and but or as cohesive devices in english written discouse - a contrastive analysis with vietnamese equivalents and implications for teaching writing skill at utehy

NGUYỄN THỊ NĂM AND/BUT/OR AS COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH WRITTEN DISCOURSE - A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS WITH VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING SKILL AT UTEHY A

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

o0o

NGUYỄN THỊ NĂM

AND/BUT/OR AS COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH

WRITTEN DISCOURSE - A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

WITH VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING SKILL AT UTEHY

(And/But/Or như các phương tiện liên kết trong văn bản tiếng Anh – Phân tích đối chiếu với các yếu tố tương đương

trong tiếng Việt và ứng dụng trong việc dạy kỹ năng viết

tại trường Đại học Sư phạm Kỹ thuật Hưng Yên)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2010

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

o0o

NGUYỄN THỊ NĂM

AND/BUT/OR AS COHESIVE DEVICES IN ENGLISH

WRITTEN DISCOURSE - A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS

WITH VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS AND IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING WRITING SKILL AT UTEHY

(And/But/Or như các phương tiện liên kết trong văn bản tiếng Anh – Phân tích đối chiếu với các yếu tố tương đương

trong tiếng Việt và ứng dụng trong việc dạy kỹ năng viết

tại trường Đại học Sư phạm Kỹ thuật Hưng Yên)

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ

Hanoi, 2010

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Declaration i

Acknowledgments ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of tables vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study 1

2 Objectives of the study 3

3 Methods of the study 3

4 Scope of the study 4

5 Significance of the study 4

6 Organization of the study 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature Review 6

1.1 Discourse 6

1.1.1 Discourse and Text 6

1.1.2 Spoken and Written Discourse 8

1.2 Cohesion 9

1.2.1 The Concept of Cohesion 9

1.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence in Discourse 10

1.2.3 Cohesion and Discourse Structure 10

1.2.4 Cohesive Devices 10

1.3 Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices 12

Chapter 2: AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices in English written discourse 13

2.1 AND 15

2.2 BUT 19

2.3 OR 20

Chapter 3: AND/BUT/OR in English written discourse in a contrastive analysis

with Vietnamese equivalents 24

3.1 AND vs VÀ 24

3.2 BUT vs NHƢNG 27

3.3 OR vs HAY/HOẶC 29

Chapter 4: Implications for teaching writing skill at UTEHY 31

4.1 Suggestions for teaching and materials 32

4.2 Suggested types of exercises 33

PART C: CONCLUSIONS 1 The achievement of the objectives of the study 36

2 The effectiveness of the methods used 37

3 Limitations of the study 37

4 Suggestions for further study 38

REFERENCES 39

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: The Frequency of The Implications of AND

Table 2: The Frequency of The Implications of BUT

Table 3: The Frequency of The Implications of OR

Table 4: The Frequency of The Implications of AND/BUT/OR

Table 5: Vietnamese equivalents to AND denoting the examined implications Table 6: Vietnamese equivalents to BUT denoting the examined implications Table 7: Vietnamese equivalents to OR denoting the examined implications

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

No one denies the importance of the English language in the present time as a global language because it has become more dominant around the world than any other languages It is used as an official language in more than 44 countries and has played an important role in dealing with international relations especially in such fields as science and technology, business, commerce and diplomacy These reasons motivate people all over the world to learn English as a foreign language

However, learning any foreign languages in general and English in particular is not easy It is a lengthy and effortful process to master English as a native speaker because

of a variety of factors Linguistic knowledge of English accounts for learners‟ ability to combine phonemes into morphemes, morphemes into words, and words into sentences That means, when people speak or write they have to convey a certain message by organizing their thoughts and ideas into strings of words to produce sentences, and then combine sentences together to create higher units of discourse But how to combine sentences to each other and to the rest of the context has been a big question for linguists Communication is possible only when sentences which create discourse hang together so that discourse has its unity and the product of our creation would make sense In other words, knowledge of cohesion and coherence is essential in discourse construction and necessary for successful communication In discourse, cohesion has an interrelation with coherence; the former is a guide to and part of the latter in both spoken and written language Awareness of coherence as a quality that makes a text conform to a consistent world picture, to experiences, culture, and convention and cohesive devices as the linguistic means by which elements of a text are arranged and connected is vital for learners of English

Up to now, there have been many studies by various linguists on this aspect Each discusses the issue from different angles Thus, they give out different ways of classifying and naming cohesion In English, Quirk (1972) primarily covers three main factors of sentence connection The first is the implication in the semantic content A reader normally

assumes that there is a relationship between sentences The second is lexical equivalence which means successive sentences are connected to some extent through their vocabulary

or the equivalence in the lexical items or repetition of phrase The third is syntactic devices which are grouped under following entries: time and place relaters, logical relaters, substitution, discourse reference, comparison, ellipsis and structural parallelism

In 1976, with the book Cohesion in English, Halliday and Hasan say that the

concept of cohesion accounts for the essential semantic relations whereby any passage of speech or writing is enabled to function as text They discuss the cohesive relationships under five main headings: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion And the most apparent type of explicitly marked cohesive relationships existing between one sentence or clause and another in discourse is indicated by conjunctions Unlike Quirk (1972), they treat time and place relaters, logical connectors, discourse reference, comparison as reference items

Guy Cook (1989) on the other hand, includes also verb forms, parallelism, repetition and lexical chain as cohesive devices – formal links within the sentence or across the sentence boundaries What is more, Brown and Yule (1983) go into the study of how to interpret a text basing on cohesive devices especially reference in text They emphasize on types of reference They include endophora (anaphora and cataphora) and exphora The former means reference which can be interpreted depending on the context of the text itself The latter means reference which can be interpreted relying on textual context but on situation (the factor lies outside language elements) Winifred Crombie‟s investigation (1985), however, is fully concentrated on semantic relations in discourse and the study of which, for Crombie, involves the study of discourse values

In Vietnamese, Tran Ngoc Them (1985) has written an insightful book about cohesion He discusses ten cohesive devices namely repetition, antithesis, synonymic substitution, association, linearity, pronoun substitution, weak ellipsis, loose conjunction, strong ellipsis and tight conjunction Diep Quang Ban (2004), however, states that reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion are five major cohesive devices

Based on the knowledge, many MA theses about cohesive devices were also conducted Most of them made an analysis of cohesive devices in certain types of

discourse such as information and communication technology advertisements, letters of enquiry, job application letters and business contract discourse

Although a number of theses on cohesive devices in different types of discourse were conducted, they didn‟t focus on any single word as a cohesive device in order to have

a deeper analysis That has given the author of this study the idea to examine the uses of conjunctions as cohesive devices in English written discourse And the three conjunctions AND/BUT/OR are chosen as they are the most central coordinators

2 Objectives of the study

With the above mentioned background, this study is targeted at

- Giving a systematic presentation of the uses of the three central coordinators AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices and their frequency of occurrence in English written discourse

- Making contrastive analysis of AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices and their equivalent realizations in Vietnamese

- Putting forward some suggestions as effort to help English-major students at HYUTE to overcome the consequences of interference when learning writing skill

In order to achieve the objectives stated, the study is meant to find out the answer

to the following research questions:

1 How are the three coordinators AND/BUT/OR used as cohesive devices in English written discourse?

2 Are VÀ/NHƢNG/HAY-HOẶC in Vietnamese the only equivalents of AND/BUT/OR in English as cohesive devices?

3 Methods of the study

This study of AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices in English written discourse is based on the communicative view-point of language teaching and learning Therefore, the methods of descriptive and comparative analysis are used The study is presented in order from general theories to detailed descriptions, with theories presented first, then examples given to clarify the theories

For the data, I have chosen at random the samples from several written discourse types such as novels, short stories, magazines and newspapers The data are also selected from many different grammar books Firstly, the data are analyzed to identify discourse devices, their frequency of occurrence in English Then the contrastive analysis between AND/BUT/OR in English and their realizations in Vietnamese are made All of this will lead to the point of finding effective solutions to improve writing skill of students at Hung Yen University of Technology and Education (UTEHY)

4 Scope of the study

The scope of this study, however, allows a very limited choice of one aspect of discourse analysis, that is, cohesion in English Within a limited time and knowledge as well as shortage of reference materials, it is not the author‟s ambition to investigate various types of cohesive devices but discuss only the three conjunctions AND/BUT/OR – their performance as means of cohesion and their frequency of concurrence in English and in Vietnamese AND/BUT/OR will be discussed as cohesive devices within the sentence, in other words, between clauses in a sentence

In the last part, implications, this study is limited to the first-year English-major students at Department of English, UTEHY and writing skill only

5 Significances of the study

Theoretical significance: This study contributes to verifying significance related to

linguistic theories in discourse analysis by providing learners of English with some theoretical base and fundamental background for clarifying the relationships that are linguistically encoded by virtue of conjunctions in general and AND/BUT/OR in particular

Practical significance: This study helps learners of English be more aware of the

role of AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices in creating discourse Thus, the study may help learners to avoid errors easily made by the negative interference of most non-native speakers Furthermore, this study can make a certain contribution to teaching and learning English as a foreign language owing to some suggested exercises in the last part

6 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three parts

The first part is the introduction, including rationale, objectives, methods, scope, significances and organization of the study

The second part is the development, including four chapters

Chapter 1: A presentation of some theoretical preliminaries needed for the study of

coordinators AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices in English written discourse Within the chapter, discourse will be studied to highlight the function of conjunctions in creating discourse There is a better focus on conjunctions and cohesive devices

Chapter 2: A detailed description of the three coordinators AND/BUT/OR as

cohesive devices

Chapter 3: A comparative analysis between the coordinators AND/BUT/OR and

Vietnamese equivalents in which Vietnamese is regarded as the compared language with English – the target one The purpose of the comparison is to identify the Vietnamese linking system equivalent to the implications by AND/BUT/OR

Chapter 4: Some implications for teaching writing skill at UTEHY

The final part is the conclusion This is to summarize the thesis by showing the achievement of the objectives of the study and the effectiveness of the methods used Then the limitations of the study are given Some suggestions for further study are also included

at the end to promise the continuance of the author‟s future work

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PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Discourse

1.1.1 Discourse and Text

In the history of linguistics, many different definitions of discourse and text are

given by different linguists Let us, first of all, look at the following definitions of discourse which take our greatest attention

Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics (1989) defines: “Discourse is a general term for examples of language use; i.e language has been produced as the result of an act of communication.”

Widdowson (1979) states: “Discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger communication units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the pieces of language as a whole as a kind of communication.”

Crystal (1992) says: “Discourse is a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as sermon, argument, joke or a narrative.”

Guy Cook (1989) classifies language into two different types as potential objects of study: one abstracted in order to teach a language or literacy or to study how the rules of language work; and another which has been used to communicate something and is felt to

be coherent This latter kind of language – language in use for communication is called discourse It is defined as “a stretch of language perceived to be meaningful, unified and purposive.”

Nunan (1993) defines: “Discourse can be defined as a stretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related in some way And the sentences are related not only in terms of the ideas they share but also in terms of the jobs they perform within the discourse, that is, in terms of their functions.”

From these extracts it can be seen that the term discourse is understood and defined

differently Each definition has its own values in the field of linguistics However, for the purpose of this study, I would like to pay more attention to the following definition given

by Halliday and Hasan (1989) They give a simple definition: “We can define text (discourse) in the simplest way perhaps by saying that it is language that is functional.”

Above are some definitions of discourse What about text? Is text the same or different from discourse? This has become a big question for many linguists since

confusion of these two terms may result in the failures of discourse analysis In fact, there

is disagreement about the meaning of these two terms

For some linguists, discourse is considered to differ from text and should be kept

separate Crystal (1992) stated that text should be used for writing and discourse for speech Cook (1989) considered text is a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context whereas discourse is a stretch of language in use, perceived to be meaningful,

unified and purposive

For other linguists, text and discourse refer to one and the same subject and may be

used interchangeably According to the above mentioned definition of discourse by

Halliday & Hasan, text is used to refer to discourse; they see text as a “semantic unit”

characterized by cohesion Halliday & Hasan (1976) stated: “A text is a passage of discourse which coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself and therefore cohesive” Brown & Yule (1983) argue that “text is the representative of

discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act” Nunan (1976) used the term text

to refer to any written record of communicative event The event itself may involve oral

language or written language He reserved the term discourse to refer to the interpretation

of the communicative event in context

To sum up, it seems to be difficult to make a clear distinction between these two

terms Whether discourse and text refer to the same thing or not is still a controversial

issue And, of course, it is not our intention to do this in this study In other words, in this

study, the term discourse will be used with the same meaning as text, and the data are

collected in such a way as to contain only the language in communication

As far as the scope of discourse is concerned, discourse refers not only to spoken interactions but also to written words And the study of discourse, either spoken or written

is known as discourse analysis In other words, the term Discourse Analysis is used to

cover the study of spoken and written interaction Discourse analysts study language in use: written text of all kinds, and spoken data from conversation to highly institutionalized forms of talk Thus, for the purpose of this study, it is necessary to point out the differences between spoken and written discourse in the following part

1.1.2 Spoken and Written Discourse

Spoken and written discourses represent different modes for expressing linguistic meanings Examples of spoken discourse are conversations, interviews, lectures…whereas letters, stories, novels…are written discourse Despite some similarities, these two forms of discourse are basically different from each other The major difference between them is rooted from the difference between spoken and written language

Apart from obvious differences between speaking and writing like the fact that writing includes some medium which keeps record of the conveyed message while speaking involves only air, there are certain dissimilarities that are less apparent

The first is lexical density – the density with which the information is presented Written language has more lexical or content words per clause, thus it is dense whereas spoken language is sparse In other words, written language is more densely packed with information than spoken language

The second feature is complexity of grammar which is typical of spoken language

In spoken language we can not see clearly sentence or paragraph boundaries and the sentences are less structured There are many incomplete sentences with little subordination Meanwhile written language complies of complete sentences with subordination, rich lexis and frequent modifications via adjectives and adverbs They tend

to be extremely simple in their grammatical structure)

The last feature is situation With written language the situation has to be inferred from the text as there is no common situation, as there is in face-to-face interaction In addition, the words themselves must carry all of the shades of meaning which in face-to-face interaction can be conveyed by non-verbal behavior Then again, there is no opportunity for the readers to signal that they do not understand The writer must make assumptions about the readers‟ state of knowledge

Naturally, this division into two ways of producing discourse is quite straightforward but we can not say that this language is better than the other However, it is

a fact that written language gives us a more understanding of the systematic feature of language Therefore, written discourse often has a neat message organization, division of paragraphs, good layout and the writer is frequently able to consider the content of his work for almost unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent, having complex syntax Written discourse is more specific, more exact and more coherent than spoken discourse These are the reasons why this study focuses on written discourse only

When talking about discourse we can not leave behind one of its very key technical terms, that is cohesion which will be discussed in the next part

1.2 Cohesion

1.2.1 The Concept of Cohesion

When speaking or writing we often want to make some links with other things that

we are saying or writing There are several ways of doing this and they provide cohesion in

the use of language So what is cohesion?

Actually, the term text in Indo-European languages derived from the Latin word exium meaning cohesion, so the concept of cohesion is closely connected with text

According to Halliday and Hasan (1979), “The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.” They also point out that cohesion often occurs where the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another

From the above definitions, it can be concluded that cohesion is a term used to mention the formal link that glues a chain of sentences to create what is called discourse or text It refers to the connection of all parts or elements of a text Without it, a text would be just a chaotic and even meaningless collection of sentences In other words, cohesion refers

to the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically coherent; or as Nguyen Hoa (2000) indicated “cohesion refers to the formal relationship that causes texts to cohere and stick together” Therefore, it is necessary to examine how ideas cohere together so that the content cohesion may be obtained and all can create a coherent and cohesive discourse So

in the next part the question “What is meant by cohesion and coherence?” will be discussed

1.2.2 Cohesion and Coherence in Discourse

The distinction between cohesion and coherence has not always been clarified partly because both terms come from the same verb cohere which means sticking together

Cohesion involves the form of language rather than the content or context, and is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary Coherence, on the other hand, is understood as the quality of being meaningful and unified As for Nunan (1993), coherence is “the feeling that sequences of sentences or utterances seem to hang together.” Coherence refers to the type of semantic and rhetorical relationship that underlines texts Cohesion, therefore, is understood as a guide to coherence

In short, cohesion and coherence are two facets of discourse closely related to each other, making each depend on the existence of the other Coherence is embodied by a system of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to ensure coherence According to Nunan, “Coherent texts – that is, sequences of sentences or utterances which seem to „hang over‟ – contain what are called text-forming devices”

1.2.3 Cohesion and Discourse Structure

According to Halliday and Hasan (1979) “Discourse structure is, as the name implies, a type of structure; the term is used to refer to the structure of some postulated unit higher than the sentence, for example the paragraph, or some larger entity such as episode

or topic units.”

Within the sentence, we can specify a limited number of possible structures, such

as types of modification, transitivity or model structures However, we can not in the same way list a set of possible structures for a text, with sentence classes to fill the structural roles Instead, the two authors assure: “We have to show how sentences, which are structurally independent of one another, may be linked together through particular features

of their interpretations; and it is for this that the concept of cohesion is required.”

1.2.4 Cohesive Devices

It is viewed by Halliday and Hasan (1979) that “A text has textual and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a text.” And the primary determinant that create textual is cohesive relations within and between sentences They attracts less notice within

a sentence, because of the cohesive strength of grammatical structure; since the sentence hangs together already, the cohesion is not needed in order to make it hang together However, there is a sense in which the sentence is a significant unit for cohesion precisely because it is the highest unit of grammatical structure: it tends to determine the way in which cohesion is expressed And the cohesive relations are there all the same

Cohesive relations can be established within a text provide cohesive ties to bind a

text together In their book Halliday and Hasan (1979) give a very comprehensive description and analysis of these devices According to them, cohesion is partly expressed

by grammar and partly by vocabulary They also identify five different types of cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion Therefore, we can refer them to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:

Cohesive devices not only function as formal links but also indicate different sorts

of relationships existing in any segment of discourse Within the scope of this study, the next part will give a close look into the matter of conjunction as a cohesive device in discourse

1.3 Conjunctions as Cohesive Devices

As a matter of fact, English conjunctions play a dominant role in creating a system

of grammatical sentences of English Thus, it is doubtless that a large number of celebrated grammarians in the world pay much attention to English conjunctions Given such that considerable importance, I have endeavored to get informed by as many valuable documents as possible

Cook (1989) defines conjunctions as grammatical items: “Conjunctions are words and phrases which explicitly draw attention to the type of the relationship which exists between one sentence or clause and another” Those words may simply add more information to what has already been said (and, further more, add to that) or elaborate or exemplify it (for instance, thus, in other words) They may contrast new information with old information, or put another side to the argument (or, on the other hand, however) They may relate new information to what has already been given in terms of causes (so, because, consequently, for this reason) or in time (formally, then, in the end, next) or they may indicate a new departure or a summary (by the way, well, to sump up, anyway)

Halliday and Hasan (1979) as well as Nunan (1993) view conjunction as a cohesive relation They agree that conjunction is rather different in nature from the other cohesive relations such as reference, substitution and ellipsis… It is not a device for reminding the reader of previously mentioned entities, actions and states of affairs In other words, it is not simply an anaphoric relation However, it is a cohesive device because it signals the relationships that can be fully understood through reference to other parts of the text

According to them, there are four different types of conjunction: temporality, causality, addition and adversity:

 Temporality: then, after that, finally, at last…

 Causality: so, consequently, for this reason…

 Addition: and, or, furthermore, similarly, in addition, moreover…

 Adversity: but, however, on the other hand…

According to Quirk and Greenbaun (1973), sorts of English conjunctions include: coordinating conjunctions (or more simply coordinators) and subordinating conjunctions (subordinators) and correlatives

Michael Swan (1995), however, denotes the English conjunction in brief He only deals with coordinating conjunctions and / but / or and subordinating conjunctions because / when / that / which

Although these linguists have different definitions and classifications of conjunctions, they share the same idea that conjunctions are words that join different words, phrases and clauses together These cohesive ties are really important as they turn separate clauses, sentences and paragraphs into units of connected discourse which refers back and forth to each other Language learners need to know both how and when to use them Their presence or absence in discourse often contributes to style, and some conjunctions can sound very pompous when used inappropriately

Summary:

This chapter has been concerned with some of the most important issues of discourse and cohesion As you can see, the term discourse is understood differently by different linguists Some identify discourse with text, while others consider discourse and text as two different entities Having adopted the definition of discourse by Halliday and Hasan, this study treats discourse and text as being two notions referring to one and the same thing; that means they can be used interchangeably And written discourse – the focus of this study, is more specific, more exact and more coherent than spoken discourse

In addition, it can be denied that cohesion and coherence have a close relationship with each other Cohesion is mainly used to create coherence by a set of cohesive devices

This chapter concludes by presenting the use of conjunctions as cohesive devices

At this point we finish Chapter 1 and turn to Chapter 2, where we will look at the use of AND/BUT/OR as cohesive devices in English written discourse and the cohesive relations they make within a sentence

CHAPTER 2 AND/BUT/OR AS COHESIVE DEVICES

IN ENGLISH WRITTEN DISCOURSE

According to Quirk‟s point of view (1972) explicit indicators of coordination are termed as coordinating conjunctions And a coordinator is organized at the process of conjoining units which are equal status In other words, coordination involves the linking

of units which are constituents of the same levels These units can be single words, phrases

or clauses The examples are as follows:

My husband and I are going to travel around the world

The box was long but narrow

(Single words coordinated)

He had breakfast and got out of the house quickly

You can sleep in the sofa or in my room

(Phrases coordinated)

She was very tired, but she stayed the whole evening

He has long hair, and he wears jeans

(Clauses coordinated)

In this study, the three coordinators AND/BUT/OR are observed in the way they join two clauses to form a compound sentence In other words, only clausal coordinators are examined

As mentioned above, AND/BUT/OR are the most central coordinators which can join two equal clauses In addition, according to Quirk and Greenbaun (1973), they are restricted to initial position in the clause as in:

Mary plays table tennis, and her sister plays badminton

Thus, clauses beginning with a coordinator cannot be moved in front of the preceding clause without producing unacceptable sentences or at least changing the relationship of clauses It is impossible to say:

And her sister plays badminton, Mary plays table tennis

AND/BUT/OR also do not allow another conjunction to precede them but they can precede other conjunctions and subordinators as illustrated in the following examples:

He was unhappy about it, and yet he did what he was told

He asked to be transferred because he was unhappy and because he saw no

prospect of promotion

What‟s more, when joining two clauses AND/BUT/OR allow ellipsis of the subject

if the subject is co-referential with that of the preceding linked clause:

I may see you tomorrow, or (I) may phone later in the day

Another feature is that AND and OR can link subordinate clause:

I wonder whether you should speak to him personally about the matter or whether

it is better to him

BUT, however, is restricted to linking a maximum of two clauses, and can link only certain types of subordinate clause

He said that John would take them by car but that might be late

Last but not least, unlike BUT, coordinators AND and OR can link more than two clauses, and the final instance of these two conjunctions can be omitted:

John might take them by car, or Mary might go with them by bus, or I might order

a taxi for them

Above are some syntactic features of coordinators AND/BUT/OR introduced by Quirk and Greenbaun (1973) This gives us the background knowledge to examine their semantic implications which will be discusses in the next part The semantic implication of these three coordinators will be presented based on the viewpoint of Quirk and

Greenbaums in their book A University Grammar of English However, to avoid repetition,

in this section, we:

- Firstly, try to analyze the semantic implications of each coordinator to work out the cohesive effects it makes between clauses in a sentence

- Secondly, seek whether there will be other implications that have not been mentioned

- Finally, analyze 100 samples of each coordinator taken at random from some written discourse to put the semantic implications in the order of their frequency of occurrence

2.1 AND

Basing on Quirk‟s view point, AND denotes the relationship between the contents

of the clauses, and the relationship between two clauses is explicated by adding an adverbial, which is inserted in parenthesis (wherever possible) Within the scope of the study, the type of implication with sentences consisting just two clauses is illustrated

Here, eight separate cases of semantic implication of AND are shown as follows: Firstly, AND is used to denote that the event in the second clause is a consequence

or result of the event in the first

He heard an explosion and he (therefore) phoned the police

The consequent clause “he phone the police” is resulted from the causal clause “he heard an explosion” Therefore, it is impossible to transfer the order of the clause without

changing the meaning of the sentence:

He phoned the police and he heard an explosion

There is no existence of a cause-effect relationship in the renewed sentence

Let‟s look at another example:

Willie heard the weather report and promptly board up this house

In this sentence, it is also impossible to transfer the order of the clause without

interfering its meaning With this implication, AND is either “and as a result” or “and therefore”

Secondly, AND is used to suggest that one event is chronologically sequential to another, but it is not the implication of cause-effect relationship

She washed the dishes and (then) she dried them

In the sentence above, there is no implication of cause-effect relationship The

writer only wants to emphasize the order of the action or the process of the action (“drying the dishes” comes after “washing them”)

It should be noted that there is no implication of chronological sequence if the clause is given in a contrast sequence to that of chronological sequence

Tashonda sent in her applications and waited by the phone for a response

I was led up to Mrs Strickland, and for ten minutes we talked together (Maugham,

1919)

He followed me, and entered the apartment on my heels ((Maugham, 1919)

The implication is perceived mainly depending on the order in which the two clauses are taken to be conjoined This order cannot be reversed in any case In this case

AND can be understood as “and then”

Thirdly, AND suggests that one idea is in contrast to another AND could be replaced by BUT when this implication is presented

Robert is secretive and (in contrast) David is candid

This sentence can be paraphrased by using BUT instead of AND

Robert is secretive but David is candid

Thus, we can say “contrast” is one implication which can be denoted by AND Besides, AND is used when the second clause is a comment on the first

They disliked John – and this is not surprising

Charlie became addicted to gambling – and that surprise no one who knew him

In addition, AND is often used before the second clause to introduces an element of surprise in view of the content of the first

He tried hard and (yet) he failed

His failure gives surprising to listeners because nobody thinks that his great effort made him failed Here too, AND could be replaced by BUT, sometimes by YET

Another example is that:

Hartford is a rich city and suffers from many symptoms of urban blight

What‟s more? AND is used when the first clause is dependent upon the second, conditionally (usually the first clause is an imperative)

Give me some money and I’ll help you escape

Use your credit cards frequently and you’ll soon find yourself deep in debt

It should be noted that, for the conditional implication to apply, it is unusual that:

- The second clause has a modality auxiliary

- The verb of the first clause is an imperative or contains a modal auxiliary

Besides, the second clause can have the simple present with future reference

Give me the bride and you get the job

In other cases, AND is used before the second clause when it makes a point similar

to the first

A trade agreement should be no problem, and (similarly) a cultural exchange could

be arranged