Textual and contextual contrast connection: A study of Chinese contrastive markers across different text types

This study reports on the Chinese contrastive markers zhishi, danshi, buguo, and keshi, which correspond to English ‘but/yet/however’, across different discourse modes: narratives of personal experiences, casual conversations, formal lectures, and formal interviews. They are classified lexically as conjunctions, a classification that reflects their function within grammar and discourse of linking together two or more clauses or utterances. In this function, they express a topic-internal contradiction. In addition, danshi, buguo, and keshi have other functions in spoken discourse, viz. to introduce a new topic unit and to mark a dispreferred response. Among them, keshi is the most common and general contrastive marker since it more frequently occurs in informal speech situations. Danshi occurs more often in formal speech situations, especially in formal monologues. Buguo occurs more often in formal dialogues but less often in formal monologues. Zhishi, which is the least frequent of these contrastive markers in the four speech modes, tends to appear in informal dialogues. In addition to their frequency and text types, these contrastive markers display a range of attitudinal, cognitive, and interactional properties. Zhishi shares the function of supplementation or revision with buguo; however, the former usually expresses an afterthought and is used to clarify the preceding utterance, while the latter is often used to change the topic. As for danshi, it is often used as a point-making device or for emphasis. Keshi, by contrast, is used to denote an implicit contrast.