Teach english new edition r

Text and discourse
Much of this chapter has dealt with language at the level of words and 
utterances 
(sentences, 
questions, etc in speech). However, as we saw at the very beginning, utterances are generally 
part of a longer stretch of spoken discourse. In writing, sentences are usually part of a 
longer text. In order to be an effective language user, therefore, speakers and writers need to 
be able to operate with longer texts (stretches of discourse) as well as with words, phrases, 
sentences and questions.
We will now look at cohesion, coherence and the special features of spoken face-to-face 
discourse.
Cohesion
Cohesion refers to the devices we use to stick text together - the way we connect ideas and 
sentences together. 
Lexical cohesion 
involves using words and groups of words throughout
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Describing language
a text to bind a topic together. 
Grammatical cohesion, 
on the other hand, uses pronouns, 
articles and tense agreement, among other devices, for the same purpose. In the following 
passage, describing a prim ary teacher’s first day with a new class, lexical cohesion is achieved 
by the use of a group of related topic-words (‘thuglets’, ‘boys’, ‘girls’, ‘young lad’, ‘children’).
Clare knew that her class had a high proportion o f ‘thuglets’ (the word she used 
for boys and girls whose behaviour could cause problem s). They had acquired a 
fearsome reputation in the previous two years. But this did not stop her from w alking 
towards the classroom with a feeling of eager anticipation. She was a teacher, after 
all. This is what she did.
The children were w aiting for her. Som e of them were sitting quietly at their desks, 
but one young lad was standing at the back of the room, his arms crossed and a 
look of sulky petulance on his face.
This is how it starts, she thought as she said ‘Good morning, children,’ and waited 
for them to reply.
Grammatical cohesion is achieved by the placing of the account in the past tense, but also 
by the use of words like ‘her’ in sentence 1 referring back to ‘Clare’, ‘they’ at the beginning 
of sentence 2 to refer to the ‘thuglets’, and ‘she’ at the beginning o f sentence 4 referring back 
to Clare again. Such