The Interplay Of Explicit And Implicit Conjunction To Manage Expectancy [3]

Martin & Rose (2007: 118-9):

This interplay of explicit and implicit conjunction to manage expectancy is well illustrated in the first Incident of Helena’s story:

… Then one day he said he was going on a 'trip'.
'We won't see each other again…maybe never ever again.'
I was torn to pieces.
So was he.
An extremely short marriage to someone else failed
all because I married to forget.

… Then the next step from romance to tragedy is explicitly marked by Then, signalling that a new phase is beginning which is likely to be counterexpectant, and so probably bad news. After her reaction, So was he makes explicit that her lover’s feelings about leaving were the same as hers, and that this was to be expected. And the failure of her subsequent marriage was also completely predictable, made explicit by the causal conjunction all because.

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, the conjunction then merely signals the conjunctive relation of 'temporal: following'. Whether what follows constitutes a new "phase" depends on the experiential meanings of the preceding and following portions of text.

[2] To be clear, there are no grounds for counterexpectancy on the part of a reader merely on the basis of the conjunction then.  Consider instances of the type: I sat down; then I stood up.

[3] To be clear, there are no grounds for assuming that "counterexpectant" information is bad news.  Consider instances of the type: Then, on the day I was retrenched, I won the lottery.

[4] To be clear, here the conjunction so merely signals the conjunctive relation of 'positive addition'.  The clause so was he gives the reader no evidence as to whether this was to be expected. In fact, its inclusion by the speaker might be taken to resolve any doubt on the matter.

[5] To be clear, the conjunction group all because provides no grounds for a reader to judge the preceding clause as predictable; it merely signals the clause complexing relation of 'cause: reason'.  Consider instances of the type: So I ended up in hospital all because I walked to work instead of driving.

∞

In all of the above, Martin & Rose are misattributing their own hindsight judgements of reader expectancy to the unfolding text of the speaker.  Moreover, in doing so, they

• confuse the experiential meaning of clauses with the logico-semantic relation of expansion, 
• confuse the latter's textual manifestation (cohesive conjunction) with its logical manifestation (clause complexing), and
• rebrand these grammatical systems as discourse semantic systems.