The Semantics of Logical Connectors: therefore, moreover and in fact

Interestingly, the connector moreover is different from therefore in one important respect. In the case of therefore, the claim that the speaker wants to make appears after the connector and the supporting idea(s) before. By contrast, in the case of moreover, the claim that the speaker wants to make appears before the connector, while the supporting ideas, before and after. Here is the proposed meaning of moreover.

X. Moreover, Y. =

I said something because I wanted you to know how I think about something at the same time, I wanted you to know why I think it is like this because of this, I said, `X'

I now want to say one thing more

I want to say it because I want you to know why I think it has to be like this I say, `Y.'

I don't have to say anything else now

After this, I think that you will think that it has to be like this

This explication tells us that the connector is used to support an idea (e.g. a stand, an argument). It implies that the speaker has already said something to support the idea but is introducing something of greater significance than the previous ideas. We can now test this formulation against the example from Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (1999, p. 533).

Smith probably committed the crime. He had a guilty look on his face. Moreover, the police found a gun under his bed. =

I said something because I wanted you to know how I think about something:

`Smith probably committed the crime.' at the same time, I wanted you to know why I think it is like this because of this, I said, `He had a guilty look on this face.'

I now want to say one thing more

I want to say it because I want you to know why I think it has to be like this I say, `The police found a gun under his bed.'

I don't have to say anything else now

after this, I think that you will think that it has to be like this.

It might be added here that this is a particularly good example because the claim (`Smith probably committed the crime'), a first reason for the claim (`He had a guilty look on his face') and a more important reason (`the police found a gun under his bed') are all given. In many other examples presented in dictionaries, the claim is implicit.

THE MEANING OF IN FACT

A distinction should be made between two meanings of in fact, one of which is the object of this study. One meaning allows it to be used to introduce a phrase (e.g. noun phrase, adjectival phrase), as exemplified by the following example:

...that sleek slab levitating in midair is in fact a bed, and it is floating unsupported -- though lightly tethered at its four corners...¹⁶

This is presumably different from saying, `(...) In fact, that sleek slab levitating in midair is a bed', where in fact introduces a clause, thus functioning as a connector. As a connector, in .fact has an additive sense. As we shall see, the connector introduces an idea in support of something. When in fact is used to introduce a phrase, it does not appear to have this additive sense.

According to Halliday and Hassan, in fact belongs to the class of connectors the meaning of which is something like `as against what the current state of the communication process would lead us to expect, the fact of the matter is...' (1976, p. 253). The connector expresses an `adversative relation' and its meaning may thus be described as `contrastive' (Halliday and Hassan, 1976: 253). Roger Woodham, on a webpage in the BBC World Service website (`Learning English')http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv247.shtml, says something similar. According to Woodham, the connector `can be used to modify or contradict a previous statement', as the following example from the same webpage shows:

Well, it may sound very straightforward to you, but in fact it's all very complicated.

However, the same BBC webpage points out that the connector has another use. Apparently, it `can also be used to introduce more detailed information or to make things clearer or more precise', as the following examples given suggest:

I got so bored with what he was saying that in fact I fell asleep.

I'm going to take on a bit more responsibility now that Kevin's left.

John, that's wonderful news.

Yes, well, in fact I've been promoted to senior sales manager.

Here is another, longer example of this other use from James Chartrand's blog. The details might be necessary to reveal the meaning of in fact.

(...) I really, really wanted to make this work.

But I was still having a hard time landing jobs. I was being turned down for gigs I should've gotten, for reasons I couldn't put a finger on.

My pay rate had hit a plateau, too. I knew I should be earning more. Others were, and I soaked up everything they could teach me, but still, there was something strange about it...

It wasn't my skills, it wasn't my work. So what were those others doing that I wasn't?

One day, I tossed out a pen name, because I didn't want to be associated with my current business, the one that was still struggling to grow. I picked a name that sounded to me like it might convey a good business image. Like it might command respect.

Instantly, jobs became easier to get.

There was no haggling. There were compliments, there was respect. Clients hired me quickly, and when they received their work, they liked it just as quickly. There were fewer requests for revisions -- often none at all.

Customer satisfaction shot through the roof. So did my pay rate.

And I was thankful. I finally stopped worrying about how I would feed my girls. We were warm. Well-fed. Safe. No one at school would ever tease my kids about being poor.

I was still bringing in work with the other business, the one I ran under my real name.

I was still marketing it. I was still applying for jobs -- sometimes for the same jobs that

I applied for using my pen name.

I landed clients and got work under both names. But it was much easier to do when I

used my pen name.

Understand, I hadn't advertised more effectively or used social media -- I hadn't

figured that part out yet. I was applying in the same places. I was using the same methods.

Even the work was the same.

In fact, everything was the same.

Except for the name. (...)

What all this seems to suggest is although in factis often used in a counterargument, it does not have to be. It could also be used to elaborate or support an argument or a proposition. Nonetheless, these two uses seem to have something in common; in both cases there seems to be a strong implication or indication that the speaker wants to support what they have just said with a piece of fact. This means that any difference is more contextual than semantic and we may thus not need to posit two meanings for this connector.

It should be mentioned that the meaning of in factis complex because it embodies the meaning of the word fact, a quintessentially English word; one needs the word fact to define in fact. The word factwill not be discussed in any detail here because Wierzbicka (2006, p. 43) has defined the word (in the plural form):

facts =

people can know that it is like this

they can know it as they can know that something is in a place if they see that place

if someone wants to know that it is like this they can do something

other people can do the same thing

What this essentially means is that facts constitute knowledge and are knowable to people. They have to do with what one knows, not what one thinks. Facts are also expected to be accessible to anyone in the sense that it does not depend on any one individual's opinion.

Another important characteristic of in factseems to be that, unlike thereforeand moreover, the user is not exactly trying to provide evidence to support a given claim. Rather, they are trying to introduce a piece of fact which says something broadly similar or something that entails what the speaker wants to say. For example, when one says, `I got so bored with what he was saying that in fact I fell asleep', the speaker is not exactly presenting the fact that they fell asleep as evidence that they were bored. Rather, they are saying broadly similar things when they say `I got so bored' and `I fell asleep'. However, the latter (`I fell asleep') is presented as a fact and, being a fact, it gives weight to the claim. Additionally, the idea that `I fell asleep' (in this context) entails the idea that `I got so bored'.

The idea that in factis used to introduce a fact that says something similar or something that entails a given idea is important, because this means that one semantic component of in factis `if you know this fact, you will know why I saidthat it is like this' rather than `if you know this fact, you will know why it is like this', which implies a kind of cause and effect relationship.

It is proposed here that the meaning in fact may be explicated in this way, with the word fact acting as a semantic molecule.

In fact, X =

I said about something: it is like this I now want to say something more this something is a fact

if you know it, you can know why I said that it is like this the fact is this: Y

This formula seems to have some descriptive adequacy.

I got so bored with what he was saying that in fact I fell asleep =

I said about something: it is like this, `I got so bored with what he was saying.'

I now want to say something more this something is a fact

if you know it, you can know why I said that it is like this the fact is this, `I fell asleep.'

It is not entirely clear at this stage why this connector is not often used by learners of English, especially those who do not speaker any variety of English as a native language. One hypothesis is that they are not familiar with the quintessentially English word fact, which is not just an English word, but a scientific word as well. Many languages do not have a semantic equivalent for this word. In fact, it might be said that the word fact is another challenging area in the area of English language teaching.

PEDAGOGIC IMPLICATIONS

Ultimately, the objective of this study is to present the NSM approach, developed by Wierzbicka and colleagues, as a pedagogic method to help learners acquire meaning. However, as mentioned, this method has rarely, if ever, been put into practice in the ELT classroom, much less tested. In this study, there is some evidence to suggest that NSM is helpful for ELT purpose.

In the test, I asked students what they thought of the following example (Celce- Murcia & Larsen-Freeman, 1999, p. 534). I labeled the two reasons X and Y.

Smith probably committed the crime. He had a guilty look on his face (X). Moreover,

the police found a gun under his bed (Y).

Opinions were divided; some students said it was a good example while others disagreed. Whether they thought it was a good example or not, their reasons suggest that they did not fully understand the meaning of the connector. Here are three comments from students regarding the above example.

1. Good example because Y is support for X.

2. Not a good example because Y is more important than X. Y and X should be interchangeable.

3. Not a good example; X and Y should be parallel and Y has additional information about X.

Suffice to say here that Y is not meant to be a support for X, and neither should X and Y be interchangeable or of equal status.

On another occasion, I first asked students to look at three examples of use of the word moreover and asked them to say which examples were good examples and which were not. All the examples were not supposed to be good examples but the answers from students were all different, without any discernible pattern. The only interesting thing was that no student said that the examples were all not good examples. Here are the examples shown to the students.

Table 1 shows percentages of NUS international students' attitude towards writing and activities related to writing. As can be seen, generally, all the entire students agree that they cannot write well in English and also, seventy five percent did not like to write at all. Moreover, they prefer to write in their native language rather than write in English. This kind of trend may suggest that there is specific indication where international students have such difficulties in writing ability. In overall, to help them learning to write in English, compared with their classmates' comments, they prefer to have comments and grammar editing from their teacher. In addition, they prefer not to give comments on their classmates' writing either. Our results suggest that all the students need to have more time to discuss their writing difficulties with their teacher.

Table 2 shows percentages of NUS international students' attitude towards blogging as a writing activity. As can be indicated, overall, most of the students agree that blogging is fun and it is a good way to improve their writing. Moreover, they all agree that blogging is a form part of their writing course because their blogging partner encourages them to write more often. They also like to receive feedback from their teacher rather than their classmates in their writing blog. Our result may suggest that blogging have a good correlation with students' writing attitude because it encourages students to write more. Furthermore, as can be seen, seventy to eighty percent of the students are not afraid of receiving feedback from their teacher and classmates on their writing blog. All of them agree that looking for mistakes in their blog or their classmates' blog is a good learning experience in writing. These results may suggest teacher to be more active in blog to encourage students to write and learn.

These tables collectively suggest that, in NUS, teacher should be encourage international students more often to write and give their student time to have discussions and grammar editing in their essays for their English writing difficulties. Moreover, it could be said that blogging is one way to encourage students to write more often and learn from their teacher and classmates.

On both occasions, however, after the explication of moreover was shown to the students and each semantic component carefully explained, the students were soon able to judge the representativeness of the examples. On the second occasion discussed above, for example, the students were able to see that all the three examples were not particularly good examples. These two exercises constitute a piece of evidence to suggest the NSM approach is helpful for ELT purposes.

Immediately after one of these occasions, the students were asked to write examples of how the connector is to be used. Here are some of their examples.

Students like to write blogging. They are not afraid of making mistakes in blogs. Moreover, they can communicate with each other by blogging.

I like academic research. This is because that it can be my job in the future. Moreover, academic research contributes to the development of human society.

NUS is a world leading university. The equipments in NUS are advanced. Moreover,

NUS has a high rank in the world.

Smoking in the classroom is impolite to the other students. Moreover it is against the law.

While some of these examples may not be the most convincing examples, it is observed that each example has an idea to be supported, which may be implicit, a supporting idea and another, presumably more important, supporting idea. This is another small piece of evidence to suggest that the NSM paraphrase is helpful.

However, it should be mentioned that the victory appeared to be rather short-lived. In a subsequent assignment, some of the students seemed to have forgotten how to use moreover and used it like they did before. Then again, perhaps this should not be seen as a shortcoming of NSM. The reason is that such a phenomenon happens rather often; all too often, English learners make mistakes in grammar even when they apparently know the rules. In my experience, it is not uncommon for students to make grammatical mistakes (e.g. agreement) even though they can say what the problems are when pointed out to them. In fact, even teachers (non-native speakers of English) are guilty of this. If this can happen in the area of grammar, there is no reason to assume that it cannot happen in the area of meaning. It might take time for rules to be internalized.

CONCLUDING REMARKS

One of the hallmarks of academic writing is the use of logic connectors to construct an argument but many non-speakers of a traditional variety of English seem to have problems with them. If this author's experience as a classroom English learner is anything to go by, despite their importance, logical connectors are seldom given as much attention as aspects of grammar.

An English language teacher needs a sound methodology with which to teach the meaning of logical connectors and one such methodology may be found in NSM, which research suggests can explicate meaning with a high degree of clarity and precision. As a pedagogic tool, NSM is rarely exploited but numerous studies have suggested that it is a useful tool for the teaching and learning of meaning. This paper advocates the use of the NSM approach to complement and supplement other ELT approaches.

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