Understanding contrast in academic prose: comparing text analyses with ESOL texts and corpus research

This qualitative text analysis compares how two logical connectives, however and although, structured academic prose in excerpts from college level science and history texts. Recognizing and using logical connectives is important for student comprehension and composition since such devices link segments of discourse and serve as signals to organizational patterns. The study compared findings of several corpus research analyses of logical connectives with how the connectives were treated in four reading and composition texts used for teaching English to speakers of other languages. Results indicate that treatment of adversative connectives by the instructional texts was inconsistent with the corpus research. Text analysis showed most instances of however and although linked ideas at local levels within paragraphs, while some helped organize paragraphs in a pattern of comparison and contrast, often in combination with other words used to compare or contrast