The Use of And and But in the Sentence-initial Position in Academic Writing

Abstract

A comparative analysis is made of the use of and and but in the sentence-initial position as cohesive devices in English academic discourse from international journals and domestic journals based in Korea. The analysis is based on the concept of cohesion set down by Halliday and Hasan (1976) and seeks to examine ways that the international journal articles and domestic journal articles use sentence-initial and (SIA) and sentence-initial but (SIB) to cohere text. Two corpora of 480,000 words (international) and 410,000 words (domestic) were built, and a text-analytic approach was employed to investigate the function of SIA and SIB along with an investigation of the distribution of the items. The study reveals that SIA and SIB employment in academic journals of the international corpus are mostly restricted to the genre of humanities, unlike what was shown in previous studies. The writers of the domestic corpus employ SIA and SIB far less frequently compared to that of the writers of the international corpus. The findings of this study confirms the three functions of SIA and SIB put forward by Bell (2007)

the functions of SIA are: (i) signaling the last item on a list

(ii) signaling a discontinuity/shift in discourse, and (iii) chaining of arguments. Three similar functions to these are recognized in the use of SIB as: (i) adding the final item on a list

(ii) shifting the domain of the topic

and (iii) developing arguments. It is notable that although the domestic corpus reflected all three functions in the use of SIA and SIB, these occurrences of SIA and SIB did not always portray successful operations as a cohesive device. The avoidance by domestic writers in using SIA and SIB in their writing is most likely a direct result of strictures against SIA and SIB put upon them in the EFL classroom, coupled with their inability to determine the flexibility of a rule. Based on the results of the study, it is suggested that the best course of action is to teach EAP students, in general, to continue to employ SIA and SIB alternatives in their writing. However, the current study emphasizes that for learners who will likely write in the field of humanities, the employment of SIA and SIB as cohesive devices should at least be introduced, if not encouraged. Also, the study indicates a need for EAP writers to be instructed in the use of logical transitions so that they may improve cohesive discourse within their writing.