„So, given this common theme...“

In this paper we deal with “linking constructions”, a phenomenon in the field of “connectivity”1 that has to our knowledge rarely been examined in monolingual texts and discourses, let alone contrastively. We will first relate these devices to the general area of connectivity, then we will look more closely at the forms and functions of a number of linking constructions and attempt to classify them on the basis of an exemplary analysis of an American-English economics text. Finally we will present a contrastive analysis of the use of linking constructions in this text and its German translation and draw some preliminary conclusions from our findings.