A Brief Analysis of Cohesion and Coherence in Text.doc

1、1A Brief Analysis of Cohesion and Coherence in TextAbstract: Cohesion and coherence are the two important factors which are used to link the language together. In order to create the coherence in the discourse, writers and speakers have to realize the relationship among cohesion and coherence and te

2、xt. This paper makes a research on it and is helpful for others. Key words: cohesion; coherence; text I. The definifion of cohesion and Coherence Cohesion is the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations which provide links between various parts of a text (Baker,1992: 180). Cohesion is th

3、e connectivity between sentences in a text. And a cohesive tie is the basic unit of cohesion and is made up of two items, an arrow and a target. (Ting Yen-Ren the target is the one which provides the information necessary to 2make that interpretation. Cohesion can be classified as the following. Hal

4、liday and Hasan (1976: 5) point out that cohesion is realized through grammar and partly through vocabulary. And there are four general devices of grammatical cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. Reference refers to “A participant or circumstantial element introduced at one p

5、lace in the text can be taken as a reference point for something that follows.” (Halliday, 1994: 309) To put it in a simple way, reference refers to the item (arrow) which directs listener to look elsewhere for its interpretation(target). Substitution is a linguistic token which is “the replacement

6、of one item by another.” (Halliday for one thing for another; to begin with; in the first place; next; then; finally. (2)Reinforcing: also; furthermore; moreover; in addition; whats more. (3)Apposition: in other word; for instance; for example; thats to say. (4)Result: consequently; hence; so; there

7、fore; as a result. (4)Concessive: anyhow; anyway; besides; however; nevertheless; though; yet; after all. (5)Temporal transition: meanwhile; meantime. In a word, conjunction items are essential to set up relations between clauses. They help a lot to construct coherence in text. Coherence is concerne

8、d with meaning rather than the structural properties of language. Other means than cohesion also contribute to coherence. Coherence is a term that usually refers to implicit or inferred relations in discourse, which, in contrast to cohesive ties, are not explicitly articulated. Cohesion and coherenc

9、e are the metafunction of Hallidays functional grammer, which are applicable and practicable. (Hallliday, 2002) When we talk about the text cohesion, we cannot help thinking of coherence. Indeed, coherence and 4cohesion are two different concepts. Generally speaking, according to Thompson, cohesion

10、refers to the linguistic devices by which the speaker and writer can signal the experiential and interpersonal coherence of the text, and thus a text phenomenon. On the other hand, coherence is in the mind of writer and reader: it is a mental phenomenon. (1966/2000:7). By my acknowledgement, I belie

11、ve that cohesion is a network of a text which can be seen but coherence is an entire meaning of a text which cannot be seen. From this point, a text realizes its coherence through cohesive devices. II. Cohesion and Coherence and Text The word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spok

12、en or written, of whatever length, that dose form a unified whole(haliday1976). Readers and hearers could find out whether the passage is meaningful, which has a unified construction,or it is just a set of unrelated words and sentences. All texts possess the property of texture. Writers and speakers

13、 would consciously try to create the coherence in text with a lot of coherence are crucial for the text. In 1976, halliday and hasan firstly proposed the concept of cohesion in English. They said that the concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist 5within the

14、 text,and that define it as a texthalliday1976. Then a number of researchers began to turn their eyes to the study of coherence in text, and to develop the theory given by halliday and hasan. Later, Thompson also gave his definition of cohesion. He suggested that cohesion refers to the linguistic de

15、vices by which the speaker can signal the experiential and interpersonal coherence of the text , and is thus a textual phenomenonthompson;2005. It is clear that in one way, cohesion is a semantic term, which establishes a unified meaning in the text; on the other hand, it is a set of word forms used

16、 to link one sentence with the other. No matter in writing or speaking,people would like to use a great deal of cohesive markers to unify the passage. They intend to construct coherence in meaning. Readers nad hearers always assume coherence in discourse. Van Dijk has ever said that the notion of co

17、nnectedness apparently covers one aspect of discourse coherence, viz the immediate, pairwise relations between subsequent proposition taken as wholeVan Dijk;1980. There is no doubt cohesion is the most important linguistic resource in constructing coherent meaning. A text has texture and this is dis

18、tinguishes it from something that is not a text (Brown we have to construct the text along the same systematic. Cohesive devices make it possible for us to gain a coherent text. It is useful for us to analyze the process of cohesion. It helps us a lot with our reading; and it 10facilitates our writi

19、ng as well. As thompson said, coherence is in the mind of writer and reader;it is a mental phenomenon and can not be identified or quantified in the same way as cohesionThompson;2005. Cohesion is the main means used to express coherence in any text. Therefore it is crucial for us to take advantage o

20、f cohesive devices in creating a text. References 1 Halliday. An Introduction to Functional Grammar M. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2006. 2 Halliday and Hasan. Cohesion in English M. London: Longman, 1976 3 Thompson. Introducing Functional Grammar M. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005 4 Van Dijk. Tex and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse M. London: Longman, 1997.