Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis

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Lecture (3)

Cohesion

Cohesion

• This involves overt identifiable features, which you can learn to recognise and name, which make up the texture of a text and contribute to its unity.

Its concern is the formal (but at the same time semantic) links between clauses, how an item – a pronoun, a noun or a conjunction – in one clause may refer backwards or forwards to another clause.

Cohesion

Can be defined as:

“…relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.” (Halliday and Hasan 1976, 4)

“The way certain words or grammatical features of asentence can connect that sentence to its predecessors (and successors) in a text." (Hoey 1991, 3)

Cohesion

it is the resources within language that provide continuity in a text, over and above that is provided by clause structure and clause complexes that bind one sentence and another using formal ties.

Example 1:I have a kind neighbor. His name is Marks Spencer. He

works in a hospital. It is located not so far from his house. Mr. Spencer has lived there for more than ten years with his family. They are Mrs. Witty and two sons named Brian and Denis.

Cohesion

Example 2: label on aspirin bottles

WARNING: keep this and all medication out of reach of children. As with any drug, if you are pregnant or nursing a baby, seek the advice of a health professional before using this product. In the case of accidental over-dosage, contact a physician or poison control center immediately.

Cohesion

Is the text coherent? Prior experience – drugs are bad for children and pregnant woman or

nursing mothers. Prior texts – the word WARNING. What conclusion can you draw

from the word? Purpose : reader (warn, inform), company (avoid lawsuit) Conditions of product – image of reader as intelligent

The last two are the legal aspects and commercial interests – common corporate culture

The ability of the reader to interpret the text shows the degree of coherence of the text – dependent on the context of the event/text.

Coherence

Coherence means to hold together. It means that texts havethe right order with the clear process. In addition to unity,coherence plays an important role in making a text readwell. A coherent text consists of interrelated sentenceswhich move smoothly one for another.

To organize any text to be coherent, the writers need tokeep their readers well informed about what they are andwhere they are going (Butt et al. 1995: 90)

Cohesion

A text can be cohesive but incoherent.

The process may seem complicated but actually it is not really so, as long as you prepare things in advance and know what has to be done in order. You need to read the manual carefully to ensure that the final result is as expected.

COMPARE WITH THIS

We spent our holidays in Fiji. The beaches there are beautiful. We stayed at a hotel by the beach. This is a town where you can get fresh fruits. Fruit contain vitamins and these are essential for a healthy life. So is regular exercise, like jogging. Try to exercise every day.

Cohesion

The concept of cohesion in text is related to semantic ties or “relations of meanings that exist within the text, and that define it as a text”.

Within text, if a previously mentioned item is referred to again and is dependent upon another element, it is considered a tie. Without semantic ties, sentences or utterances would seem to lack any type of relationship to each other and might not be considered text.

E.g: “Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish.”

‘them’ ? - presupposes “apples”. The pronoun ‘them’ provides a semantic tie between the two sentences, thus creating cohesion.

Cohesion

Halliday and Hasan classify cohesive devices into five categories:

1. reference, 2. substitution, 3. ellipsis,4. conjunction,5. lexical cohesion,

Halliday & Hasan identify general categories of cohesive devices that signal coherence in texts:

Reference Substitution Ellipsis Conjunction Lexical Cohesion

Grammatical Cohesion

Cohesion

Reference

Reference refers to how the speaker or writer introduces participants and then keeps track of them once they are in the text (Eggins, 1994:95).

Reference items in English include personal pronouns, such as I, you, he, she, it; possessive adjectives, such as my, your, his, her; possessive pronouns, such as mine, yours, his, hers; demonstratives, such as this, that, these, those; definite article, the.

Reference

There are two basic types of reference: Exophora (situational) Endophora (textual)

- Anaphora (to preceding text)- Cataphora (to following text)

Reference

Exophoric reference exophoric reference contributes to the creation of text, in

that it links the language with the context of situation, but itdoes not contribute to the integration of the passage withanother so that the two together form part of the same text.

Example:Child : Why does THAT one come out?Father : That what?Child : That oneFather : That what?Child : That ONE!Father : That one what?Child : That lever there that you push to let the water out.

Reference

Endophoric reference endophoric reference is only considered cohesive due to its

contribution to the integration of the text Two kinds of endophoric reference:- Anaphoric reference: the subsequent items can only be

interpreted with reference to the initial phrase of the firstsentence. Typically, anaphoric reference refers to aparticipant mentioned nearby (one or two sentencespreviously), but sometimes it may refer back to an itemmentioned many pages before.

- Cataphoric reference: it points the reader foward, it drawsus further into the text in order to identify the elements towhich the reference items refer (Nunan: 1993: 22).

Reference

Cataphorphoric reference

It’s as certain as death and taxes. Presidents have periods ofpopularity and then periods of not so much. There aremore than tough periods than honeymoons for them. Nowall eyes are on the current President of the U.S.A;Barrack Obama, his honeymoon with the U.S. public isseemingly on the wane.

Definite Reference

The: has no content of its own. obtains its meaning by attaching itself to another item its most frequent use is exophoric may refer to something which is specific to the given

situation. The water’s too cold may refer to something which is specific to a community

(context of culture), the president, the baby, the piano. may also refer to a whole class of items: the newspapers,

the possibilities, the differences; or an individual considered as a representative of a whole class (generic reference): the lion, the alligator

Substitution

A substitution is the replacement of a word (group) or sentences segment by a “dummy” word. The reader can fill in the correct element based on the preceding sentences (Rankema, 1993: 37). Substitution is a replacement of language element into others in a bigger composition in order to get clearer difference, or to explain some certain language elements.

There are three types of substitution: Nominal: Which book do you want? I’ll take the red one Verbal: I have coffee every morning and he does too Clausal: A: I am so ugly, B: Okay, if you say so

Substitution

Examples

There are some new tourism resorts in Indonesia. Theseones’ve become the most attracting places to visit.

John : Bill says you went to Bali last week.Brown : So did you!

Smith : Are father and mother going to have vacation to East Java? Brown : I think so

Ellipsis

omission of a word or part of a sentence. occurs when some essential structural elements are omitted from a

sentence or clause and can only be recovered by refering to anelement in the preceding text (Nunan, 1993: 25).

Accoding to Halliday and Hasan (1976: 144) ellipses occur whensomething that is structurally necessary is left unsaid, there is asense of incompleteness associated with it.

There are also three kinds of ellipsis: nominal, verbal and clausalellipsis

My father likes to go to a crowded tourism place, but I like apeaceful.

John : Have you been to Bali?Brown : Yes, I have

Ellipsis

An elliptical item is one which leaves specific structural slots to be filled from elsewhere

A: What is the capital of England?

B: London [E].

Substitution

An explicit counter is used as a place-marker for what is presupposed (use of pro-forms as one, do, so)

A: Mark has a crush on Lucy.

B: Do you really think so?

Ellipsis vs. Substitution

Conjunction

a relationship which indicates how the subsequent sentenceor clause should be linked to the preceding or the following(part of the sentence)

Conjunction signals the way the writer wants the reader to relate what is aboutto be said to what has been said before.

Conjunction expresses one of a small number of general relations. The main relations are ...1. additive (and, or, also, in addition, furthermore, besides, similiarly, likewise,

by contrast, for instance),2. adversative (but, yet, however, instead, on the other hand, nevertheless, at any

rate, as a matter of fact),3. causal (so, cosequently, for, because, under the circumstances, for this reason),4. temporal (then, next, finally, after that, on another occasion, in conclusion, an

hour later, at last),5. continuative (now, of course, well, anyway, surely, after all) (Baker, 1992: 191).

Conjunction

Examples

My family likes to spend holliday by visiting some places and they also like togo fishing in the sea.

It was raining very hard yesterday. However, my classmates went to theexhibition.

I am afraid I’ll be home late tonight. Nevertheless, I won’t have to go in untillate tomorrow.

Chinese tea is becoming increasingly popular in restaurants, and even in coffeeshops. This is because there is belief that tea has several health-givingproperties.

Lexical Cohesion

the use of the same or similar or related words in successive sentences.

Example: the words the poor creature in “The donkey died; the

poor creature has worked hard all his life”.

the lexical devices can cross short or large pieces of the discourse.

the same word or a synonym is used and repeated throughout the discourse.

related words (such as superordinate or general words) are used, and this repetition of the same concept strengthens the cohesion of the discourse.

Lexical Cohesion

Kinds: reiteration and collocation.

Reiteration, where the same word is repeated. Some writers try to avoid this by the use of what is called

elegant variation, this involves using devices as 1. Repetition2. Synonyms3. Hyponyms and Superordinates4. Antonyms5. General words

Repetition

There was a cat on the table. The cat was smiling. No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one

can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

Lexical Cohesion

Repetition is a word or words which has been stated, andthen it is repeated again. We can tie sentences orparagraphs together by repeating certain key words fromone sentence to the next or one paragraph to the next. It isin the case of the clearness of the main idea of the writing(Kilborn and Kriesi, 1995).

Example:

A conference will be held on national environmentalpolicy. At this conference the issue of sanitation will playan important role.

Synonym is the relationship between two words which have the same meaning

Examples: A conference will be held on national environmental

policy. This environmental symposium will be primarily a conference dealing with water.

He got a lot of presents from his friends and family. All the gifts were wrapped in colored paper.

The meeting commenced at six thirty. But from the moment it began, it was clear that all was not well.

Superordinate (Hyponyms) Yesterday, a pigeon carried the first message from

Pinhurst to Silbury. The bird covered the distance in three minutes.

Brazil, with her two-crop economy, was even more severely hit by the Depression than other Latin American states and the country was on the verge of complete collapse.

Lexical Cohesion

Hyponym Hyponym is defined as a sense relation between words

(sometimes longer phrases) such that the meaning of one word (or phrase) is included in the meaning of the other (Hurford & Heasley, 1983).

It is a semantic relation between specific and general meaning, between general class and its sub-classes.

The item referring to the general class is called super-ordinate and those referring to its sub-classes are called hyponyms.

Lexical Cohesion

AntonymAntonym is an opposite in meaning while metonym is a term

used to describe a part-whole relationshiop between lexicalitems.

Example:The front rows are available for old men and women.Young boys and girls are seated in the back rows.

Lexical Cohesion

• A collocation is an expression consisting of two or more words that correspond to some conventional way of saying things.

• a sequence of words or terms that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance.

• In other words, two or more words that often go together.

• The words together can mean more than their sum of parts (The Times of India, disk drive)– Other examples: hot dog, mother in law

• Examples of collocations– noun phrases like strong tea and weapons of mass

destruction– phrasal verbs like to make up, and other phrases like the

rich and powerful.• Collocations usually cannot be translated into other

languages word by word.• Collocations are not necessarily fully compositional in that

there is usually an element of meaning added to the combination. Eg. strong tea.

Natural English Unnatural English...the fast train the quick trainfast food quick food

a quick shower a fast showera quick meal a fast meal

GENERAL NOUNS AND SIGNALLING NOUNS

Halliday and Hasan (1976: p. 274) describe this type of cohesion as ‘a small set of nouns having generalized reference within the major noun classes, those such as “human noun”, “place noun”, “fact noun” and the like.’

examples and classes:a) people, person, man, woman, child, boy, girl – human;b) creature – non-human animate;c) thing, object – inanimate concrete count;d) stuff – inanimate concrete mass;e) business, affair, matter – inanimate abstract;f) move – action;g) place – place;h) question idea – fact

COHESIVE CHAINS

cohesive ties do not operate in isolation, but combine together in cohesive chains

One day at this time Birkin was called to London. He was not very fixed in hisabode. He had rooms in Nottingham, because his work lay chiefly in that town. But often he was in London, or in Oxford. He moved about a great deal, his life seemed uncertain, without any definite rhythm, any organic meaning.

(from Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence)

In this extract we can see two major chains in operation, as follows:a) Birkin – he – his – he – his – he – he – hisb) London – Nottingham – that town – London – Oxford

COHESIVE CHAINS

a) Birkin – he – his – he – his – he – he – hisb) London – Nottingham – that town – London – Oxford

the links in a chain can be either grammatical (a) or lexical(b).

in any text, it is likely that different chains are operating simultaneously.

two types of chain: identity chains (a)similarity chains (b).

COHESIVE HARMONY

It is what makes a text coherent, there must be interaction between chains; the presence of multiple chains does not mean on its own

that a text will be coherent (chain interaction).

TANSKANEN’S APPROACH TO LEXICAL COHESION

Tanskanen views cohesion as a resource which communicators use to contribute towards coherence

The elements of her model are as follows:Reiteration Collocation

1. simple repetition2. complex repetition3. substitution4. equivalence5. generalisation6. specification7. co-specification8. contrast

1. ordered set2. activity-related collocation3. elaborative collocation

REITERATION

1. simple repetitionapplies to items of an identical form or with a difference in

grammatical form 2. complex repetitionconcerns items which are identical but serve different

grammatical functions or are not identical but share a lexical morpheme.

3. substitutionsubstitution, like repetition, also includes pronouns

REITERATION

4. equivalencebasically corresponds to synonymy. The use of the different

term is to acknowledge the textual basis for the classification of items, as opposed to applying a ready-made system.

5. generalisationcorresponds to what other linguists refer to as

superordinates,

REITERATION

6. specificationis the counterpart of generalisation, usually referred to as

metonymy, the parts of a whole. 7. co-specificationrefers to what are elsewhere referred to as co-metonyms or

co-hyponyms. 8. contrastcorresponds to what in other systems is referred to as

antonymy.

COLLOCATION

Tanskanen defines this in terms of relationships established through habitual co-occurrence.

1. ordered setsets such as months of the year, days of the week and colours 2. activity-related collocationitems which relate to each other in terms of an activity: meals

– eat, ciphers – decode and car – drive 3. elaborative collocationcatch-all category for those items which are part of neither

ordered sets nor activity relations.

PARALLELISM

Parallelism is where elements – be they syntactic, lexical or phonological – of one clause are repeated, often for stylistic effect, in a following clause or clauses.

a. One small step for man. One giant step for mankind.

(statement made by the first man on the moon) b. And so my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for

you. Ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: Ask not what America will do for you,

but what together we can do for the freedom of man.(from US President J.F. Kennedy’s inaugural speech)

PARALLELISM

Cheese and Onion DipPut the yoghurt and soup mix into the bowl and process

until well blended. Allow to stand for 30 minutes. Add the cheese and seasoning and process until smoothly blended. Transfer to a serving bowl and chill. Serve garnished with chopped chives.

End of class 03