed out by Quirk et al. [1], a clause containing a conjunct may be linked to a preceding clause by one of the coordinators (e.g., and, or, but). The corpus data reflects this tendency by yielding three instances of conjunctive OTC preceded by the paratactic conjunction but. The three instances (from the total of 27 instances of non-initial position OTC) of ‘but + OTC’ are listed in the below:

(7) However, Calvinism does not lead to world rejection, but on the contrary to world mastery. (BAWE-E)

(8) Thus they argue that we are not at all closely related to Neanderthals, but that on the contrary by about 30,000 years BP an influx of anatomically modern H. sapiens into Europe had replaced the existing populations of Neanderthals. (BAWE-E)

(9) Human beings are not naturally anti-social as Hobbes described, ‘men have no pleasure, (but on the contrary a great deal of grief) in keeping company.’ (BAWE-E)

As these examples demonstrate, OTC in this pattern differs from its use in sentence-initial or post-subject position in at least two ways. First, it is clear that while preceded by but, its cohesive function is replaced by the preceding but to conjoin two elements structurally in the correlative form of not … but. Negation, being one of the most important defining features of correction, is made explicit with not and no, respectively, in the above examples. The elements conjoined in (7), (8) and (9) are prepositional phrases, that-clause and noun phrase respectively, which are all clause elements. Secondly, in terms of the semantic relation, in the case of but OTC, OTC is used to reinforce the replacive meaning initially and primarily conveyed by but.

6. Conclusions

This paper has adopted inductive grammar approach to investigate the syntactic, semantic parameters of OTC in L1 student essay writing. With corpus-based techniques, the frequency of OTC associated with negation in a preceding clause-complex was identified, which serves the basis of the distinction between the two functional types reported in this study. It has been shown that more than 50% of the instances of OTC in the corpus are not associated with a preceding negation. This seems contradictory to the descriptions of the expression found in most dictionaries and studies on adversative discourse markers which either explicitly or implicitly indicate the principle of negation. However, instead of simply reporting these instances as errors, the analysis in this study argues for an adversative use of OTC which represents the dominant usage of this expression in the corpus. This suggests that L1 corpora could serve as an alternative resource that provides L2 learners with better direct information than dictionaries which tend to provide strict rules and assumptions about the context of use of a specific word. Indeed, the technique of using L1 corpora in developing learning materials in L2 contexts has been advocated by many researchers [15,16].

The attributes of topical themes and rhemes of clause-complexes connected in the conjunctive relation were analyzed in order to interpret the semantic features of adversative and replacive OTC. Equivalence of topical themes of clause-complexes connected, in conjunction with negation serves the distinctive feature of replacive OTC, while the adversative type is characterized by different topical themes as the first pair of contrast and different rhemes as the second pair of contrast. In addition, unlike the replacive OTC with one single focus, the adversative OTC is associated with two-fold contrast and hence a divided focus. It is important to note that although in previous studies the theme–rheme structure of clause has been applied to investigate the information flow of text in the academic genre to provide guidance to L2 novice writers [17,18,19], it has rarely been used as a descriptive framework in analyzing linking adverbials. The thematic analysis conducted in this study provided not only a descriptive framework for characterizing the distinctive features of two types of OTC, but also a means of highlighting the textual function of the conjunct. The thematic analysis that characterizes different semantic restrictions of two types of OTC is further supported by the syntactic analysis of the conjunct. While clause-initial OTC can be used to encode either an adversative or a replacive relation, instances of post-subject non-clause-initial OTC are deployed to encode an adversative relation, in which different topical themes are highlighted in initial positions of their respective clause.

Pedagogically, the findings would suggest the adoption of an approach which highlights the syntactic and semantic features of conjunctive adjuncts such as OTC, rather than presenting them as defined by grammar books. The findings of the present study are especially relevant to EFL learners who wish to acquire native-style writing.

Despite the in-depth analysis conducted in this study, some limitations of the study should also be mentioned. First, the number of instances of OTC in the corpus examined is relatively small. The limited use is mainly due to writers’ preference for other more general markers of contrast, such as, but, and however [10,20]. In future studies, it would be more desirable to examine the association of OTC and negation in different corpora to test whether the patterns identified in this study can be generalized to other groups of L1 writers. Another limitation has to do with the identification of negation which is mainly based on a query of 10 grammatical words, such as not. The relatively small number of instances of OTC also allows manual identification of negation. This limitation of the study calls for further empirical investigation to support the argument of the study.