Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

6 Conclusions
The aim of this study was to explore the role of indexical devices in establishing 
cohesive relations in written academic discourse. The findings showed that in the 
material under investigation personal pronouns and demonstratives occur with 
significant frequency and that they create 
cohesive links at the local and global 
level of discourse, thus contributing to the perception of coherence in research 
articles.
The analysis of writer and reader pronouns 
I/we
and 
you
has evidenced that 
they enhance the continuity of the mental representations of the writer and the 
reader and thus enhance dialogicity and the perception of coherence at the global 
level of discourse. By creating anaphoric cohesive relations third person pronouns 
create local cohesive chains which foster coherent discourse organization at the 
level of individual paragraphs. The contribution of demonstrative pronouns and 
determiners to discourse coherence is based on their discourse deictic function, 
which allows them to establish local cohesive links with larger stretches of 
discourse. When used as determiners demonstratives co-occur with shell nouns, 
which can convey evaluative meanings and thus express the opinion of the 
author on the issue under consideration. The use of 
this
with deictic nouns such 
as 
paper
, 
study
or 
research
fosters discourse organization at the macro-level and 
thus contributes to the perception of global coherence.
While this study has explored the contribution of personal pronouns and 
demonstratives to the perception of cohesion and coherence in research articles, 
there are many more indexical devices that play an important role in the construal 
of discourse coherence. Further studies are needed to investigate fully the 
interplay of indexical devices in academic discourse and to consider disciplinary 
and cross-cultural variation.

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