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Antonio Fruttaldo

PhD student in ESP

[e-mail]

Department of Political Science

University of Naples ‘Federico II’

An Introduction to Cohesion and Coherence

1. What is a text?

In linguistics the word ‘text’ is used to refer to “any passage, spoken or

written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole” (Halliday &

Hasan 1976: 1).

But, does this mean that every specimen of our own language constitutes

a text? Thus, more appropriately, we can define a text as “a communicative

occurrence which meets […] the standards of textuality” (de Beaugrande &

Dressler 1981: 3). Three main standards of textuality can be distinguished:

a) Cohesion, which “[...] concerns the ways in which the components of

the surface text, i.e. the actual words we hear or see, are mutually

connected within a sequence” (de Beaugrande & Dressler 1981: 3).

b) Coherence “[...] concerns the ways in which the components of the

textual world, i.e. the configuration of concepts and relations which

underlie the surface text, are mutually accessible and relevant” (de

Beaugrande & Dressler 1981: 3).

c) Intentionality, that is to say, “[...] the text producer’s attitude that the

set of occurrences should constitute a cohesive and coherent text

instrumental in fulfilling the producer’s intentions, e.g., to distribute

knowledge or to attain a goal specified in a plan” (de Beaugrande &

Dressler 1981: 3).

2. Cohesion

Cohesion can be defined as “a set of lexicogrammatical systems that have

evolved specifically as a resource for making it possible to transcend the

boundaries of the clause” (Halliday 2014: 603).

EXOPHORIC

REFERENCE

CATAPHORIC

ENDOPHORIC

ANAPHORIC

ELLIPSIS

GRAMMATICAL

SUBSTITUTION

CONJUNCTION

COHESION

REPETITION

SYNONYMS

LEXICAL

SUPERORDINATES

GENERAL WORDS

2.1 Grammatical cohesion

2.1.1 Reference

References are resources to refer to a participant or to a circumstantial

element whose identity is recoverable. Hence, reference is the act of “using

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referring expressions to refer to referents in the context” (Cutting 2002: 9).

Speakers use linguistic forms, known as referring expressions, to enable

hearers to identify the entity being referred to, which is in turn known as the

referent.

We can distinguish between two main type of references:

- exophoric reference, that is, when there is no previous mention of the

referent in the text and it is dependent on the context outside the text

for its interpretation:

(1) Nearly 2½ years after Fukushima suffered a meltdown in the wake of a

massive tsunami, the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) is struggling to

contain new leaks of highly radioactive water flowing from the plant.

(The Fallout Grows At Fukushima, The Time: September 16, 2013)

- endophoric reference, on the other hand, refers to referents which can

be found in the same text. Endophora are generally used to avoid

unnecessary repetition. We can distinguish between two types of

endophoric reference:

a) anaphoric reference → it links back to something that went before

in the text:

(2) On Sept. 3 the Japanese government announced that it would take over the

cleanup and spend nearly $500 million on an underground ice wall and

other measures that would hopefully halt the leaks of radioactive water.

(The Fallout Grows At Fukushima, The Time: September 16, 2013)

b) cataphoric reference → it links forward to a referent in the text that

follows:

(3) In his first state-of-the-nation address, on Sept. 2, the Mexican President

said this could be the year the country “dared to take off.”

(How Enrique Peña Nieto Wants to Transform Mexico, The Time:

September 16, 2013)

2.1.2 Substitution

Substitution holds the text together by avoiding repletion. It tends to be

endophoric, that is, the noun phrase being substituted is usually in the text:

(4) Ready, Set, Acquire How big companies build their future by buying little ones

(The Time: September 16, 2013; bold in the original text)

2.1.3 Ellipsis

Also in the case of ellipsis, it is mainly used to avoid repetition and it

depends on the hearer or reader’s being able to retrieve the missing words

from the surrounding context:

(5) As a result, the U.S. might be inching into a complex civil war, all the while

denying that it is doing so.

(Words Have Consequences, The Time: September 16, 2013)

2.1.4 Conjunction

Conjunctions are resources which connect messages via addition,

comparison, temporality and causality:

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(6) The decision to have a child or not is a private one, but it takes place, in America at

least, in a culture that often equates womanhood with motherhood.

(None Is Enough, The Time: September 16, 2013)

2.2 Lexical Cohesion

2.2.1 Repetition

Repetition is simply repeated words or word-phrases, threading through the

text. While substitution and ellipsis avoid repetition, lexical repetition

exploits it for stylistic effect:

(7) Russia is what Russia does.

(The World According To Vladimir Putin, The Time: September 16, 2013)

2.2.2 Synonyms

Instead of repeating the exact same word, a speaker or a writer can use

another word which means the same or almost the same. Again, this lexical

strategy allows language users to avoid repetition:

(8) His [Bashar Assad’s] military is destroying Syrian cities held by antiregime rebels

[…] and his forces are slaughtering armed opponents and civilians alike.

(The Cult Of Assad, The Time: September 16, 2013)

2.2.3 Superordinates

Superordinates are another way of avoiding repetition by using:

a) hyponymy → a word or a word-phrase whose semantic field is

included within that of another word; a particular sub-class of a higher

class. In (8), ‘opponent’ is the hyponym of the word ‘civilian’;

b) hypernymy → a word or a word-phrase whose semantic field is more

generic than a given word; the higher class of a particular sub-class. In

(8), the noun ‘civilian’ is the hypernym of the noun ‘opponent’;

c) meronymy → a part of the whole (for instance, a ‘finger’ is a

meronym of ‘hand’ when the latter is used in order to refer to the

latter).

2.2.4 General words

General words can be general nouns, such as ‘thing’, ‘stuff’, ‘place’,

‘person’, ‘woman’, ‘man’, etc., or general verbs, such as ‘do’ or ‘happen’,

which are higher level superordinates: they are the umbrella terms that can

cover almost everything. General nouns and verbs do not carry much

information in themselves: they mostly depend on the context for their

actual, specific meaning. Hence, they are used only when hearers and

readers can identify what is being referred to from the rest of the text (or

speakers/writers can also exploit this lack of information carried out by these

nouns and verbs so as not to reveal too much information).

3. Coherence

Coherence can be defined as “the process whereby a reading position is

naturalized by texts for listeners/readers” (Martin 2001: 35). In other words,

coherence is “a semantic property of discourse formed through the

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interpretation of each individual sentence relative to the interpretation of

other sentences, with “interpretation” implying interaction between the text

and the reader” (van Dijk 1980: 93).

References

Cutting, J. 2002. Pragmatics and Discourse: A Resource Book for Students.

London & New York: Routledge.

Halliday, M.A.K. 2014

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. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London

& New York: Routledge.

Halliday, M.A.K. / Hasan, R. 1976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman.

de Beaugrande, R. / Dressler, W.U. 1981. Introduction to Text Linguistics.

London: Longman.

Martin, J.R. 2001. Cohesion and Texture. In Schriffin, D. / Tanner, D. /

Hamilton, H. (eds). The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford:

Blackwell, 35-53.

van Dijk, T.A. 1980. Text and Context: Explorations in the Semantics and

Pragmatics of Discourse. London: Longman.