Lesson 5: cohesion (using linguistic devices: linkers, lexis etc) and coherence in discourse objectives

Discourse analysis

LESSON 5: COHESION (USING LINGUISTIC DEVICES: LINKERS, LEXIS ETC) AND COHERENCE IN DISCOURSE
Objectives:

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  to enable students to differentiate coherence and cohesion
  
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  to raise students’ awareness of how cohesion contributes to coherence in text
  
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  to raise students’ awareness of how cohesion is created through: reference, conjunction, ellipsis, substitution and lexis, including cohesive nouns
  

Task 1: Reading
Read the text and raise your awareness on coherence and cohesion.

In systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and in discourse analysis, there exist two notions, which are sometimes confused: coherence and cohesion. In this post we would like to clarify any potential confusion by defining the terms and by providing examples.

Coherence (from Lat. “cohaerere” – to stick together) can be understood in a wide sense and in a narrow sense. In a wide sense, coherence is the semantic structure which helps to unite several sentences into a holistic text. In a narrow sense, coherence is the connection brought about by reader’s/listener’s knowledge that helps him/her to understand any given discourse (e.g. through the knowledge of the context in which the discourse is unfolding). Coherence has to do with mental processes and cultural knowledge rather than any explicit discourse markers such as deictic words or linking words (Bussmann, 1998).

Example 1:

Tom: May I have some more?
Helen: Yes, of course, any time you want more, just go ahead.
In this example, Tom does not mention what exactly he wants, but through the context of the situation Helen knows that he is speaking about perogies (Tom has just finished a plate of perogies). Thus, despite the fact that Tom is not mentioning explicitly what he wants, his discourse is coherent as is Helen’s (who is not mentioning perogies either).

Example 2:

[A newspaper article headline and a lead to it] A NEW AMAZING RECORD SET. Solomon University students have cooked the biggest perogi. A whole weekend has been spent in hard work.
Similarly, in example 2, there are no textual indicators pointing at the relationships between the sentences. However, it is still easy to understand the text based on the semantics and logical order in which the sentences are organized. Therefore, this text is coherent.