Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

1 Introduction: Coherence in spoken discourse
Authentic spoken interaction, which can be characterized by the
permanent 
negotiation of meaning between all discourse participants in a given 
communicative situation (e.g. Povolná 2009, 2010), is governed by two main 
principles: 1. speakers co-operate and 2. speakers take turns (Stenström 1994). 
The process of turn-taking necessarily implies interactants’ attempts to arrive 
at coherent interpretation and understanding of the message to be conveyed. 
In this ongoing co-operative achievement participants can be helped by some 
guiding signals such as what is probably most typically referred to in the relevant 
literature as ‘discourse markers’ (DMs). (For a broad discussion on the terms 
frequently used in the discussions on DMs, cf. Povolná 2008.) 
These guiding signals are used by the current speaker mostly intentionally in 
order to foster the smooth 
flow of interaction, which entails above all the hearer’s 
adequate interpretation and understanding of the message to be communicated 
(cf. ‘the process of efficient communication’ in Miššíková 2007). Such signals 
“indicate the underlying structure of the discourse or the underlying functions 
of individual utterances” (Stubbs 1983: 178) and therefore, it is argued, they 
become crucial for the achievement and maintenance of discourse coherence.
In an ideal case, the hearer’s interpretation and understanding of the message 
comes as close as possible to the speaker’s communicative intentions, which 
means that the hearer’s understanding is in agreement with what the current 
speaker intends to convey in a given conversational situation (cf. ‘conversational 
coherence’ in Lenk 1995). Consequently, it becomes clear that speakers’ attempts 
at achieving adequate and coherent interpretation in the permanent process of 
negotiation of meaning between discourse participants are closely connected 
with the establishment and maintenance of discourse coherence, which is crucial 
for any human communication, including spoken interaction which takes place 
in academic settings, as is the case of the data under examination in this chapter 
(cf. coherence as one of the seven standards of textuality in de Beaugrande and 
Dressler 1981).
In agreement with Mey, it is believed that “intuitively, we are able to 
distinguish coherent talk from incoherent babbling” (2001: 153). In everyday 
communication, even unexpected reactions come as no surprise “once we are 
able to place them in their proper sequence, either in physical reality or in the 
context of the discourse” (ibid.: 156). Accordingly, it is not a relationship between 
utterances, but rather between the actions produced with those utterances that 
establishes the coherence or incoherence of spoken discourse.
Since coherence is understood here in conformity with Bublitz (1988, 1999) 
as a
dynamic, hearer/reader-oriented, comprehension-based and interpretative 

---

61
notion, i.e. how participants in a given communicative situation interpret what 
the current speaker wants to communicate, it follows that coherence is not a state, 
but a process (Tárnyiková 2002: 56). Coherence is not static, but dynamic and, as 
discussed, for example, in Povolná (2009), it comes into being only in the process of 
interaction, which can be
characterized by the
permanent negotiation of meaning 
between all discourse participants: in agreement with his/her comprehension 
abilities and social and cultural background knowledge, each participant creates 
his/her own interpretation and understanding of what is being conveyed in 
speech. Moreover, each interlocutor’s interpretation and understanding of the 
message influences the way he/she communicates and tries to formulate his/
her contributions to the further development of the communication. These, in 
turn, influence further contributions uttered by the other participants in a given 
interaction and so forth, since spoken communication is a co-operative process 
in which “each contribution should be treated as part of the negotiation of ‘what 
is being talked about’” and, moreover, “it is speakers, and not conversations or 
discourses, that have ‘topics’” (Brown and Yule 1983: 94).
Since coherence is not an inherent quality of discourse, but only relative and 
a matter of interpretation, any spoken interaction can be considered coherent 
if it is understood to be coherent by the participants in a given communicative 
situation. “A text is not coherent in itself but is understood as coherent in an 
actual context” (Bublitz 1988: 32). Although coherence is based on the language 
means used, it is also dependent on additional information provided by the 
entire situational context, i.e. linguistic co-text, social and cultural environment, 
communicative principles and conversational maxims and the interpreter’s 
encyclopaedic knowledge, the importance of which in the understanding and 
adequate interpretation of discourse is discussed, for example, in Miššíková 
(2005: 85-87). 
Hence, it follows that all the elements of the act of communication should be 
taken into consideration in any appropriate investigation into verbal interaction, 
since “they constitute the factors that determine the character of the exchange of 
meaning in the context of the communicative situation” (Dontcheva-Navratilova 
2004: 26). 
Since it is not texts but rather people that cohere when texts are interpreted 
and understood, it can even be stated that for one and the same text there exist 
a speaker’s/writer’s, a hearer’s/reader’s and an analyst’s coherence, which may 
or may not be identical (Bublitz 1999: 2). In addition, since each listening to/
reading of a text is performed with a particular communicative intention and in 
a particular context, the interpretation of the same text by the same hearer/reader 
or analyst on different occasions need not be identical.
It should be noted that the different planes of discourse, i.e. ideational, 
interpersonal and textual (Halliday and Hasan 1989), may contribute to overall 

---

62
discourse coherence in varying degrees, “according to context, genre and the 
purpose of discourse” (Dontcheva-Navratilova 2009: 100). Thus in a highly 
interactive and dialogic type of discourse such as face-to-face spoken interaction, 
for which overt negotiation of meaning is typical, coherence is negotiated on the 
spot (cf. e.g. Povolná 2010) and the interpersonal plane of discourse receives 
greater prominence, while in a less interactive and rather monologic type of 
discourse such as written academic texts (e.g. research articles), where no overt 
negotiation of meaning is possible, the textual plane of discourse becomes more 
significant; therefore in less interactive types of discourse coherence needs to be 
enhanced by certain overt guiding signals such as text organizers (cf. Chapter 
Two of this volume).
With regard to what has been stated above, we might say that in order to 
achieve his/her communicative goals, the current speaker intentionally uses 
certain guiding signals such as DMs to suggest to his/her hearer(s) a preferred 
line of interpretation of the ongoing interaction which comes as close as 
possible to his/her own understanding. On the other hand, the hearer uses these 
signals as instructions on how to achieve discourse coherence and arrive at an 
interpretation which is coherent with the current speaker’s communicative goals, 
since coherence is not permanent; it is only a relative and context-dependent 
interpretative notion (Bublitz 1999: 2). The important role of certain guiding 
signals has been stressed, for example, by Aijmer (2002), who, calling them 
discourse particles, states that if they are absent or used wrongly, current 
hearers may have problems establishing a coherent interpretation of discourse. 
Discourse particles are used to make the relationships between speakers smooth, 
to create coherence and simplify the planning and organization of discourse, 
thus contributing to both the interpersonal and textual functions of language (cf. 
Halliday and Hasan 1989).