Cohesion, Coherence and Textuality

Cohesion, Coherence and Textuality
( Discourse Analysis )
( Level-7 )

Introduction
• Cohesion and coherence are terms used in discourse analysis
and text linguistics to describe the properties of written texts.
• Coherence and cohesion are essential for aiding readability
and idea communication.
Coherence is about the unity of the ideas
and
cohesion is the unity of structural elements.

Definitions
Cohesion:
Cohesion is the grammatical and lexical relationship between
different elements of a text which hold it together.
Coherence:
Coherence is a Latin word, meaning “to stick together.” In a
composition, coherence is a literary technique that refers to the
ways a text makes sense to readers and writer through the
relevance and accessibility of its ideas and theories.

Coherence
A semantic property of discourse formed through the interpretation of
each individual sentence related to the interpretation of other sentences,
with "interpretation" implying interaction between the text, the reader and
the writer.
A property that a reader will discern in the text.
Allows the reader to make sense of the text.
Coherence refers to the semantic unity created between the ideas,
sentences, paragraphs and sections in a piece of writing.

Coherence vs. Cohesion (features)
Coherence Cohesion
 Very general principle of
interpretation of language in
context.
 Fewer formal linguistic features e.g.
vocabulary choice.
 Relationships deal with text as a
whole.
 Based on primarily semantic
relationships.
 Errors much more obvious.
 Formal linguistic elements
e.g. repetition, reference.
 Semantic relationships between
sentences and within sentences.
 Determined by lexically and
grammatically overt relationships.
 More recognizable.

Examples of cohesion
 Use of a pronoun to refer back to an already-mentioned noun.
 Use of the definite article (the) to qualify a noun that has been already been
introduced with the indefinite article (a, an).
 Substitution of an already mentioned noun by a synonym or hyponym.
Here are examples of each:
 My friend's on the phone. He says he needs the drill that he lent us.
 When I looked out of the window yesterday I saw a man and a woman standing by
the gate. The man was wearing a hooded jacket and the woman was carrying a
baseball bat.
 There was so much delicious food on display, but I'm on a diet so I had to stick to
the salad.

Examples of Coherence
• There are many distinct features that help to create a sense of coherence.
Let’s look at an extended example and go through some of the features
that make it seem coherent.
Example:
Credit cards are convenient, but dangerous. People often get them in order to make
large purchases easily without saving up lots of money in advance. This is especially
helpful for purchases like cars, kitchen appliances, etc., that you may need to
get without delay. However, this convenience comes at a high price: interest rates.
The more money you put on your credit card, the more the bank or credit union
will charge you for that convenience. If you’re not careful, credit card debt can
quickly break the bank and leave you in very dire economic circumstances!

• Topic Sentence. The paragraph starts with a very clear, declarative topic
sentence, and the rest of the paragraph follows that sentence. Everything in the
paragraph is tied back to the statement in the beginning.
• Key terms. The term “credit card” appears repeatedly in this short paragraph.
This signals the reader that the whole paragraph is about the subject of credit
cards. Similarly, the word convenience (and related words) are also peppered
throughout. In addition, the key term “danger” appears in the topic sentence and
is then explained fully as the paragraph goes on.
• Defined terms. For most readers, the terms in this paragraph will be quite clear
and will not need to be defined. Some readers, however, might not understand the
term “interest rates,” and they would need an explanation. To these readers, the
paragraph will seem less coherent!
• Clear transitions. Each sentence flows into the next quite easily, and readers can
follow the line of logic without too much effort.

Cohesive Devices?
Cohesive devices, sometimes called linking words, linkers, connectors,
discourse markers or transitional words and these are words or phrases
that show the relationship between paragraphs or sections of
a text or speech.
Some examples of Cohesive Devices
There are many examples of cohesive devices, they can be grouped by
category.
If you want so show similarity, you can use; and, also, too, similarly,
equally, identically and important.
If you want to introduce an item in a series, you can use first, in the first
place, * in the second place, then, in addition, finally and last.

Halliday & Hasan's Taxonomy of
Cohesive Devices
Halliday & Hasan identified general categories of cohesive
devices that signal coherence in texts.
1. Reference
2. Ellipsis
3. Substitution
4. Conjunction
5. Lexical Cohesion
Grammatical Cohesion

1- Reference
Reference is an act of directing or indicating something by
using some linguistic elements. It is a systemic relation. It is
considered as a particular type of cohesion.
e.g. pronouns, pro-modifiers.
Three types of reference:
1. Personal
2. Demonstrative
3. Comparative

1-Personal Reference
• A reference by means of person, includes;
• Personal pronouns (e.g., I, he, she)
• Possessive pronouns (e.g., mine, her’s, his)
• Possessive determiners (e.g., my, your, her)
• Examples:
English is considered as an international language. It is spoken by
more than 260 million people all over the world.

2- Demonstrative Reference
Essentially a form of verbal pointing where the speaker
identifies the referent by locating it on a scale of proximity.
In general,
this, these and here imply proximity to the speaker;
that, those and there imply distance from the speaker.

3- Comparative Reference
• Contributes to textual cohesion by setting up a relation of contrast.
• Expressed by such adjectives as same, identical, equal, adjectives in a
comparative degree such as bigger, faster and adverbs such as
identically, likewise, so, such etc.
e.g.
• She has a similarly furnished room to mine.
• The little dog barked as noisily as the big one.
• They asked me three equally difficult questions.

Manners of Reference
• On the basis of referring to a thing as identified in the
context of situation or as identified in the surrounding text
reference, appears in two forms or manners.
• Halliday and Hasan call within text cohesive ties
endophoric, and references, items outside the text
exophoric.

1- Exophora or Exophoric Reference.
2- Endophora or Endophoric Reference

1- Exophoric reference
Exophora is reference to something extra-linguistic, i.e., not in the
same text. It signals that reference must be made to context of situation.
For example; pronouns with words such as ‘this’ ‘that’ ‘there’ ‘here’ are
often exophoric.
e.g. Did the gardener water those plants?
It is quite possible that ‘those’ refers to earlier mention of those
particular plants in the discussion. It is also possible that it refers to the
environment in which the dialogue is taking place – to the context of
situation.

2- Endophoric Reference
Endophora is a term that means an expression which refers to
something intra-linguistics i.e. in the same text. For example in the
sentence:
e.g. I saw Ali yesterday, he was playing in the class.
Here, ‘he’ is an endophoric expression because it refers to something
already mentioned in the text “ Ali ”.

Two types of Endophora
Anaphora (backward reference)
The use of a word referring back to a word
used earlier in a text or conversation, to
avoid repetition, for example the
pronouns he, she, it, and they etc.
Example: The apple on the table was
rolled. It had been there for three days.
Cataphora (forward reference)
The use of a word or phrase that refers to
or stands for a later word or phrase.
Example: The pronoun he in:
He may be approaching 37, but Jeff has
no plans to retire from the sport yet.

2- Substitution
• It is replacement of one linguistic item by another i.e. replacement of one
word/phrase with another word/phrase.
• Used to avoid repetition of a particular item.
Types of Substitution:
1. Nominal: I will have two eggs on the bread.
I will have the same.
2. Verbal: I finally called on him. I also wanted to do (so) for a long time.
3. Clausal: Has everyone gone home?
I hope not.

3- Ellipsis
• It is the deletion or omission of a linguistic item.
• It can be interpreted as that form of substitution in which an item is replaced
by nothing or zero.
• An occasion when words are deliberately left out of a sentence, though the
meaning can still be understood.
Types of Ellipsis:
1- Nominal: Have another chocolate.
No thanks; that was my third (-).
2- Verbal: Have you been swimming? Yes, I have (-).
3- Clausal: Smith was going to take part but somebody telephoned and
asked to see him urgently so he had to withdraw.- Who (-)?

4- Conjunctions
• A word used to connect words, phrases, or clauses. Such as but, when,
and, so, or, unless etc.
• It marks certain relationships between clauses and sentences.
Types of conjunctions:
Example: For the whole day he climbed up the steep mountain side,
almost without stopping.
And in all this time he met no one. ►Additive
Yet he was hardly aware of being tired. ►Adversative
So by the night time the valley was far below him.► Causal
Then, as dusk fell, he sat down to rest. ►Temporal

Two main types of conjunctions
Coordinating conjunctions Subordinating conjunctions
 Connect words, phrases, or clauses of
equal grammatical rank.
 like; for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so etc.
(FANBOYS)
Example:
This batch of mushroom stew is
savory and delicious.
 Connect clauses that are of
subordinate importance to the
independent clause or to some
element in the main clause.
 Like; although, except, though, while,
if, whether as, as if, where, wherever,
in order that, so that, after, as long as,
as soon as before, since, when etc.
Example:
Though he seemed to be tired, he did
not refuse to go out.

5- Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesion is established through vocabulary. While reference, ellipsis
and conjunction tend to link clauses which are near each other in the text,
lexical cohesion tends to link much larger parts of the text.
Types of Lexical Cohesion
1. Reiteration
2. Collocation

1-Reiteration
A form of lexical cohesion which involves repetition, synonym or
near synonym, superordinate and a general noun.
 E.g. Pollution of our environment has occurred for centuries, but it has become a
significant health problem only within the last century. Atmospheric pollution contributes
to respiratory disease, and to lung cancer in particular. Other health problems directly
related to air pollutants include heart disease, eye irritation and so on. (Repetition)
 E.g. Henry has bought a new jaguar. He practically lives in the car. (Superordinate)
 E.g. I turned to the ascent of the peak. The climb is perfectly easy. (Synonym)
 E.g. There is a boy climbing that tree. The lad is going to fall if he doesn’t take care. (Near-
Synonym)

2- Collocation
• Cohesion that is achieved through the association of lexical
items that regularly co-occur.
• These lexical items or words tend to occur in similar
environments.
For instance
hair/comb, reader/writer, door/window, chair/table,
north/south, peace/war, bee/honey etc.
E.g. Why does this little boy wriggles all the time? Girls don’t
wriggle.

What Is Textuality?
• Textuality, in linguistics and literary studies is the property by which
successive sentences form a coherent text in contrast to a random
sequence.
• A. Neubert and G.M. Shreve (1992) define textuality as "the complex set of
features that texts must have to be considered texts.
• Textuality is a property that a complex linguistic object assumes when it
reflects certain social and communicative constraints."

Domains of Textuality
"The three basic domains of textuality . . . are texture, structure, and context.
 The term texture covers the various devices used in establishing continuity of sense and
thus making a sequence of sentences operational (i.e. both cohesive and coherent).
 "Another source from which texts derive their cohesion and acquire the necessary
coherence is structure. This assists us in our attempt to perceive
specific compositional plans in what otherwise would only be a disconnected sequence of
sentences. Structure and texture thus work together, with the former providing the outline,
and the latter fleshing out the details.
 "In dealing with structure and texture, we rely on higher-order contextual factors which
determine the way a given sequence of sentences serves a specific rhetorical purpose such
as arguing or narrating (i.e. becomes what we have called 'text')."
(Basil Hatim and Ian Mason, The Translator as Communicator.Routl0dge, 1997)

Conclusion
• Coherence: The property of unity in a written text that stems from the
relationship between its underlying ideas, and from the logical organization
and development of these ideas. A text has good coherence when ideas are
arranged in a logical order.
• Cohesion: The property of flow and connection in a written text that stems
from the linguistic links among its surface elements. A text has good
cohesion when each sentence is clearly linked to the next through language.
• Coherence and cohesion mean that all of the parts are connected logically
and linguistically to form a whole.

Cohesion, Coherence and Textuality

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