The illogic of logical connectives.pdf

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The illogic of logicalconnectivesW. J. Crewe

The purpose of this article is to examine the effect of the misuse and over-use of logical connectives however: hus: etc.) in ESL undergraduatewriting. It also points to certain types of mechanical exercises commonlyfound in textbooks as a possible source of the problem. A case is madeagainst the practice of using logical connectives as mere stylistic enhan-cers - hat is to say, words or expressions that may be sprinkled over a textin order to give it an educated or academic look. Rather, logical connec-tives should be seen as higher-level discourse units which organize chunksof text in relation to the direction of the argument. If the links are misused,the argument as a whole, not merely the sentence containing the connec-tive, becomes difficult to process and may even appear illogical. Threesuggestions are made to remedy the problem: firstly, limit the studentsuse of connectives to a small sub-set of relatively comprehensible ones;secondly, encourage the phrasal expansion of the connectives so that thelogicallinks become more apparent; and thirdly, make consideration of thelogical progression of the argument an integralstage in the writing process.

The role of logical It has been suggested in a previous paper (Crewe, Wright, and Leung,connectives in 1985: 61) that many logical connectives are abstract and opaque text-

discourse organizers and not fixed, concrete lexical items. Two propositions arelinked together. in most cases. not by an objectively correct item but by asubjective assessment of the relationship between them by the writer.Writers may, in theory, make any link at all between the stages in theargument provided it makes sense to him or her. However, a problemarises when the expectations of the writer and the reader fail to coincide:then there is a communication breakdown on the grounds of illogicality.Rather than giving the writer the benefit of the doubt and rethinking theargument in a new way. the reader is more inclined simply to redesign thelink.

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Avoiding the The point. then, is that there is no reasonable way of resolving an incom-connective prehensible link except by ignoring it, or replacing it. Several studies have

reported that ESL readers have particular difficulty handling cohesivelinks (see Cohen et l. 1979; Dubin and Olshtain, 1980), and one can onlyassume that, in order to understand the argument, they must frequentlybe obliged to reformulate it. This means that if the writer has thereforeELT Journal Volume 44/4 October 1990 Oxf ord Univ ersit y Press 1990

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when they were expecting however, they simply overrule this and readhowever.The value of Most studies of the use of logical connectives indicate that the readabilityconnectives and coherence of a text are not necessarily improved by the presence of

cohesive ties (see, for example, Hartnett, 1986: 151, and Mosenthal andTierney, 1984: 240). Used judiciously by a good writer such ties can-aidthe communicability of the text; used badly they simply confuse. In thelatter case, poor writing can be instantly improved by their elimination(see Hartnett 1986: 144). Where there is an absence of connectives, thelogical steps can in most cases be supplied by the reader from his or herown expectations and predictions within the text, together with know-ledge of the world and experience of other similar kinds of argumenta-tion. As Hartnett puts it: Readers expect and assume coherence whetheror not a cohesive tie indicates it. (1986: 143). In a study of ninety-eightESL reading students. Crewe, Wright, and Leung (1985) found that therewas no significant difference between the group that read the text con-taining the connectives and the group that read the text without. Bothwere able to process the text successfully and make the inherent logicalconnections between the discourse units.Thus, the value to ESL writers of connectives is not entirely clear: bothnative and non-native readers of English can easily process texts whichare devoid of connective links, whereas the misuse of connectives willlead to a potential communicative breakdown. Dynamic ties complicateprose unnecessarily. A cluster of various dynamic ties can work to contorta topic in too many different ways all at once, making writing appeardense, opaque, or even incoherent to the reader. (Hartnett, 1986: 146)

Some types of The misuse of logical connectives is an almost universal feature of ESLconnect ive students writing, though it may also occasionally happen with experi-

misuse end thei r enced writers. In Hong Kong, we are all familiar with students who useor ig in on the contrary for however/on the other hand, thus adding an unin-tended corrective force to the merely contrastive function sought:1

From a mat ure ESL student s essay[wild beasts, fascist police, etc]. Those are the images of the BritishGovernment that the Communists want to impose on the localChinese and its supporters or readers. On the contrary, theydescribe the communists as patriotic Chinese who did not show theslightest fear.

Textbook advice Such confusions arise in students writing because what they have beenoffered, if composition texts are any reflection of teaching strategies, arelists of cohesive devices categorized according to function (Zamel, 1984:111). Worse than the mere offering of lists, however, is the fact thatLogical connecti ves 317

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non-equivalents are frequently offered as equivalent alternatives in thelists. Consider the following part-list from Peters (1985: 93-4):

Relation expressed Within sentence From one sentence to the nextcontrast yet howevereven so

neverthelessbut instead

on the contraryratherby contrastotherwiseon the other handalternativelyanyhowat any ratein any case

Consider also the following advice: Many writers have a favourite con-junctive and tend to over-use it, perhaps because they think their writingsounds more tightly argued with it. Unfortunately, the over-use of anyone becomes conspicuous and suspect. As you edit your writing, youshould check for this and use others from the table of alternatives. (myitalics) (1985: 94).2 Unfortunately, any students who equate howeverwith instead, otherwise, and in any case are in for a lot of incompre-hensible red marks on their essays Not only are the students led intoerror, but they are not provided with sufficient information to resolve it.

Stylistic variation A further source of confusion derives from the kinds of exercise devisedto train the students in the correct use of connectives. All too often theseexploit the same atomistic listing and selection procedures which onlyserve to separate the connective as a linguistic entity from its role in theinformation structure of the text. Let us look at an extended examplefrom a students work:

First-year ESL undergraduates summary. . . Here, the term interaction refers to the point that the authorshould consider what the readers should get from the passage; onthe other hand, the readers should pay more attention to what theauthor really means in the passage.

On the other hand, many students may find that they have prob-lems in the understanding of the main ideas in a passage. The reasonfor this phenomenon will be that both the author and the readershave not lived up to their contractual agreement . . .

The most glaring feature in need of amendment here is the double, adja-cent use of on the other hand. When offered to the class for revision,

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predictably, most of the students, operating on Peters advice above,amended this to however or nevertheless and a few plumped for theinevitable on the contrary.3 The writer himself, with hindsight perhaps,opted for furthermore, thereby reorienting the whole structure of theargument. It is debatable to what extent either however or further-more develop the argument successfully, but the point at issue is thewhole notion that the words structuring the argument and giving it coher-ence can be changed at will for mere stylistic variation without regard tothe relationship between the sections of the text that they link. This mayhave been suggested by such exercises as the following, where the blanksare filled by selecting from a range of connectives with completely differ-ent semantic, and discoursal, values:

ExerciseThe digestibility and therefore the feeding value of grass falls rap-idly after an emergence. (1) silage made from over-mature grass will reflect this reduced feeding value. 2)cuts for silage, particularly first cuts, have to be made over a shortperiod if uniformly good silage with a high feeding value is to result.

(3) efficient organisation of labor and machinery is oneof the most important aspects of good silage making. 4)it will help to minimize the effect of unsettled weather if this occursat the critical time.In the blanks above, supply the most appropriate marker from thelist:1 For example, in spite of that, again, alternatively2 Again, similarly, therefore, incidentally3 Likewise, finally, hence, however4 Nevertheless, moreover, for example, on the other hand

(Mackay, 1974/1987: 254-5)

Such exercises become even more meaningless when one realizes that thesame lexical item may have a range of semantic values. Thus, Mackaysexercise offers for selection the connectives again and on the otherhand. Yet, in his own list of connectives accompanying the exercise(p, 254) again occurs in both the additive and the contrastive cat-egories, while on the other hand is listed in both the replacive and anti-thetic sections of the contrastive category. There is no suggestionanywhere that the alternatives might represent different logical orillogical progressions of the argument. As Dubin and Olshtain haveexpressed it: The most important characteristic of cohesion is the factthat it does not constitute a class of items but rather a set of relations.(Zamel, 1984: 112). Here, if a student wishes to correct a wrong choice,he or she simply has to cross it out and write the correct answer instead -that is, mere lexical substitution, divorced from the notion of textualcohesion. Later, I shall suggest a periphrastic method of dealing with thisproblem which is more closely linked to the progression of thought.

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Over use of The Mackay exercise discussed above also illustrates another miscon-connect ives ception students hold about the use of logical connectives, which is the

more, the better.5 The exercise itself contains only five sentences and, ofthese, all except the first begin with a connective. Discourse connectivesare difficult to process in any case, but if they are both misused n d over-used the task becomes virtually impossible. To take another authenticexample:

Over-use of connectives by an advanced ESL writer6Teachers of this Scheme have also experienced the importance ofgroup activities in which even the low-achievers and passive learn-ers are reported to have spoken in English. It is l so a soundexample to counteract the assertion made by Etherton (1981) thatthe non-native English speakers are too inefficient to teach inauthentic English. Moreover, it shows that a communicative syl-labus rather than no syllabus is needed for English. Indeed, action islouder than words; this confirms the view that the communicativeapproach is feasible in Hong Kong, though it is implemented withsome sort of modification.As a matter of fact, certain aspects of the communicative approachcan be spelt in concrete steps with the example of this Scheme.In actuality, this school has practised the Pivot Scheme from F. 1 toF.7. They have proved that the communicative approach is not onlypracticable for lower forms, but also for senior forms. However, dueto a manpower shortage and time constraints, only the junior formswere observed. Nevertheless, junior form study is essential for stu-dents to establish the right ways of learning English, to build up thelanguage foundation for further study, as well as to stimulate theirinterest to study English.

It is not easy to determine how many of these link words are being activelymisused because (in theory) each connective points the argument in aparticular, and possibly new, direction. What is certain is that the clutterof connectives makes the argument extremely tortuous. The confessionalmode of as a matter of fact and in actuality and the double adversativesignalled by the adjacent however and nevertheless makes it difficult toestablish what is opposed to what, or if anything is really opposed at all.

Surface logical i ty In relying so much on connectives, the writer seems to be trying to imposesurface logicality on a piece of writing where no deep logicality exists. Thedirectional pull of the connective may thus by at variance with the logicalpush of the argument: cohesion and coherence may be tugging in differ-ent directions. The mere presence of logical connectives will not make atext logical. As Hartnett has said:

Cohesive ties do not create relationships (although they can stimu-late their invention); rather they express cohesive relationships thatalready exist in the writers thinking. Cohesion reflects mental pro-cesses which both writers and readers perform. Although cohesive

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devices are visible signs of the relationships that they signal, theyare at best only indicators of them. A cohesive device can misleadreaders if it signals a relationship that is not intended or has multipleinterpretations. (1986: 143)

Disguis ing poor There is even some evidence that an increase in cohesive ties in a text sig-wri t ing nals an area of difficulty which the (poor) writer attempts to overcome bythe abundance of superficial links. The writer almost attempts to yoke theresistant ideas together by force (see Pritchard, 1980). In the followingexample, the student seems to be wrestling with the progression of theargument, as witnessed by the identical sentence structure and phrasing.The student seems not to be entirely certain in which order these identicalitems should occur for them to be logical.

First-year ESL undergraduate essayFirst of all, this question is a direct question with the same meaningof Evaluate the degree to which Japanese imperialism was a resultof militarism. So this question requires an independent argumentabout them. So the student must think critically if Japanese im-perialism was a result of militarism. So, the student must state his orher own position towards this question, i.e. whether he or she agreeor disagree to the statement. Therefore, the student should state theposition in the introduction, for example, the student thinks thatmilitarism played a major role but other factors cannot be neg-lected. So the student should express this thinking in the introduc-tion. On the other hand, the student must define militarism andJapanese imperialism because they are the key terms of the ques-tion and they play a very important roles in the whole essay, so it isnecessary to define them very closely.

Pedagogical I would like to outline three pedagogical approaches which may beapproaches adopted to remedy the misuse/over-use of connectives. They are com-

patible, and may indeed represent three stages in the awareness that con-nectives have a textual meaning and are not just surface-level fillers. Thethree approaches may be referred to as reductionist, expansionist, anddeductionist.

Reducing the In the reductionist approach, the students are simply forbidden fromconnect ives ringing the changes on the connectives in a random manner and forced

to come to terms with a small, relatively discrete, subset of the originallong list. Through practice, students come to feel the semantic, and dis-coursal, value of these selected items. The others, which they will inevit-ably encounter passively in their reading, then have time to filter slowlythrough their consciousnesses before being put into use. Indeed, asCohen et al.s studies have shown, even at postgraduate level, manylearners were not picking up on the conjunctive words signalling cohe-sion [in their reading], not even the most basic ones like however andthus (1979: 558), so it would be asking too much to expect the studentsto use them immediately and correctly in their writing. A shortened listLogical connectives 321

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322 W. J. Crewe

Table 1 Additive Simple Complex Expository Comparison:Similarand; also in addition that is similarly

Exemplificatory Dissimilarfor example on the otherhandAdversative Simple

butEmphatichowever

Contrastive: Correction DismissalAvowal0 rather 0Externalbut, however

Causal Simple Reversed Conditional Respectivecausaltherefore because then with reference

to this)Consequenceas a result

Temporal Sequential: most words acceptable, e.g. then, next, after that,finally, first ly), second ly), last, etc.

has the advantage of allowing the contrasts between the connectives to bemore easily stressed.Working from Halliday and Hasans table of conjunctive relations (1976:242-3), I suggest something like the representation in Table 1. Notice thatsome of the more complex conceptual categories are avoided altogether(see 0 in the table).There are fourteen different logical connectives in the three problematicareas of this list (i.e. not counting the temporal and sequential connect-ives whose meaning and use are relatively transparent). It would not betoo simplistic a task to require all but very advanced ESL writers to mas-ter these first before any attempt is made to handle the more abstractones. It would also lead to greater tightness and clarity instead of obfus-cating the argument with a clutter of furthermores and on the contrarys.

Paraphrasing the The second approach is the expansionist one. This encourages, in addi-connect ives tion to most of the above basic list, any expression which explicitly states

the connection with the preceding (or following) textual matter. We willcall these Explicit markers and distinguish them from the Implicitmarkers of conventional lists of connectives. Most of these would con-tain the referential pronoun this, which even alone can successfully per-form a wide range of linking duties. Examples are: because of this, onaccount of this, for this purpose, this is helped/supported/opposed/denied by, in spite of this, as a result of/consequence of/reaction tothis, etc. Others would be I mean, that is to say, at the same time,whichever way it is, etc. With these, the student writer might more easilybe called to account for the logical structure of his or her argument andmade to explicate the links. The links may be schematized in relation tothe corresponding Implicit markers as shown in Table 2, bearing inmind that potential Explicit marker periphrases are virtually unlimited.

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Table 2 Explicit markers replacing Implicit markersOn account of this situationBecause of these eventsAs a consequence of thisOne result of this step was..

II

Therefore, thus

In spite of thisA different view is..In opposition to this I However, on the other handThat this is untrue is shown by.This is denied by . On the contraryThat is supported by.Another consideration is Further, in additionAnother more) important point is..A decisive factor in this was .Whichever way it is..Whatever the reason is.. .

Furthermore, moreover

Anyhow, anywayIt has to be admitted that..We may state that.. . Actually, in fact

Table 2 gives some examples of how more transparent Explicit markerscould be used to replace more opaque Implicit markers.A criticism of the above two approaches is that they are still focused at thelevel of lexis, more concerned with selecting or paraphrasing words: thelogical development of the argument is taken for granted. Thus, they arestill working backwards from lexis to discourse and simply consideringmethods of controlling lexical output, rather than concentrating first onthe discourse itself. The next approach attempts to remedy this defect.

Expl icat ing the l inks The third approach, the deductionist one, begins by obliging the studentsbefore the writing process (within the essay plan, for instance) to state theconnection between the stages in the argument. Provided this is donefirst, there is no objection to lexical selection from a more complex listwhere the sections are labelled with discourse questions rather thanopaque terms like additive and adversative. Such questions might be:- Does your next section add another similar point to the argument?

If so, is it of the same importance or of greater importance?Same? Use also, in addition, or besides.Greater? Use moreover, or furthermore.

- Does your next section add an opposing point to the argument?If so, are both points valid or does the second one cancel out the first?Both valid? Use but, however, nevertheless, or on the otherhand.The second cancels out the first? Use on the contrary.

The schema will, ultimately, have to contain the full range of discoursemoves such as exemplifying, listing, comparing, showing consequence,rephrasing, concluding, etc., though it should be noted that not all ofthese are equally problematic to student writers.Logical connecti ves 323

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A practical From a practical point of view, if the students are writing with the help ofsuggest ion computers, or if they are otherwise required to write a second draft, they

should be asked to delete, or not to use, connectives in the first draft.They, or their fellow students, should then be asked to sketch the pro-gression of the stages in the argument as a supplementary exercise. Suit-able connectives should then be inserted, in moderation, wherever it isfelt that the direction of the argument needs clarifying or strengthening.With a one-draft product, they will simply have to work through the argu-ment afterwards examining the suitability of each of the links they haveused. This kind of after-the-event correction is counter to the spirit ofthinking through the logic of the discourse first and selecting the wordingto support it afterwards, but it may be better than accepting work whichhas not been assessed for its logicality at all. As mentioned above, giventhe very high cognitive loading of these much-abused items, the extraattention would pay tremendous dividends.

Conc lus ion We have seen that logical connectives are frequently misused by ESLwriters. Not only are they used with erroneous meanings (e.g. on thecontrary is used for on the other hand; in fact is used without regard toits confessional nuance), but they are over-used. Over-use at best cluttersup the text unnecessarily, and at worst causes the thread of the argumentto zigzag about, as each connective points it in a different direction. Non-use is always preferable to misuse because all readers, native-speaker ornon-native-speaker, can mentally construe logical links in the argument ifthey are not explicit, whereas misuse always causes comprehension prob-lems and may be so impenetrable as to defy normal decoding. In this case,the illogicality (as it is interpreted by the reader) can only be resolved byredesigning the logical links in the argument so that they fit in with thereaders expectations.Student writers need a much greater awareness of the problem and muchmore rigorous training, which would oblige them to think through theirargument before deciding on how it might be reinforced with logical con-nectives. In a developmental sequence in the use of connectives, this pro-cess would be paramount at every stage. It would be given verbalexpression firstly in a limited sub-set of very common and very tangibleconnectives; then in transparent paraphrases (often incorporating theword this) of the meaning of the link; and only at long last, in the full useof the logical connective repertoire.The fact that native-speaker undergraduates also have a problem with thecorrect use of connectives should not be overlooked. Non-native speak-ers appear, however, to have a threefold problem: with the linguisticexpression of the text itself; with the abstract, opaque meaning of theconnectives; and with the multiple functions (e.g. then, again) andparticularly the hidden nuances (e.g. dismissiveness, concession), whichthey are unlikely to be aware of until a very sophisticated stage.Received February 1990W. J. Crew e24

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otes1 Contrastive and corrective are Halliday andHasans terms. The Quirk et al. grammars treatthese connectives differently (see below).2 In all fairness to Peters, I should point out that thepreceding section had been very much in keepingwith the view taken in this paper. But when

reviewing your text at the editing stage, you shouldcheck that each conjunctive is appropriate to thecontent of the statements it connects. If there is abut or how ever do the two statements really con-trast with each other? Or is there at least a contrastbetween the expectations raised by the first state-ment, and what the second has to say? If thus ortherefore has been used, is the second statementreally a consequence of the first? (1985: 93-4)3 There may be an overlap here in that both on theother hand and on the contrary are listedtogether under antithetic in all of the Quirk et al.grammars (GCE, UGE, and CGEL). However, Iam more in agreement with what Ball (1986: 88)says: [On the contrary] is a direct denial of whathas been asserted: what you have said is not fac-tually correct. In rejecting the previous assertion,it removes it from the argument. It does not, inspite of what is said in the Grammar of Contempo-rary Engli sh 10.33, contrast with it. and Of on theother hand Fowler said in M odern Engli sh Usage(p.94) it never introduces something that conflictswith the truth of what has preceded, but is alwayssomething reconcilable, though in contrast withit.4 Mackays paper was originally published in 1974 inthe RELC Journal. However, as it has been re-published in Long and Richards 1987 collection,M et hodology in TESOL its dubious advice willgain a wide audience.5 In the Hong Kong education examination system,students are not only encouraged to make abund-ant use of connectives in their writing but areawarded marks in public examinations for thesheer presence of the connectives, often regardlessof their appropriacy.

6 The advanced ESL writer is a tertiary-level teacherof English.ReferencesBall W. J. 1986. A Dict ionary of Link WordsLondon: Macmillan.Cohen A. et al. 1979. Reading English for Special-ized Purposes: Discourse Analysis and the Use ofStudent Informants TESOL Quarterly 13/4:551-564.

Crewe W. C. Wright and M. W. K. Leung. 1985.Connectives: On the other hand, who needs them,though? Worki ng Papers in Li nguisti cs and Lan-guage Teachi ng 8: 61-75.

Dubin F. and T. Olshtain. 1980. The Interface ofReading and Writing TESOL Quarterly 14/3:353-363.

Halliday M. A. K. and R. Hasan. 1976. Cohesion inEnglish London: Longman.Hartnett C. G. 1986. Static and Dynamic Cohesion:Signals of Thinking in Writing in B. Couture (ed.),

Funct ional Appr oaches to W ri t in g: Research Per-spectives London: Frances Pinter.

Kaplan R. B. 1966. Cultural Thought Patterns inIntercultural Education Language Learning 16:l-20.Mackay R. 1974. Teaching the Information-Gather-ing Skills RELC Journal 4/2: 79-90. Reprinted inLong, M. H. and J. C. Richards (1987) Methodo-

logy i n TESOL Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.Mosenthal J. H. and R. J. Tierney 1984. Cohesion:Problems with Talking about Text ReadingResearch Quarterly XIX/2: 240-244.

Peters P. 1985. Strategies f o r Student WritersBrisbane: John Wiley.Pritchard R. J. 1980. A Study of the Cohesive

Devices in the Good and Poor Compositions of11th Graders Ph.D. Dissertation, University ofMissouri-Columbia (quoted in Hartnett).

Quirk R. et al. 1972. A Grammar of ContemporaryEnglish [GCE] London: Longman.

Quirk R. et al. 1986. A Comprehensive Grammar oft he Engli sh Language [CGEL] London: Longman.Quirk R. and S. Greenbaum. 1974. A Universi ty

Grammar of English [UGE] London: Longman.Young L. W. L. 1982. Inscrutability Revisited, inGumperz, J. J. (ed.) Language and Social Ident it yCambridge: Cambridge University Press.Zamel V. 1984. Teaching those Missing Links inWriting, in Mackay, S. (ed.) Composing in a

Second Language Rowley, Mass: Newbury House.

The authorWilliam Crewe has taught EAP/ESP and Linguisticsin Sudan, Singapore, West Berlin, and Saudi Arabia.He is currently Senior Language Instructor at theUniversity of Hong Kongs Language Centre, but hewill shortly be transferring to the Open LearningInstitute, Hong Kongs official open university. He isparticularly interested in reading problems, cross-cultural communication, and stylistics.

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