Cohesion and Coherence Halliday | Dispense di Lingua Inglese

The word TEXT is used by linguistic to refer to any passage, spoken or written of whatever lenght. A text

may be prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may anything from a single proverb to a whole play or a

momentary cry for help too. For sure there are objective factors involved which are characteristic of a text.

The distinction between a text and a collection of unrelated sentences is really important. A text isn’t

something that is like a sentence, only bigger; a text is regarded as a SEMANTIC UNIT: a unit not of form

but of meaning. It does not consist of sentences, it is relized in them.

TEXTURE

The concept of ‘’texture’’ express the propertty of being a text. In two cohesive senntences the texture is

provided by the realtion that exists between them. (Parti da leggere) 1.1.2

TIES

The term refer to a single instance of cohesion. The different kinds of cohesive tie are:

• REFERENCE: relation between objects. A link that connect both: the first object is said to refer to

the second.

• SUBSTITUTION: replacement of a word or phrase with a filler such as ‘’one,so,do’’ to avoid

repetition.

• ELLIPSIS: the omission from a clause of one or more words.

• CONJUNCTION: part of a speech that connects words, phrases or clauses: ‘’or, but, and, because,

when, unless.’’

• LEXICAL COHESION

The concept of cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist in a text. Cohesion occurs when

interpretation of some element is dependent on that of another, The one presupposes the other.

Cohesion is expressed through the stratal organization of language which can be explained into 3 levels

of coding, or ‘’strata’’: the semantic (meanings); the lexicogrammatical (forms); and the phonological

and orthographic (expressions). Meanings are realized as forms and forms as expressions. In language

the more general meaning are expressed through the grammar, and the more specific through the

vocabulary. Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary.

Therefore we can refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. (example). We might add that

certain types og grammatical cohesion are expressed through the intonation system, in spoken English.

As we said the parts of a sentence or a clause obviously cohere with each other. One cannot change

text in the mid-sentence, so to speak. If one does, there will always be a break in the structure.

In a sentence the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, may be structurally related to

each other, or they may not.; it makes no difference to the meaning of the cohesive relation.

It is clear that cohesion in not just another name for discourse structure. The term ‘’discourse

structure’’ is used to refer to the structure of some unit higher than the sentence, for example the

paragraph. Instead cohesion refers to the range of possibilities that exist for linking something with

what has gone before. This happens through relations in MEANING. What we have to do is to show

how sentences, which are structurally independent one of another, may be linked together through

particular features.

But there is one specific kind of meaning relation that is critical for the creation of texture: that in

which one elementi s interpreted by refernce to another. What cohesion has to do with is the way in

which the meaning of the elements is interpreted. Where the interpretation of any item in the

discourse requires making reference to some other item in the discourse, there is cohesion. ( In poche

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The word TEXT is used by linguistic to refer to any passage, spoken or written of whatever lenght. A text may be prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may anything from a single proverb to a whole play or a momentary cry for help too. For sure there are objective factors involved which are characteristic of a text. The distinction between a text and a collection of unrelated sentences is really important. A text isn’t something that is like a sentence, only bigger; a text is regarded as a SEMANTIC UNIT: a unit not of form but of meaning. It does not consist of sentences, it is relized in them. TEXTURE The concept of ‘’texture’’ express the propertty of being a text. In two cohesive senntences the texture is provided by the realtion that exists between them. (Parti da leggere) 1.1. TIES The term refer to a single instance of cohesion. The different kinds of cohesive tie are:

REFERENCE: relation between objects. A link that connect both: the first object is said to refer to the second.
SUBSTITUTION: replacement of a word or phrase with a filler such as ‘’one,so,do’’ to avoid repetition.
ELLIPSIS: the omission from a clause of one or more words.
CONJUNCTION: part of a speech that connects words, phrases or clauses: ‘’or, but, and, because, when, unless.’’
LEXICAL COHESION The concept of cohesion refers to relations of meaning that exist in a text. Cohesion occurs when interpretation of some element is dependent on that of another, The one presupposes the other. Cohesion is expressed through the stratal organization of language which can be explained into 3 levels of coding, or ‘’strata’’: the semantic (meanings); the lexicogrammatical (forms); and the phonological and orthographic (expressions). Meanings are realized as forms and forms as expressions. In language the more general meaning are expressed through the grammar, and the more specific through the vocabulary. Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary. Therefore we can refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. (example). We might add that certain types og grammatical cohesion are expressed through the intonation system, in spoken English. As we said the parts of a sentence or a clause obviously cohere with each other. One cannot change text in the mid-sentence, so to speak. If one does, there will always be a break in the structure. In a sentence the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, may be structurally related to each other, or they may not.; it makes no difference to the meaning of the cohesive relation. It is clear that cohesion in not just another name for discourse structure. The term ‘’discourse structure’’ is used to refer to the structure of some unit higher than the sentence, for example the paragraph. Instead cohesion refers to the range of possibilities that exist for linking something with what has gone before. This happens through relations in MEANING. What we have to do is to show how sentences, which are structurally independent one of another, may be linked together through particular features. But there is one specific kind of meaning relation that is critical for the creation of texture: that in which one elementi s interpreted by refernce to another. What cohesion has to do with is the way in which the meaning of the elements is interpreted. Where the interpretation of any item in the discourse requires making reference to some other item in the discourse, there is cohesion. ( In poche

parole: se per capire una frase in un discorso, ho bisogno di cercarne altre all’interno del discorso che mi danno maggiore chiarezza, allora il testoè coeso, c’è coesione). ‘’ HE SAID SO ‘’. → This sentence is perfectly intelligible as it stands. We know what it means, we can ‘’decode’’ it semantically. Buti t is UNINTERPRETABLE, because we do not know who ‘’he’’ is or what he said. These show us that cohesion is a relational concept; it is not the presence of a particular class of item that is cohesive, but the relation between one item and another. One another formi t may take is that of conjunctions expressed by means of items such as: but, later on, in the case… The simplest form of cohesion is that in which the presupposed elementi s verbally explicit and is found in the immediately preciding sentence. There are two kinds of departure from this norm. First, presupposed element may belocated elsewhere, in an earlier sentence, or in a following one; secondly, it may not be found in the text at all. Cohesion as we have said is not a structural relation, it is unrestricted by sentence bounderies, it is simply the presupposition of something that has gone before. This form of presupposition, pointing BACK to some previous item, is known as ANAPHORA. If we find cohesive elements such as ‘’he’’ or ‘’one’’, they automatically implie the item in the immediately preceding sentence. If we have ‘’it’’, it also refers to the immediately preceding sentence, but another ‘’it’’ in that sentence obliges us to go back three, four or more sentences, stepping across a whole sequence of its, before finding the substantial element. Instead where we have conjunctions such as ‘’but, so, in that case, later on’’, the presupposition typically involves a passage longer than a single sentence. Now, we have considered only cohesion as an anaphoric relation. But the presupposition may go in the opposite direction, with the preupposed element following. This we shall refer to as CATAPHORA. The cataphoric reference is often signalled in writing with a colon: but although this has the effect of uniting the two parts into a single orthographic sentence, it does not imply any kind of structural relation between them. The colon is used solely to signal the cataphora, this being one of its principal functions. There remains one further possibility where the information required for interpreting some element in the text is not to be found in the text at all, but in the situation:

Did the gardener water those plants? It is quite possible that ‘’those’’ refers back to the preceding text, to some earlier mention of those particular plants in the discussion. This type of reference we shall call EXOPHORA, since it takes us outside the text altogether. Exophoric reference is not cohesive, since it does not bind the two elements together into a text. The line between exophoric and anaphoric reference is not always very sharp.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sound of music If the stage directions specify something like ‘’a grassy bank’’, then for the reader ‘’this’’ and ‘’here’’ become anaphoric; otherwise, they were exophoric. The significance of the exophoric is that where the key to interpretation is not ready to hand, in text or situation, the hearer or reader ‘constructs’ a context of situation in order to supply it for himself. So we supply the grassy bank in our imagination. Now we have to distinguish between cohesion as a relation in the system and cohesion as a process in the text. Directionality comes into it only if one of the elements in the cohesive realtion is by its nature cohesive; in this case there is a logical dependence and a opposition between the anaphora and the cataphora. But cohesion i salso a process that it is the instantiation of this relation in a text. A text unfolds in real time, and directionality is built into it.

There are 3 degrees of texture, and if we are examining language from this point of view, especially spoken language, we shall at times be uncertain as to whether a particular point marks a continuation of the same text or the beginning of a new one. A partial shift in the context of situation in the field or tenor is likely to be reflected in some way in the texture. Subject-matter is neither more nor less important than other features. Texture results from the combination of semantic configurations of two kinds: those of register and those of cohesion. There are 3 major functional-semantic cpomponents:

IDEATIONAL: is that part of the linguistic system which is concerned with the expression of ‘content’, with the function that language has of being about something. It has 2 parts: the experiential (context of culture) and the logical (which derive indirectly from experience)
INTERPERSONAL: component is concerned with the social, expressive and conative functions of language. His attitudes and judgements, his motive in saying anything at all. We can summerize by saying that the ideational component represent the speaker in his role as observer, while the interpersonal component represent the speaker in his role as intruder.
- TEXTUAL: this comprises the resources that language has for creating text for being operationally relevant, and cohering within itself and with context of situation. But the textual component also encorporates patterns of meaning which are realized outside the organization of the system. One of these is information structure, which is the ordering of the text, on the basis of the distinction into GIVEN and NEW : what the speaker is treating as information that is recoverable to the hearer ( GIVEN ) and what he is treating as non-recoverable ( NEW ). This aspect of the meaning of the text is realized in English by intonation, expresses as one TONE GROUP. The simplest and most genral forms of the cohesive relation are ‘’equals’’ and ‘’and’’: identity of reference and conjoining. The personal pronun ‘’he’’, the verb substitute ‘’do’’ and the adjunct ‘’nevertheless’’ are all text-forming agencies. A sentence displaying any of these features is an invitation to a text.

Cohesion and Coherence Halliday, Dispense di Lingua Inglese

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