Posted: April 2nd, 2022

Coherence and Cohesion

COHERENCE AND COHESION ========================================================== Abstract This paper discusses that a meaningful English text is always coherent. Also, the role of cohesion in a coherent English text is discussed in the light of literature. In order to further understand the significance of cohesion in discourse, we have analysed two English texts; a poem, ‘Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth and an advertisement from a UK website gumtree. co. uk. A report is then developed on the textual analysis, which discusses that different genres have different elements that bring coherence.
However, it is noticed that lexical cohesion forms strong cohesive ties and bring coherence in case of both the texts analysed. The paper argues that although cohesion is an important aspect of developing a coherent text, yet coherence is also possible without cohesion. Key words: Coherence, Cohesion, Text, Discourse, Analysis 1. INTRODUCTION The focus of this paper is to review the concept of coherence and the importance of cohesion in coherent texts. Coherence and cohesion are important aspects of language structure and knowledge of the usage of the two devices is essential for the scholars who write in English.
Therefore, this paper has special significance for the readership of this journal as this paper helps understand the two concepts through their application. It tries to make the concepts interesting and easily grasped by the South Asian readers, through textual analysis of two simple texts. The paper also brings forth the importance of some other devices, apart from cohesion, in developing a coherent English text; these are also investigated in the sections discussing coherence. Firstly, we will introduce the terms cohesion and coherence as used in discourse analysis.

Coherence is the device which identifies a text (a passage that forms a unified whole), spoken or written, in any language. On the other hand, cohesion is only one of the various elements which help forming coherent discourse. Cohesion provides relationship between different items of discourse in a text. Coherence is a semantic relation, so is cohesion. Coherence is possible when cohesive devices, grammatical and lexical, combine to give meaning to the text by connecting it to a social context. Most importantly, a coherent text can be found without any cohesive ties used.
In the following sections, we will be discussing scholarly view on the two terms in some detail. We will then consider and clarify our position with regard to cohesion and its role in the coherent text. Later in this paper, we will be analysing the coherence (including, of course, the cohesion) in two pieces of discourse. The report on the comparison between the two analyses will follow. Finally, we will summarize the entire argument in the conclusion. 2. COHERENCE Every unified piece of discourse is a coherent set of sentences.
Davies (2005) explains the idea of a text when she says, “not all sequences of sentences form texts- they have to be coherent sequences”. Thus she marks coherence as an identity of a text. Halliday and Hassan (1976) followed by McCarthy (1991) and Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers) used the term texture or textuality for coherence. Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers) writes that the texture of a text can be obtained where various items are tied together to provide meaning to the text which in turn relate to the social context in which the text occurs. Hassan (1989:71; cited in Paltridge, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers:130) describes texture as ‘a matter of meaning relations’.
Brown and Yule (1983) explain that in a coherent text the meaning is clear and the various fragments of the text seem connected either with or without cohesive devices. Hatch (1992) defines that the textual coherences can be obtained only if the communication system, the social norms and restrictions, language scripts for particular speech acts, suitable for particular speech events are all considered carefully. Thus, Brown and Yule (1983) and Hatch (1992) clearly mention that, apart from cohesive ties, there are other elements involved in obtaining coherence.
The various elements (excluding cohesion) involved in a coherent text, as noted by discourse analysts, include, context, schema, subtext and exophoric reference. Every text has a context, says Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers). He finds that a context of the situation is essential to understand what is meant by what is said. He includes physical and social context and the mental world of the people involved in a discourse to be crucial in interpreting and understanding the meaning. McCarthy (1991) discusses the role of context but he warns about mixing it with co-text (the text surrounding a lexical item), which he mentions to be only a part of the roader term, ‘context’. Hatch (1992), however, discusses context under the heading of deixis. Deixis, according to him, are ‘linguistic markers that have a pointing function in a given discourse context’. He, thus, discusses that person, spatial, temporal, discourse and social deixis describe the context of a text. Davies (2005) also mentions the role of context and subtext (reading between the lines) as important to the coherence of any text. McCarthy (1991:168) describes schema as ‘the role of background knowledge’ in understanding the text.
According to him, schemata involve two kinds of knowledge; the knowledge of the world (content schemata) and the knowledge of the different forms of the text (formal schemata). Some scholars including Halliday and Hassan (1976) include exophoric reference in the cohesive device of reference; I have also discussed it there. 3. COHESION Halliday and Hassan (1976) were the first significant writers on the subject (cohesion). They drew the attention towards the importance of cohesion which, for them, refers to ‘the range of possibilities that exist from linking something with what has gone before’.
Halliday and Hassan continue that one of the items in the cohesive pair cannot be completely and effectively understood without consulting the other and both of these form important part of the text. Most other writers on the subject then explained the term following Halliday and Hassan. Zamel (1983) finds the role of the cohesive devices to be crucial as they can turn separate expression into a unified whole by developing relationships between those separate expression. Cook (1989) defines cohesive devices as formal links between sentences and clauses.
Dubin and Olshtain (1980:356; cited in Zamel, 1983) remark, ‘The most important characteristic of cohesion is the fact that it does not constitute a class of items but rather a set of relations’. A similar, rather more comprehensive view, is given by Halliday and Hassan that cohesion is a semantic relation and therefore, is independent of grammatical structure, for example, sentence boundaries etc. To this, Steffensen (1986) added that the intersentential ties are more important than the intrasentential ties.
The reason behind this is, of course, that there are no other structural relations present between sentences, as are present within a sentence. Halliday and Hassan have explained this idea, before Steffensen, as; the cohesive ties between sentences are more noticeable than those within a sentence because in a sentence there are other sources of texture as well. 3. 1 Various Cohesive Devices Halliday and Hassan (1976) discuss Cohesion under five heads, reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.
But according to them, cohesion can be broadly classified as grammatical (reference, substitution, ellipsis) and lexical (reiteration, collocation). Halliday and Hassan keep conjunction on the borderline of the grammatical and lexical cohesion with the greater tilt on the grammatical side. Similar views are shared by Steffensen (1986), Hatch (1992:223) and Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers:130). Following Halliday and Hassan, we will also be reviewing literature under the same five heads. Reference, in the words of Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers), is the identity that an item of discourse reclaims through another item within or without the text.
Referencing device, as noted by Cook (1989), usually, forms a chain that links the expressions through the text. He exemplifies this as, Pineapple…… it…….. it……… it……….. it…….. it…. Halliday and Hassan (1976) also present a similar definition with a further explanation that when one item of the language appears second time in the discourse that is the continuity of reference. Salkie (1995) explains referents (‘it’ in the above example) as the words which do not have a complete meaning on their own, they always refer to something. Considering the same, Brown and Yule (1983) suggest the term co-reference for reference.
Salkie (1995), as well as Hatch (1992), agree with Halliday and Hassan over the three types of cohesive references i. e. personal, demonstrative and comparative references. Apart from this, Halliday and Hassan remark that when the interpretation for the references is present in the text, it is called an endophoric reference, and when the interpretation lies outside the text, it is an exophoric reference. Halliday and Hassan further divide endophoric reference into anaphoric reference (looks back into the text) and cataphoric reference (looks forward into the text).
Brown and Yule (1983) agree with Halliday and Hassan in their description of these terms. McCarthy (1991), however, discards exophoric referents as truly cohesive because they are not the internal part of the text. While Halliday and Hassan explain that they play a role in the understanding of the text so they are cohesive. On the contrary, Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers) introduces another reference pattern too, that is, homophoric reference, for items which recover their identity through cultural knowledge. Substitution, simply, is ‘the replacement of one item by another’ remark Halliday and Hassan (1976).
They find substitution to be a cohesive relation between wordings and not between the meanings, as is reference. Hatch (1992) notes that Levinson (1983) claims substitutions to be deictic markers. But Hatch agrees with Halliday and Hassan that the substitution and the group of words substituted form a cohesive tie. Salkie (1995) notifies that only some specific words can be used for the purpose of substitution. And Halliday and Hassan (1976) present the following list of substitutes: Nominal: one, ones; same Verbal: do Clausal: so, not
In addition, Halliday and Hassan also observe that sometimes substitution, also, borders with lexical cohesion, that is where words like ‘thing’ are used for the cohesive purposes. Substitutions thus hold very important cohesive function, as Cook (1989) mentions that the brief forms of the sentences with substitutions are more authentic than the longer sentences without substitutions. Ellipsis, the third type of cohesive marker, as named by Hatch (1992), is a zero tie. Halliday and Hassan (1976) call it substitution by zero.
Actually there is no tie in ellipsis and nothing substitutes but of course, like substitution, here too, something is left unsaid. Salkie (1995) makes it clear that every unsaid or left out expression cannot be considered an example of ellipsis. On the contrary, he writes, ellipsis is a gap or unsaid information that is known to the listener/reader of the text already, as it refers back to something already said. Cook (1989) shares a similar view with Salkie when Cook says that we can omit only when we are sure that the meaning can be understood without it.
McCarthy (1991) also holds the same idea and he adds to it by mentioning that ellipsis is completely ‘a speaker choice made on a pragmatic assessment of the situation, not a compulsory feature when two clauses are joined together’. McCarthy (1991) notes that, in English, substitution and ellipsis are similar as the former like the latter operates on nominal, verbal and clausal level. This view is shared by Halliday and Hassan (1976), Hatch (1992) and Salkie (1995). Conjunctions can be defined best in the words of
Cook (1989) as, the words which draw attention towards the relationships between sentences, clauses and words. McCarthy (1991) places conjunction among the grammatical cohesive devices, despite accepting it to be different from reference, substitution and ellipsis. He says, though it does refer to something backward or forward in the text, it still provides a relationship between the fragments of the language. A similar view is shared by Halliday and Hassan (1976) that conjunctive ties are ‘cohesive not in themselves’, but by their meaning, they point at other elements in the discourse.
However, unlike McCarthy, Halliday and Hassan, followed by Steffensen (1986), Hatch (1992) and Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers), do not believe conjunctions to be completely grammatical. Halliday and Hassan (1976) observe that conjunctions can be classified in different ways, focusing different aspects. They, then, present additive, adversative, causal and temporal as four, commonly accepted, types of conjunctive relation. Hatch (1992) also presents the similar distribution. Martin and Rose (2003; cited in Paltridge, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers:139) use the term consequential for causal.
Although Salkie (1995) also gives the same four types of conjunction, yet he uses different terminology; he calls them addition connectives, opposition connectives, cause connectives and time connectives. Besides, he uses the term connective for conjunction. Lexical cohesion is a relationship between vocabulary items in the text. In the words of Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers:133), “Lexical cohesion refers to relationships in meaning between lexical items in a text and, in particular, content words and the relationship between them”.
Hatch (1992) notes that some lexical ties are long, as they are spread over larger pieces of discourse, and others are short. Reiteration and collocation are marked as two major types of lexical cohesion by Halliday and Hassan (1976). McCarthy (1991), however, does not seem to be convinced by Halliday and Hassan’s inclusion of collocation among the devices of lexical cohesion. He does not find that collocation can present a semantic relation between various items of discourse as other cohesive markers do. Unlike McCarthy, Hatch (1992) finds collocation to be an important element for building text cohesion.
So does Paltridge (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers), who says, that expert writers of the language know which items can collocate. Lexical collocation, grammatical collocation and idiomatic collocation are found in discourse. McCarthy (1991) defines reiteration as restating a word (or a phrase) by either direct repetition or using the lexical relations for that word (for example, synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, meronyms etc). Salkie (1995) explains that the repetition of the content words brings cohesion; what he says of repetition is true for all the lexical devices.
Making a decision regarding the usage of various lexical items is only a matter of understanding the importance of different lexical relations. McCarthy (1991) observes that the speaker/writer has to decide whether to repeat, or use a synonym or a super ordinate etc, because discourse analysts have not yet given any satisfactory rules for that. 3. 2 Relation between Coherence and Cohesion Halliday and Hassan (1976) refer to cohesion as being a source of coherence. But Carrell (1982) strongly disagrees with them on that view. She finds cohesion to be nothing more than a result of coherence.
Carrell quotes Morgan and Sellner (1980) who also find Halliday and Hassan to be mistaking. Morgan and Sellner explain that when Halliday and Hassan are mentioning that a referent refers back or forth to something in the text, it is not something in the text actually but something in the context, from which the reader and the hearer understands what the speaker/writer is talking about. Carrell herself is also supporting the idea by Morgan and Sellner and believes it to be the content and not the cohesion between the expressions which bring coherence to the text.
In the commonly quoted example by Halliday and Hassan: Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish. Carrell finds that them in the second sentence does not refer to the apples in the first sentence but some real world apples. Brown and Yule (1983) present a more convincing argument against Halliday and Hassan that the apples, in the first sentence, are as they were brought from the market while those in the second sentence are washed and cored apples and therefore not the same as in the first sentence.
They argued similarly for the other cohesive devices like substitution and ellipsis. Brown and Yule (1983) observe that some pieces of discourse, can be said to be unconnected due to lack of cohesive devices, but they still form coherent text (for example; advertisements, brochures etc) because different genres of discourse have different criteria of coherence. Where Carrell fully ignores the importance of cohesion in coherence, Brown and Yule at least agree that different genres of text demand different criteria of coherence.
Hatch (1992) sounds more acceptable, when he says that the knowledge of script, speech events and rhetorical organisation usually results in a coherent text but sometimes, we need to make use of cohesive ties and deictic markers to guide the listener/reader through the text. The formal links (cohesive devices), according to Cook (1989) also, are not enough or necessary for a text. He means to say that there can be a text without them and there can even be an incoherent piece with them. He as well as Salkie (1995) holds the understanding of the context as more important.
Davies (2005) clarifies all the misconceptions, “coherence does not have to depend on logical internal links and familiar patterns of organisation- it also has a lot to do with how we interpret the language we read or hear”. To conclude, the argument let us quote McCarthy (1991) who says, all discourse markers including cohesive markers are concerned with the text on the surface level. He, like Davies, marks that the interpretation is the key that the listener/reader uses to understand what the speaker/writer has tried to say by utilising both above and below the surface available devices.
Therefore, cohesion is not a criterion for coherence yet it is an important element in some genres of discourse. 4. TEXT ANALYSIS After reviewing the scholars on coherence, cohesion, cohesive devices and relation between coherence and cohesion, we are, now, turning to analyse two written texts; the poem ‘Daffodils’ by William Wordsworth (see Appendix-A for the original text) and a job advertisement that we found on www. gumtree. co. uk (see Appendix-B for the original text).
After this, we will present the report on whether cohesion is required or just the context, schema, sub-text and exophoric reference are enough for coherence in these two genres of discourse. 4. 1 Analysis of the Poem ‘Daffodils’ Firstly, we are going to analyse the poem, from the different perspectives of coherence. We will start with the context. 4. 1. 1 Context The very first word ‘I’ tells us that the speaker or the poet is sharing a personal experience. ‘Wandered’, being the second form of the verb, clears that the incident that is quoted in the poem has ended.
It is one of the experiences of the poet when he saw a beautiful scene and now he is describing the scene and is discussing the pleasure it has been giving him since the time he has first seen it. The text belongs to the place where there is a lake, there are trees and most importantly, there are daffodils. Thus the poet is recollecting his memory of a beautiful outdoor scene when he was caught by the sight of golden daffodils. The poet mentions that he was alone at that time. The beauty of the scene has been deep-rooted in the memory of the poet.
The memory of the flowers works as an effective tranquiliser at the time when the poet is worried or sad. Coherence, here, operates the relationship of a poet to the natural world of beauty. It exemplifies how a poet, who is alone (no other human being around), is enjoying the company of the flowers and can enjoy that of other objects of nature. He is enjoying the beauty even when he is away from it and even when he feels sad, may be due to the problems of the material world. 4. 1. 2 Schema
It is sure since the beginning that the poet is somewhere outside his home because it is very unlikely that somebody moves around in his house and say “I wandered lonely as a cloud. ” It is also unlikely that the poet is in the market or some other busy area and claim to be wandering like a cloud because the schemata, in both the mentioned situations, would have suggested some different social norms. Therefore, from the beginning the reader starts to interpret that the poet is alone in some lonely place. 4. 1. 3 Subtext
One can judge that it is the day time that is why the poet can see so many daffodils, which are spread along the bank of the river. Besides, he mentions “the waves besides them danced”, which can be noticed only during the day time. In dark one can see waves only if they are harsh and roaring, which can of course never attract the calm and peaceful nature of a poet. And since it is breezy, it can be the morning time, not the noon, afternoon or evening. The pleasantness of the weather can easily be found from the mood of the poet. It seems as if it is some breezy summer morning. Oft” notifies that the poet also feels sad and empty at times, he also has worries of life like other human beings. But then unlike an ordinary man, these flowers come to the rescue of the poet from the worries of the world. 4. 1. 4 Exophoric Reference There is some exophoric knowledge of the concept of “inward eye” required. The poet assumes the reader, who will be decoding the text of the poem, must already be aware with this schema. After context, schema, sub-text and exophoric reference, now, I will analyse the role of various cohesive ties in bringing the coherence to the poem.
First of all, we are going to for the referential cohesion. 4. 1. 5 Referential Cohesion The pronominal references, running through the text, have anaphoric links and they were all endophoric except the exophoric reference “that inward eye” (discussed earlier). Pronominal cohesion depends largely on the anaphoric link to the first word of the text I (I, I, me, my, I). Amongst the other anaphoric personal references there is a cohesive chain of “they” and “them” (used for Daffodils) throughout the poem.
The pronoun “that” is used for the word cloud in the first stanza and for the word stars in the second. Also, “which” in the last stanza is pronominal and is used for inward eye. There is an example of demonstrative cohesion also i. e. “my” in the phrase my heart. Comparative reference plays a part in introducing the situation in the first line of the poem, I wandered lonely as a cloud in which there is a comparison drawn between the poet and the cloud. Comparative reference is also present in the following line where daffodils are compared with stars, Continuous as the stars that shine
There is a single example of nominal substitution through the words the show, which refers to the dancing daffodils and their company (the waves etc). Clausal ellipsis is found in following three examples: ______ fluttering and dancing _____tossing their heads, a poet could not______ but ______be gay ______continuous as stars that shine While nominal ellipsis is clear in these three: And _______twinkle on the milky way Ten thousand ______ saw I at a glance And ______dances with the daffodils 4. 1. 6 Conjunction The poem contains some variety of conjunction also.
Additive Conjunctions “and”, “or”, adversative conjunction “but” and temporal conjunctions “oft”, “then” are found in the text. 4. 1. 7 Lexical Cohesion Throughout the poem, I can see words like “twinkle”, “sprightly”, “sparkle” spread which form a sense group, such reiteration shows that the situation in the poem is lively, excited and pleasure-giving. Synonymy is present among the words “crowd” and “host” (both in the first stanza) as the terms are contextual synonyms. So is the case with “shine” and “twinkle” (both in the second stanza), and “lake” (in the first stanza) and “bay” (in the second stanza).
Other sense group is formed by “fluttering”, “dancing” and “tossing their heads”. A small chain of words related to the notion of happiness is spread around the third stanza “glee”, “gay”, “jocund”. Repetition is found through the forms of the word “dance” (dancing, dance, danced, dances). The words “gazed” is repeated twice. A number of lexical collocations (contextually appropriate) can be found, for example: “over valleys and hills”, “never-ending line”, “beside the lake”, “beneath the trees”, “at a glance”.
Whereas “out did” and “flash upon” are grammatical collocations present within the text. The analysis of this text shows that besides other devices of coherence, cohesion also plays an important role in bringing the coherence to the text. We cannot think of the above poem without the cohesive ties. 4. 2 Analysis of the Advertisement Now we are going to analyse the second text which is a job advertisement (see Appendix-B). Here too we start with the analysis with the context. 4. 2. 1 Context
The first line suggests that it is something related to the business but it is only in the fourth line that one realises that it is an advertisement for the post of “Business development support”. And even in the next line, the reader comes to know that it is a job advertised by “Metro Safety”. “We” in the new paragraph shows the management of Metro Safety or the company has advertised this job. The second line mentions the date on which the advertisement is posted so it clarifies whether it is old or new. And the name of the company and the location of the office present the place of work.
The objectives for the job and the mentioned requirements clear who can apply for the advertisement. Therefore the context is clear after reading the whole of it that it is a job opportunity for all those who have the required experience etc. The ‘how to do the follow up? ’ part is made clear by the last sentence which guides how to apply. 4. 2. 2 Schema By the opening of the text we start to recognise the schema. It is without doubt an advertisement which is written to attract professionals. Just in the beginning schema provide the strong suggestion for the post, the salary and location of the work.
The text is schematically clear and therefore it does not bring any possible alternative schemata into question. 4. 2. 3 Subtext We realise that it is not a regular text but an advertisement. Since the advertisement is posted on the mentioned date therefore the job seeker can apply within few days of it. Though it is not mentioned yet the job is provided on the first come basis, because there is no specific date for interviews, etc, mentioned, therefore whoever will be the first to fulfil the criteria will be given the job.
The job seeker must be a resident of London, and in case of a city like London, he must be living somewhere around Waterloo. 4. 2. 4 Exophoric Reference “Friday, 6th June” is mentioned in the advertisement; the reader should have the exophoric knowledge of which year’s 6th June is the advertisement about. Besides the reader must know that Waterloo (mentioned in the advertisement as the location of work) is an area in London and not the place of the Battle of Waterloo. Following is the analysis of the second text for cohesive devices. 4. 2. 5 Referential Cohesion
The pronominal endophoric references “we” and “our” refer to the Metro Safety, the company which has given the advertisement. And “you” refers to the reader or anyone who is interested in the job. But “someone” in “we are looking for someone” is an exophoric reference because it is not the reader or any aspirant for the job who is reading the advertisement and is going to apply, rather it is someone they are looking for, he can be anyone of the readers or even no one of them. “This” in “this role” and “this position” is a demonstrative reference. Nominal ellipsis is present in the following: lease _____ apply; While clausal ellipsis can be found in the following: and _____ assists Accounts Get research paper samples and course-specific study resources under   homework for you course hero writing service – Manage rs, _____ increase, _____ smooth, _____ to provide, _____ provide Language in India www. languageinindia. com 12 : 5 May 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap Ambreen Shahriar and Habibullah Pathan Coherence and the Role of Cohesion in Coherent Texts 384 Besides, ellipsis is done through points given in bullets (. ). 4. 2. 6 Conjunction The conjunction “and” has been used repeatedly in the text. Temporal conjunction “between” is present in the phrase “between ? 16,800 and ? 20,160 per annum”.
The additive conjunction “in addition” is also used, and “+”, in “+ company bonus” also acts as an additive conjunction. 4. 2. 7 Lexical Cohesion In the text, there is a chain of office related words, “business”, “company”, “bonus”, “commercial”, “client”, “head office”, “account managers”, “project managing”, “service departments”, “site”, “administrative supports”, “management team”, “customer”. The terms like; “increase”, “necessary”, “high quality”, “skills”, “experience”, “excellent” form a sense group which explains the demands of the employer from the employee.
The word “client” presents an example of repetition and seems to be the key term in the text, it is used four times. The examples of meronymy are spread throughout the text. “Client”, “services team”, “account managers”, “project managing”, “internal departments”, “service departments”, “management team”, “customer focus”, “company bonus”; with “business” as the super ordinate. Besides, “communication skills (verbal and written)”, “information gathering and organisational skills”, “problem solving skills” and “IT literacy” can be considered as the hypernyms for skills/knowledge.
Lexical cohesion can also be witnessed through phrases like, “health and safety”, “busy and friendly”, “new and existing”. There is grammatical collocation of the phrasal verbs like, “based at”, “set up” and “looking for”. Lexical collocations can also be identified within the text, for example: “head office”, “account managers”, “high quality”, “communicational skills”, “organizational skills”, “problem solving skills”, “sales team”, “company bonus”, “per annum”. After the analyses of the texts, we are going to present the report on them in the next section. . REPORT In the report, firstly, we are going to compare the two texts in accordance with the findings. Though the poet, in the first text, clears the context from the first line, but it can be cleared only after reading the last lines and then pondering over all that is written. Whereas in the advertisement, the context starts to get clearer from the fourth line, when it comes to the offer of salary and one realises that it is a job advertisement, but immediately after that the context is clear and reader does not have to read between the lines.
Both the texts are schematically clear yet they are completely different from each other. The writers of the two texts have made greatest efforts to keep the schema clear but in variant styles and this is what proves a difference in the different genres of writing. There are some elements of the sub-text in both the texts. The readers of both the texts have to read between the lines and understand a few hidden ideas on their own, but the nature of such ideas in both these texts is very different. Some exophoric knowledge is required for complete understanding of each text.
Here, also, the exophoric knowledge in case of the poem is of emotional and spiritual nature while in case of the advertisement it is of material and worldly nature. As in the poem, so is in the advertisement, most of the pronominal references were endophoric in nature with anaphoric cohesion. The examples of demonstrative cohesion are rare in both the texts. There seems no example of comparative reference in the advertisement. Unlike this, the comparative cohesive devices are widely used in the analysed poem. As comparative references are usually common in the poetry, so are they here.
But they are not welcome in advertisements. The analysis showed that substitution is a rare phenomenon in these types of texts. It does not appear to be common in poetry or advertises. Both of these are the examples of smaller texts but in spite of that substitution is not common in these two. Nominal as well as clausal ellipsis seems to be among the favourites of the two writers (of poem and advertisement). Ellipsis can be considered as a common practice of the writers of such texts. Conjunctions are found evenly spread in both the texts with a greater emphasis on “and” in both the texts.
Few small sense groups are present in the poetry, while two long sense chains are present in the advertisement. Formation of sense groups is an essential quality of an advertisement but not a poem. Repetitions are also found in both the texts which, of course, emphasize the most important word in the text. Synonymy can be found in the poem only. It is a special quality of something literary and it is used to give music to the meaning of the text. But antonymy is missing in both the texts. Hyponymy and meronymy are absent in the poem by Wordsworth but both are present in the advertisement.
This explains the difference between the two types of the text. The poem is a short text which has to say a lot whereas an advertisement is a short text which has to say a little but has to make it completely clear. Lexical and grammatical collocations are present in both the texts but idiomatic collocation is missing. Idiomatic collocation is found in longer pieces of writing, and are uncommon in poetry and advertisements, even otherwise. After comparing the two texts, it can be noticed that since the two belong to different genres, their dependence on the various elements, which are responsible for coherence, is also different.
Yet cohesive ties, especially lexical cohesion, form important links which in turn provide coherence to both the texts. 6. CONCLUSION Through this paper, we have discussed the terms coherence and cohesion. We mentioned that other elements of discourse, besides cohesion, can also help in the development of a coherent text in English. We also mentioned the varying views of the scholars regarding the importance and role of cohesion in the development of a coherent discourse.
We made our point clear by quoting Davies and McCarthy, who note that it mainly depends on the interpretation besides accepting that the importance of cohesion in some genres of discourse is undeniable. Through the analysis of the two texts belonging to two different genres, we tried to explain what brings coherence in each of the selected genres. Then, we presented the report on the analyses. Therefore, cohesion, of course, is not the only source of bringing coherence to a text yet it is one of the important aspects of coherence. ============================================================= References
Brown, G. and G. Yule. 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: CUP. Carrell, P. L. 1982. ‘Cohesion is not coherence,’ TESOL Quarterly 16(4): 479-88. Cook, G. 1989. Discourse. Oxford: OUP. Davies, D. 2005. Varieties of Modern English: An Introduction. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Language in India www. languageinindia. com 12 : 5 May 2014: 2024 – Essay Writing Service. Custom Essay Services Cheap Ambreen Shahriar and Habibullah Pathan Coherence and the Role of Cohesion in Coherent Texts 387 Dubin, F. and E. Olshtain. 1980. ‘The interface of writing and reading,’ TESOL Quarterly 14(3): 353-63. Halliday, M. A. K. and R. Hassan. 976. Cohesion in English. London: Longman Group Ltd. Hassan, R. 1989. ‘The texture of a text’: in M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hassan (eds. ) Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective. Oxford: OUP. pp. 70-96. Hatch, E. 1992. Discourse and Language Education. Cambridge: CUP. Levinson, S. 1983. Pragmatics. New York: CUP. Martin, J. R. and D. Rose. 2003. Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause. London: Continuum. McCarthy, M. 1991. Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: CUP. Morgan, J. L. and M. B. Sellner. 980. ‘Discourse and linguistic theory’: in R. J. Spiro, B. C. Bertram and W. F. Brewer (eds. ) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Hills dale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Paltridge, B. 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers. Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum. Salkie, R. 1995. Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Routledge. Steffensen, M. 1986. ‘Register, cohesion, and cross-cultural reading comprehension,’ in Applied Linguistics 7(1): 71-85. Wordsworth, W. (2008 – Affordable Custom Essay Writing Service | Write My Essay from Pro Writers). Selected Poems. Oxford:OUP. Zamel, V. 1983. ‘Teaching those missing links in writing,’ in ELT Journal 7(1): 22-29.

Order | Check Discount