Disourse and PragmaticsLIN 207

Coherence & cohesionWeek 2 of 14

Let’s analyse this text

Taken from How to fly a kite, Catch a fish, Grow a flower and cited in Bloor and Bloor, The functional Analysis of English, (1995).

o What does language mean in this text?o Language has a meaning functions or a

metafunctiono Metafunction - A function that realizes other

function.

Metafunction of language (Halliday, 1974)

1. Ideational metafunction = language is used to organize, understand and express our perceptions of the world and our awareness of the world.

2. Logical - relationship between ideas and content

1. Experiential – convey human experience (content or ideas)

of reason between the two main ideas

Metafunction of language (Halliday, 1976)2. Interpersonal metafunction = language allows us

to participate in communicative acts with other people. (to take on roles, to express and understand feelings, attitudes and judgments

o Reveals authors attitude and opinion with use of modality.

o advising parents / target audience

A suggestion / reader may or may not reject this

urg

en

t

Textual metafunction = the aspect of language that allows what is said or written to be related to the rest of what is said or written.Language has a function of organizing itself ways in which texts ‘hang together’ as texts.

o This function is realized through the Word order of the sentences.

o Message is sequenced and text is very coherent and cohesive.

o When a text hang together it has ‘textuality’. o So what is a text?

Metafunction of language (Halliday, 1976)

What is a text?

o A text is ‘any passage( of language) , spoken or written , of whatever length that forms a unified whole’ (Halliday and Hassan, 1976)

o What provides the unity is texture – a text (as opposed to a non text) has texture

What is Texture?

A: What time is it, love?B: Julie left her car at the station today.

o Language is essentially tied to linear sequences whereby one part of a text (sentence or turn at talk) must follow another part of the text (the next sentence or turn at talk).

o Each part of the text creates the context within which the next bit of the next text is interpreted.

o We construct relationships between what is said/ written NOW and what was said/written a moment ago.

o TEXTURE IS SEQUENTIAL IMPLICATIVENESSo Therefore if texts are to make sense to readers the

links between the parts have to be easily recoverable.

o What scenarios can you think of to link these two utterances?

Text or non- text?

I’m from EnglandI’ve been here 20 years now. I really like it here.

I’m from EnglandCabbages are green.Is there a doctor in the house?

o Each sentence is grammatically incorrect.

o This is a non-text. Because for a text to be a text, it has to be grammatically coherent.

o Not a meaningful whole.o Only commonality

between the sentences is grammatical

parallelism.o ( A subject, a present

continuous perfect aspect verbal group,

either a direct object or an expression of

location, followed by a prepositional phrase

expressing duration.

o Both texts has no communicative function and are therefore no texts.

o Missing: contextual or situational coherence.

Text or non- text?

COHERENCE

2 types of coherence

A text has situation coherence when we can think of one situation in which all the clauses of the text could occur, i.e. when we can specify a field, a mode, and tenor for the entire collection of clause.

A text has generic coherence when we can recognize the text as an example of a particular genre, i.e. when can identify a schematic structure, with each part of the text expressing one element in the unfolding, staged organization of the language event.

TEXT OR NON TEXT

o What is lacking in this text?o Situational coherence – all of the instances

mentioned in the text are unlikely to occur together. o Coherence of field- from mice, to Paris, to a race and

to chocolate crackles.o Coherence of mode: Both written language and

spoken. (Spoken parts do not cohere with the written parts)

o Coherence of tenor: The speaker or the writer’s role in the text is not clear.

A non text but seems like a text too. Why?

TEXT OR NON TEXT

Orientation: a narrative is about to be told.

Setting: the time and place.

Complication: events leading up to a climax

Climax: a pivotal momentResolution: how things get resolvedEvaluation: judgments and commentary on the story

Coda: wrapping things up and pointing out a moral purpose.

o Text has generic coherence but lacks situational coherence.

o Is not one story but a number of them. (it’s not one context upon which the story is built upon

o Some cohesiveness between conjunctions; (that, so)o Participants keep change.

TEXT OR NON TEXT

o Coherence refers to a paragraph’s external contextual properties.

o Cohesion refers to the a paragraph’s internal properties.

o Lack of contextual coherence is reflected in and is a reflection of , its accompanying lack of internal organization, i.e. its lack of cohesion.

o IMPLICATIVE SEQUENTIALNESS: The key idea in cohesion is that there is a semantic tie between an item at one point in a text and an item at another point.

Cohesion

Cohesion

Text is numbered but is to be read as one piece

o This is a non text.o Kinds of activities

change from sentence to sentence

o White mice (1) to weather (2) races starting (3) don’t know what 4 is about (5) cookery

o Participantso Tiptoe is introduced but

never referred to again.o (2) Pariso (3) Race is new and

presented as though we knew which one but no prior mention has been made

o (4) What is ‘it’ and ‘so’?

Cohesion

o Does have some aspects of texture

o Lexical links between words in different sentences

o Cheese is repeated in sentence 1 and 2.

o Cheese is a type of dairy product mentioned in 3.

o Dairy product link with milko Milk with calciumo Calcium with vitamin

deficiency

o Participants keep changingo Generic coherence is

lackingo Each sentence seem to be

drawn from a different genre.

Cohesion

o It has limited internal cohesion.o It (2) refers to the book o He (3) refers to Michael.o She (4) refers to Jane o Together (5) refers to Michael

and Jane.o This text has referential

cohesion.o It is a recount. Each sentence

reports what occurs next.

o But it does not have lexical cohesiveness.

o 1. book, glove compartment, take, give

o Smell, terribleo Coughed, saido Asked, prettyo cook

o Without lexical cohesiveness it is difficult to construct a context with which a text is concerned.

Cohesion

This ilooks like a rcountTelling of personal experience Schematic structure – orientation (1) Sequence of events (2 -7)paragraphs have consistency in lexical items (Paris, sightseeing, Lourve, weather terms, referntial cohesion ( I and we )

Cohesion

o The logical relationship (conjunctions) between sentences are used incorrectly.

o Therefore there is a problem with it’s conjunctive cohesion.

o Instead of a relation of cause/ consequence we are confronted with a concessive relationship (however(

o Instead of a relationship of contrast between what we had hoped to do and what we actually do, we actually get a relationship of addition created (and)

o Meanwhile expresses temporal simultaneity, yet there is no other action for this one to be simultaneous with; prior to that is totally confusing.

o Instead of the conclusion be presented because of the prior events, the writer uses ‘in addition’ which is not logical,

Cohesion

o Has a recount structureo Shows Consistency of participants - referential

cohesion .o Shows Consistency of lexical choice. o Has conjunctive cohesion.o No use is made of devices for avoiding

retrievable and redundant information.

Cohesion

o Reference ties make the Mark of (1) retrievable as the identity of the he used later. Lisa is retrievable for she

o Lexical ties link the processes of offering chocolates …taking chocolates ….eating chocolates.

o Conjunctive cohesion – the logical relations we expect in a recount are also observed, with the clauses linked both causally (so) and temporally (then).

o Substitution and ellipsis create ties – another must be related to one of the chocolates.