Publication ｜Sophia Linguistica
Masayuki Tashiro
The purpose of this study consists in highlighting the use of one of the two extended forms
of the adversative connector “au contraire”: “bien au contraire”. Formed with the adverb
“bien”, it has a use different from that of its original form, as well as that of the other
more rare form, “tout au contraire”, which we will show through a quantitative analysis
based on a corpus of articles from Le Monde. According to the semantic construction
of its context — a notion peculiar to our research — we can distinguish two uses of “au
contraire”, i.e. refutative and contrastive. Among these two major uses, “bien au contraire”
appears almost only with the refutation use, and especially when the second term which
should be introduced by the connector is left implied. This observation will lead us to
examine the role of the adverb “bien”, which seems to add to the original expression a
kind of intersubjectivity.
