Many grammars explain that on the contrary contradicts the proposition expressed in the preceding statement (e.g., Cowan, 2008; Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016; Swan, 2017). Lake (2004), however, points out that on the contrary reiterates, rather than contradicts, the previous statement in examples such as It doesn’t seem ugly to me; on the contrary, I think it’s rather beautiful. Although Lake’s argument is not incorrect, adopting his argument results in on the contrary being a contranymic adverbial, that is, an adverbial with two contradictory meanings. By analyzing the tokens of on the contrary retrieved from the Brown Corpus and the Frown Corpus, as well as from two sub-sections of the Corpus of Contemporary American English, and surveying 12 well-known reference grammars on their treatment of the phrase, this paper shows that the pedagogically confusing explanation proposed by Lake can be remedied if we instead adopt the following explanation: on the contrary is always used for contradicting; preceded by a negative statement, however, on the contrary contradicts only the part that comes after a negative element such as no, not, never, and no longer.
한국어
여러 영문법서에서는 on the contrary 가 선행문에 제시된 명제를 반박하는 표현이라고 설명한다(예: Cowan, 2008; Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016; Swan, 2017). 그러나 Lake(2004)는 It doesn’t seem ugly to me; on the contrary, I think it’s rather beautiful 과 같은 예에서 on the contrary 가 선행 진술을 반박하는 것이 아니라 오히려 재확인한다고 지적한다. Lake 의 주장은 해당 예에 대해서는 타당하지만, 이를 그대로 받아들일 경우 on the contrary 는 서로 모순되는 두 의미를 지닌 자가반의어적(contranymic) 부사구가 된다. 본 연구는 Brown Corpus 와 Frown Corpus, 그리고 Corpus of Contemporary American English 의 두 하위 코퍼스에서 추출한 on the contrary 용례를 분석하고, 12종의 주요 참고문법서가 이 표현을 어떻게 기술하는지 검토한다. 분석 결과, Lake 가 제안한 교육적으로 혼란스러운 설명은 다음과 같은 일관된 설명을 채택함으로써 해결될 수 있음을 보인다. 즉, on the contrary 는 항상 반박을 나타내며, 선행문이 부정문인 경우에는 no, not, never, no longer 와 같은 부정어 뒤에 오는 부분만을 반박한다.
목차
Abstract Introduction Sources of Difficulty and the Misuse of On the Contrary Methodology Data Analysis Implications for EAP Teachers and Learners Conclusion The Authors References Appendix
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간행물
간행물명
The Journal of AsiaTEFL
간기
계간
pISSN
1738-3102
eISSN
2466-1511
수록기간
2004~2026
등재여부
SCOPUS,KCI 등재
십진분류
KDC 740DDC 420
이 권호 내 다른 논문 / The Journal of AsiaTEFL Vol.23 No.3