Coherence and Cohesion in English Discourse

Literary discourse

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CHAPTER FOUR
Coherence in literary discourse
Gabriela Miššíková
Abstract
The concept of coherence has tended to be regarded as a textlinguistic notion (Toolan 
2012). It has been methodically discussed also in theories of discourse, namely in 
a social theory of discourse (Fairclough 2010). Taking an approach which blends 
methodologically and theoretically various areas of linguistic study,
 
this chapter aims 
at exploration of coherence in 
literary discourse. More specifically, it brings together 
relevant observations and references to reading and understanding implied messages in 
literary narratives from functional, pragmatic and cognitive linguistic perspectives.
 
Soon 
we proceed to an explication of the concept in narratology, regarding coherence as an 
important feature of (literary) narrative. Analysing aspects and subtypes of coherence 
in novels and short stories, we perceive literary discourse as a multi-layered structure 
where “the communicative characteristics of a literary text are the source of coherence 
of literary significance” (Kikuchi 2007: 2). The chapter also addresses some problematic 
issues, such as the notion of literariness and literary discourse as resulting in a type of 
reading different from that studied in mainstream 
discourse processing research (cf. Miall 
2002). The relevance of pragmatic concepts of cooperativeness and politeness in the study 
of coherence in literary narratives is further discussed; examples of literary discourse 
are provided to illustrate specific stages and types of 
inferential processes. The chapter 
proceeds to implementing recent findings of research in cognitive psychology as pertaining 
to processes of the reading and comprehension of discourse and to the ways textual 
information is stored in, and retrieved from, memory (cf. van Dijk 1978) and concludes in 
a discussion of the dominance of coherence in particular elements of the generic structure 
of literary narrative as closely related to genre and register characteristics.