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UNIT 1 COHESION AND TEXT: Cohesion is the complex of semantic relations that exist within a text and define it as a text. It does not concern only grammatical structure, but also semantic and lexical relations. Cohesion operates both within sentences (intra-sententially) and across sentences and clauses (inter-sententially). A text is a unit of language in use. It's not a grammatical unit like a sentence or a clause for example, and it's not even defined by its size. Sometimes a text is imagined to be some kind of super sentence or a grammatical unit larger than a sentence but still related to a sentence the same way a sentence is related to a clause (proposizione) and so on. But this is misleading because a text doesn't differ from a sentence because of its length but it regards a semantic unit, so not a unit of form but a unit of meaning. So it does relate to a sentence but not by size but by realization. A text does not consist of sentences but it's made through encoded sentences. So cohesion it's what makes the difference between a list of sentences and an actual text because it bonds sentences on all the levels of a language: - structural —> how the text is organized - semantic + bond between meanings - grammatical — pronouns, conjunctions, ecc.. - lexical + choices of vocabs with cohesion Cohesion refers to observable grammatical and lexical relations within the text. A cohesive relation is established when the interpretation of one element presupposes another element, creating what Halliday and Hasan call a cohesive tie. Coherence, by contrast, is not an intrinsic property of the text. It depends on the reader’s or listener’s ability to construct meaningful connections by drawing on background knowledge, shared assumptions and inferential processes. Coherence is therefore interpretative, context-dependent, and scalar: texts can be more or less coherent depending on how successfully meaning is negotiated. A text may be cohesive but not coherent, or coherent even with little explicit cohesion, as often happens in spontaneous spoken discourse. In order to be able to organize a text we need to know preliminary notions like: paradigmatic and syntagmatic meaning — A paradigm refers to the set of possible choices available at a given position in a linguistic structure. Paradigmatic relations operate along a vertical axis and concern selection. For example, in the sentence The cat is asleep on the couch, the choice of cat presupposes that alternatives such as dog, child or parrot were available. Verb forms such as eat / ate / eaten also belong to paradigmatic sets. A syntagm concerns the combination of linguistic elements in a linear sequence. Syntagmatic relations operate along a horizontal axis and determine how selected items are ordered and combined to form meaningful structures. In actual texts, what we directly observe is the syntagmatic axis — the sequence of words. Paradigmatic relations remain implicit as the set of alternatives that could have been chosen instead. SUMMARY: - Paradigmatic axe specifies the possible choices at a particular position of the syntagmatic axis - Syntagmatic axis controls the structure which is being elaborated — In a text, what is observed is the syntagmatic axis, while the paradigms are the total of what might have been chosen instead Sinclar, 2004, Trust the text Es. In “Portable Home” - Paradigm is the fact that the text begins with “I” instead of “Suzanna” - Syntagma is the fact that the verb in the past form “was” follows “I” — The clause can be divided into different types of group or phrase - Noun/nominal group - Verb group - Prepositional group - Adverbial group THE NOUN GROUP: The clause can be divided into different types of groups (or phrases): -. noun (nominal) group - verb group - prepositional group - adverbial group The noun group (gruppo nominale) is a group that has a noun or a pronoun as its centre. Differently from Italian, most modifiers of a noun occur before that noun. r A Es. A new colleague those two splendid old lecti trains The premodifiers are divided into evaluative pes Lap (epithets) and non-evaluative (classifiers) - Epithets are evaluative, they can only be adjectives + evaluative involving judging or calculating the quality, importance, amount, or value of something ES. new colleague, young man, long shower - Classifiers not evaluative, both noun and adjectives ES. portable home, native country, Whatfunctions do we find inthe min group? Classifier - independent clause + a clause which can stand alone as a complete sentence because it has both a subject and a predicate (=paratactic relation) - dependent clause — it cannot function alone and so cannot form a separate sentence but it can form it when joined with a main clause (=hypotactic relation) - non-finite clauses — centred around non-finite verb forms (such as -ing forms, infinities with to, or past participles such as gerund) + these types of clauses are always dependent — es. “we went around the table introducing ourselves” - imperative clause — are the only kind of clause that can include only one group, the verbal one —> because English is NOT a pro-drop language = it can't drop the noun group that plays the role of doer (one that takes an active part) of the Process in a clause. + es. “Hold on!”; “Please keep it down!” Since clauses form the core of grammar and meaning, they can be analysed from different perspectives: - Fromthe viewpoint of representation clauses express experiential and logical meaning through the configuration of Process, Participants and Circumstances within the individual clause and through relations of dependency and logico-semantic connection between multiple clauses. —> what's happening? who does what? when? why? - Fromthe view point of exchange clauses encodes interpersonal meanings through mood, modality and evaluative language, shaping interaction between speakers and listeners + what type of relation there is between the speaker and the listener? - Fromthe point of view of message the clause organises textual meanings, so the features that contribute to cohesion and guide how the clause functions within the wider text. —> how does the clause contributes to organize the informations in the sentence and in the text? AII this to say that clauses have different “jobs” so they can be analysed by different point of view which are related to the meaning of the clause based on the function it has. FROM CLAUSE TO THE TEXT: When moving from the clause to the text we are able to look at how language varies according to its context of use. The opposition formal vs informal is only a superficial effect of a deeper pattern of linguistic variation which can be described from two perspectives: - syinchronic perpsectve — language at a specific point in time - diachronic perspective — language change over time; this perspective includes several dimensions of influence — diatopic variation concerns geographical differences; diastratic variation reflects social or class-based distinctions; diamesic variation depends on the medium used (spoken vs written); and diatypic variation, crucial for this chapter, concerns variation across registers. Register — is a variety of language defined by its use in specific social situations. It depends on contextual factors such as who is communicating with whom, where and for what purpose. For this reason, formality or informality are not register themselves but consequences of register. — different registers lead to different linguistic choices depending on the activity type and expectations of the community involved. Close to this concept is the notion of genre + defined as a class of communicative events whose members share a recognizable set of communicative purposes whiting a given community. Genres shape and constraints choices of content, structure and stylistic features. Bakhtin classified various types of genre: - daily dialogue - everyday narration - writing - standard military command - elaborate and detailed order - business documents - commentary - scientific statements - all literary genres Genre conventions intersect with register and style: each text is simultaneously an instance of a genre, realized through a particular register, and shaped by stylistic preferences. Finally we got style — it refers to the manipulation of a language due to aesthetic purposes which is influenced by the speakers or writer's attitude toward a language. It reflects aesthetic preferences which are associated with particular authors or historical periods. CAREFUL — style involves creative and expressive choices so its boundaries with literary studies are not rigid: it is an interdisciplinary notion that borrows both objects and analytical tools from linguistics, rhetoric, and literary criticism. While register depends on social context and genre on communicative purpose, style expresses how language is artistically or personally shaped, and the three dimensions interact in any real text. COHESION, COHERENCE AND TEXTURE: In linguistics, as we said, a text is not defined by its size nor being by a “super sentence” but its' defined as a semantic unit + unit of meaning rather than of form. What makes a set of clauses a “text” is its TEXTURE — the property that allows it to operate as a coherent communicative object. It arises from the combination between register (situational context) and cohesion (semantic links within the text) which together enable the text to be interpreted as meaningfully connected. UNITY + refers to the basic thematic consistency of a text. A text has unity when all its parts belong to the same experiential domain or communicative situation: they talk about the same topic, the same event, or the same world. Unity ensures that the text stays within a single field; it prevents sudden thematic breaks that would make the sequence feel unrelated. Without unity, it is impossible for a sequence to function as a text at all, even before considering its cohesive or coherent properties. COHESION + it's a semantic concept and it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and define it as a text. A relation is cohesive when the interpretation of one element depends on another: the second “presupposes” the first, and the connection between them forms what Halliday and Hasan call a cohesive tie. It operates through a limited set of resources: - Dexis + reference to the here-and-now situation (this afternoon, here, there, ecc..) - Homophoric reference + it's a culturally shared knowledge that can be understood only because the speakers share cultural assumptions (home, the Pope, the war, ecc..), so it's not given by the physical context. Deixis +context-dependent reference to the “here-and-now” of communication; “points” to something in the spatiotemporal situation of the utterance. It covers: - Person deixis (I, you, him...) - Time deixis (last year, now...) - Space deixis (here, there...) - Discourse deixis (What follows...) - Social deixis (titles, honorifics) Because deixis relies on information beyond the text, it often belongs to pragmatics. It requires shared knowledge, ideologies, and implicatures to interpret correctly. - Endophoric reference — Endophoric reference stays inside the text and includes two types of relations forms: e Anaphora — reference backward e Cataphora — reference forward These relations are called phoric chains — sequences linking a referent to all the items that refer back or forward to it. Example — “This new colleague went on holiday. When he came back...” he refers anaphorically to this new colleague. Endophoric reference is divided into 3 major subtypes which depends on what kind of meaning relation is established: - Personal Reference — Reference to the participant roles; Through the use of pronounce we identify participants who already been introduced; “Doris likes him very much” - Demonstrative Reference + It's based on proximity or distance; “joe won't get tenure. This is what | can't understand.” — in this case this reference to the whole previous clause - Comparative Reference + Based on degrees of similarity or difference; “He always eats meatballs with his fingers. | detest such manners” Standing between exophoric and endophoric there's logophoric — speaker of writer's point of view; It marks the internal point of view of a speaker or protagonist whose perspective is reported in the discourse (thoughts, feelings, perception, knowledge) > Example: He said, | thought you were Canadian... The use of | and you reflects shifting internal viewpoints rather than a single anaphoric chain. Homophoric + A type of non-dictic exophoric reference (a reference that points outside a text but does not depend on the here-and-now context) Homophoric references can communicate much more than what is literally said—sometimes even unintentionally (e.g., “you're not that Polish” conveys cultural stereotypes). REFERENCE AND SOCIAL INCLUSION: Pronouns play a central role both in reference and in the process of social inclusion + they function as proforms = expressions that stand in place of other linguistic units. In English most pronouns are pronouns, many languages have very different pronominal systems or do not mark gender at all. English uses epicene (gender-neutral) pronouns, which leave the gender of the referent unspecified and offer more flexibility than the traditional he/she opposition. The most widely accepted and stable option is singular they, recommended by the American Psychological Association (APA) as the standard solution when the gender is unknown, irrelevant, or when inclusive language is desired. Other strategies include hybrid forms such as s/he, replacive symbols, and graphic devices intended to avoid gender marking. In addition, some communities and scholars promote neologistic pronouns—such as ze or xe—which are self-referential or derived forms introduced to bypass the constraints of gender binarism and provide neutral or non-binary alternatives. Although their diffusion is more limited, all these strategies show how the pronominal system is not only a grammatical phenomenon but also a space in which social, cultural, and identity-related choices are expressed. UNIT 2 LEXICAL COHESION Lexical cohesion + the cohesive effect created through the selection of vocabulary, so through the lexical or content words such as nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Different from grammatical cohesion + because grammatical relies on closed-class items such as pronouns and conjunctions. Lexical cohesion instead is realised through open-class items with a constantly expandable range. The main devices that contribute to lexical cohesion are — repetition, synonymy, anatomy, hyponymy, meronymy, collocation, and lexical scatter. Repetition is not only related to the recurrence of the same lexical item but also to the use of related items — from actual synonyms to more general subordinate terms - they all fall under the broader category of reiteration. Lexical scatter + a special subtype of repetition where different morphological forms that share the same root appear in the text (example. use, using, useless) Lexical cohesion is also achieved through collocation + tendency of certain words to occur together in specific context; they can reveal typical language patterns, connotation, biases and are useful in language teaching and corpus analysis. Other important /exical relations contribute to cohesion: synonymy expresses semantic similarity (belief-faith), antonymy encodes binary opposition (fresh-stale), hyponymy links specific terms to a more general class (paperback, hardback — book), and meronymy describes part-whole relations (cockpit + airplane). NOMINALIZATION NOMINALIZATION — process through which a nominal form is used to express something that would normally be conveyed by a verb or a verb+adjective structure. The verb phrase represents the core of the clause, nominalization then can even replace entire clauses transforming prices and qualities into compact noun phrases. ome nominalizations correspond directly to a verb or adjective (decide — decision; happy > happiness), while others have no simple verbal or adjectival equivalent (e.g. victory meaning “the act of winning”). Nominalization has three major textual effects: - encapsulation + a full clause or event that is packaged into a single noun which can function as the starting point of the next clause (“She failed the exam” into “Her failure...”.) - condensation — it compresses information allowing a complex process to be referred to more economically throughout the text increasing textual density and avoiding repetitions. - objectification — by converting processes, actions or qualities into nouns making them appear as independent entities giving the discourse a more abstract, formal, or authoritative tone. For this reason, nominalization is a common feature in academic, bureaucratic and scientific writing, where writers often transform actions into “things” that can be manipulated grammatically within the sentence. 
