When now and after say (almost) the same thing (but not in the same way)

This article deals with a particular use of the French adverb apres : a use in which apres, in an initial position, loses its temporal dimension and signals a discourse shift, a rupture with the preceding utterance (see [A]). This pragmatic use is very close to the one which has been studied for the French adverb maintenant when it is also used in an initial position (see [B]): [A] Essaie de ne plus recommencer car tu pourras etre mal vu par les administrateurs, c'est juste un conseil, apres, tu fais ce que tu veux. (inazuma-eleven.wikia.com) [B] J'avais bien compris et c'est contre ca que je te mettais en garde. Maintenant, tu n'es pas oblige de me croire. (audiofanzine.com) Whereas the shift in discourse signalled by maintenant has been extensively studied, this similar use for apres has been largely ignored. And yet, pragmatic apres seems to be nowadays massively used in spoken French, where it is much more represented than maintenant. In a preliminary section, the article summarizes the main lines of an exploratory study on the subject. It then presents a quantitative coni rmation of the intuition according to which pragmatic maintenant has now largely given place to apres. The last (more qualitative) section leads further the analysis of the specificities of the pragmatic behaviour of apres in comparison with maintenant