Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

partly influenced by each individual reader’s experience, background and social 
and cultural context. Meaning interpretation does not, therefore, lie in pure 
encoding and decoding of the messages and has to be considered in relation 
to the above-mentioned. Coherence and cohesion are interconnected but not 
necessarily interdependent.
Cohesive devices, both grammatical and lexical, have been shown to further 
contribute to coherence, and it is mainly their interplay that makes a newspaper 
report a diverse, effective and coherent whole. Their repertoire and frequency of 
occurrence is determined mainly by the discourse type and also the main theme. 
In 
verdict reports endophoric reference has been identified as the main means 
of grammatical cohesion. The identity of the participants has to be established 
as early as possible but not necessarily by the person’s name in the first place; 
where effective, the first mention of the referent is done via his/her social role. 
Another crucial means of grammatical cohesion employed in verdict reports is 
the consistent use of the active voice, which helps to assign the full responsibility 
for the killing to the killer. 

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Out of lexical cohesive devices, mainly lexical replacement and repetition 
are employed in the reports under investigation. Apart from their cohesive role 
lexical means and naming strategies have been shown to have a wide social and 
cultural potential as they may encourage a certain meaning interpretation or 
evoke a particular type of response from the audience and also reinforce various 
social and cultural stereotypes.