Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

6 A functional approach to genre and register
Understanding coherence as a text quality determined by (broader) genre and 
(more specific) 
register characteristics we shall now take a functional approach 
to explain register as a coherent part of the generic structure of narrative. We 
implement Halliday’s view of interpersonal and textual functions of language 
(cf. Halliday 1973), conceiving them in agreement with Leech and Short (2007) 
as matters of pragmatics and rhetoric, that is “ways in which users implement the 
cognitive and ideational code of language for communicative ends” (Leech and 
Short 2007: 168). In our discussion of genre and register it is useful to distinguish 
explicit means that are used to stitch a text together – referred to as cohesion –
from the consistent schema of psychologically integrated meanings of a text, 
commonly referred to as coherence.
It is also worth noting here that sometimes coherence can be achieved by 
cohesion, but not always. By inference we can make a coherent text out of a 
non-cohesive one: we can infer the meaning of a text from a piece of information 
given in a text whose cohesive links are incomplete or lacking. We can think 
about a short utterance, such as ‘I had to leave early in the morning. At least it 
wasn’t freezing in the night’ as lacking overt cohesive links except the lexical 
cohesion created by the antonymy between ‘morning’ and ‘night’. However, by 

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supplying the information that I had to take my old car which has problems with 
its starter in freezing weather we are able to make a coherent text out of this non-
cohesive one.
One of the major theoretical concepts in the systemic functional tradition 
is that of 
genre. Genre is regarded as a wider concept which comprises 
register 
as the representation of the speaker’s personality (his occupation, professional 
interests, social role in communication, etc.) via language use. The speaker’s use 
of language correlates with the given context and situation but also reflects his 
social role in discourse: from a socially and situation-rooted discourse we infer 
not only conceptual meaning but also draw information about the speaker – his 
occupation, specialization, social background, etc. In this sense genre is a wider 
concept and includes also variants of contexts and discourse above the sentence 
level. Goatly uses the term as “Genre = Register + Structure” (Goatly 2012: 
143).
The concepts of genre and register are of great importance in the exploration 
of coherence. A genre is a structured event; its particular ordering of elements 
is reflected in the 
discourse structure, such as (literary) narratives, poems or 
magazine articles and ads. Modern views on genre emphasize its social function 
and cultural specificity. Martin (as quoted in Goatly 2012: 149) sees 
genre as 
“the staged purposeful social process through which a culture is realised in 
language”.
Thus the 
generic structure of narrative can be seen as comprising specific 
social aspects and cultural contexts. We shall now consider the elements of 
narrative structure (i.e. abstract, orientation, complicating action, resolution, 
coda, and evaluation; cf. Labov 1972) and their register features with respect to 
their role in establishing coherence in narration.
The role of abstract is to introduce the story before the actual narration begins. 
It enhances coherence by capturing the ‘essence’ of the story and bridging the 
narrative to the preceding conversation. The 
register will reflect the narrator’s 
social status and cultural background.
The orientation gives information about the time and location, situations, and 
persons and activities they get involved in. As the narrative begins the (cohesion 
by) reference is in action (hence the typical use of adverbials and progressive 
-ing forms of verbs) facilitating coherence as a purposeful meaning-making 
process. For example:
(12) 
 It 
was
 early morning
. I was
 
riding in the Lincoln sedan of Dr Asa Breed. 
I 
was vaguely ill, still a little drunk from the night before. Dr Breed was 
driving. Tracks of a long-abandoned trolley system kept 
catching the 
wheels of his car.
(VK: 27)

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Similarly to abstract the orientation element is not compulsory but is often used 
in narratives.
The most essential elements in a narrative are the complicating action and the 
resolution. The following example is a short narrative which comprises several 
clauses (typically in simple present or simple past tense) describing a series of 
linked events in a chronological way:
(13) 
 From nowhere a knot of reporters appeared; they gathered around Freud 
and yelled questions, mostly in German. He answered with good humour 
but seemed baffled that an interview should be conducted in so haphazard a 
fashion. At last Brill shooed them away and pulled me forward.
(RJ: 11)
The ordering is principal in a narrative genre: the reversed order of the clauses 
would 
lead to different interpretations (or confusion).
The last clauses of the narrative bringing the sequence of actions to an end 
create the resolution, for example ‘At last Brill shooed them away and pulled me 
forward’ in Example (13).
The coda completes the narrative and brings the reader back from the past 
to the conversational present. It has the opposite function to that of the abstract. 
The transition to the present is usually signalled by a change of tenses (and time 
adverbs). Consider the sense of completion and the implied message in the final 
paragraph of a novel:
(14) 
 Freud himself never took the satisfaction one would have expected from 
the success of psychoanalysis in this country. Mystifying his colleagues, he 
called Smith Ely Jelliffe a criminal. His ideas might be famous in America, 
he said, but they were not understood. ‘My suspicion of America’, Freud 
confided to a friend toward the end of his life, ‘is unconquerable’. 
(RJ: 
521-2)
The elements of narrative structure discussed above typically occur in a