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

Cohesion “is the connection that results when the interpretation of a textual element is dependent on another element in the text. […] Cohesion refers to the connection that exists between elements in the text” (Renkema, 2004, p. 49).

“Cohesion is produced by (a) the repetition of elements of the text, e.g. recurrence, textphoric, paraphrase, parallelism; (b) the compacting of text through the use of devices such as ellipsis; (c) the use of morphological and syntactic devices to express different kinds of relationships such as connection, tense, aspect, deixis, or theme-rheme relationships” (Bussmann, 1998, p. 199).

Example 3:

James likes yellow apples. He eats them every day.
In example 3, the interpretation of “he” depends on another element in the text (i.e. “James”). Similarly, the interpretation of “them” depends on “yellow apples”. In this case, cohesion is achieved by the use of personal pronouns “he” and “them”.
Example 4:
Ann is not going to Ukraine soon. Ann has just returned from there.
In example 4, cohesion is achieved through the use of the deictic word “there” which relies on another element of the text, the noun “Ukraine”.

The important difference between coherence and cohesion is that coherence relies on semantics of a given text as well as cultural knowledge and the overall context in which discourse is unfolding. There is no explicit manifestation of textual coherence in a text itself. Coherence is rather deduced from a text.

Cohesion, in turn, starts with concrete textual elements which are then built upon to produce the effect of cohesion. Cohesion is often manifested through the use of such “devices” as pronouns (e.g. I, he, she, it) and deictic words (e.g. here, there, then).

References

1. 
   Bussmann, H. (Ed.). (1998). Routledge dictionary of language and linguistics; translated and edited by Gregory Trauth and Kerstin Kazzazi. London: Routledge.
   
2. 
   Renkema, J. J. (2004). Introduction to Discourse Studies. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Pub.
   

Iaroslav