科研讲座
英语篇章的衔接与连贯
Cohesion and Coherence in English Text
外语系 张结根
时间：
地点：新教学楼第六阶梯教室
Cohesion and Coherence in English Text
摘要：本次讲座介绍了篇章语言学里的两个重要概念—衔接和连贯。首先，从狭义篇章的角度分别确定了篇章衔接和连贯的概念意义，接着举例说明了实现衔接和连贯的手段，最后从词源学等四个方面对比分析了篇章内衔接与连贯的关系。
关键词：篇章语言学，篇章，衔接，连贯
Abstract: The present lecture is an introduction to cohesion and coherent— two important concepts in text linguistics. It starts with the definition of the two notions in strictly-defined text. Then it illustrates cohesive and coherent devices. Lastly the lecture compares and contrasts textual cohesion and coherence from four perspectives such as etymology.
Key words: text linguistics, text, cohesion, coherence
Cohesion and coherence, two important concepts in the study of text/discourse, have been extensively studied from a range of perspectives. The present lecture will explain them in terms of their definitions, devices and relationship with text as the basis.
1. Cohesion
Cohesion is the first of the seven textuality standards identified by de Beaugrande & Dressler (1981). It has also been a most popular target for research, probably because it is easy to identify in written texts, which are the traditional research material of linguists.
1.1 Definition
Halliday and Hasan (1976), in their ground-breaking work Cohesion in English, describe cohesion as a semantic concept that refers to relations of meaning that exist within a text. “Cohesion occurs when the interpretation of a textual element is dependent upon another element in the text.” For example:
1. Why don't you call a cop? There stands one on the corner.
The interpretation of one in example 2 is dependent on cop in the preceding sentence.
1.2 Devices
Halliday and Hasan (1976) establish five ways of creating cohesion in a text: reference, ellipsis, substitution and conjunctions and lexical cohesion.
Reference is defined by Halliday & Hasan (1976) as a case where the information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the particular thing or class of things that is being referred to.
2. He took a cobblestone and dashed it through the glass.( Personal reference)
3. We have laws which put a lid on libidinous behavior. But that doesn’t make the sexual drive go away. (Demonstrative reference)
4. This is far different than making someone feel guilty in order to create the standard in the first instance.( Comparative reference)
In substitution, an item is replaced by another item. Ellipsis is the “substitution by zero”. It involves the omission of an item. In other words, in ellipsis, an item is replaced by nothing.
5. It seemed that his route to the covered island was not to be an epicurean one. (Nominal substitution)
6. – Is John going to come?
– He might (come). (Verbal ellipsis)
7. “What are you doin’ here?” asked the officer.
“( I am doin’) Nothin’.” said Soapy. (Clausal ellipsis)
Conjunction is a relationship indicating how the subsequent sentence or clause should be linked to the preceding or the following sentence or part of a sentence. Conjunction involves the use of formal markers, that is, conjunctions, to relate sentences, clauses to each other.
8. It may be that you are capable of making necklaces for Cleopatra, so to speak. But your eloquence should be the servant of the ideas in your head. (Contrast)
9. It merely represses it. This creates a serious problem, though, since humans also have a need to release their tensions. (Concession)
10. If he could reach a table in the restaurant unsuspected, success would be his. (Inference)
Lexical cohesion deals with connections based on the words used. It is achieved by selection of vocabulary, using semantically close items. There are two types of lexical cohesion: reiteration and collocation.
11. Do not ramble, though. I won’t ramble on about that. (Repetition)
12. The process operates largely unnoticed, as it exists in part in our unconscious minds. (Synonymy)
13. Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. (Collocation)
2. Coherence
In the study of text and discourse, coherence is one of the most general and most widely discussed concepts. In spite, or perhaps because of its central status, the concept of coherence has many different and often incompatible definitions and connotations.
2.1 Definition
The lecture approaches coherence in terms of text in its restricted sense. Coherence is defined as a property of well-written texts that makes them easier to read and understand than a sequence of randomly strung sentences. Unlike cohesion, it refers to the overall sense of unity in a passage. The sense is in turn fulfilled through a certain structure, organization or pattern with a guiding topic or theme. Examples will be given in section 2 of this part.
2.2 Devices
Coherence is a semantic relationship within a text. Though it is not so easy to identify as cohesion, it will, after all, be embodied and detected through some devices. These devices mainly fall into the following four categories: text marker, lexical coherence, text type and text pattern.
Text markers as coherence device indicate the relationship between different parts of text in the same way cohesive conjunction signals cohesion. They usually involve the use of conjunctions as well.
14. To sum up, honesty not only brings us honor and friendship, but also material gains. Honesty is the best policy we can take.
15. But on an unusually quiet corner Soapy came to a standstill.
To sum up introduces a summarization of its preceding text. The conjunction But introduces another scene of the whole story.
Lexical coherence refers to the role played by the selection of vocabulary in organizing relations on the text level. Compared with lexical cohesion, lexical coherence contributes to textual unity in a similar way but work at rather global levels.
In the short story The Cop and the Anthem by O. Henry, In the story the hero Soapy intended to be arrested by policemen and so as to spend winter in prison. Soapy appears all together 48 times, in almost every paragraph, and policeman 18 times, and cop 6 times. The reiteration of these key words in different scenes has successfully provided a sense of flow for the progression of the story.
A major factor in text studies has been the identification of text type. It defines what the purpose of the text is. Werlich’s typology (1983) distinguishes between five text types: description, narration, exposition, argumentation, and instruction.
Description is used in all forms of writing to create a vivid impression of a person, place, object or event. The basic purpose of narrative is to entertain, to gain and hold a readers’ interest. In explanatory writing, the writer’s purpose is to explain how something works or state reasons for some phenomenon. Arguments present ideas in sequence to justify a particular stand or viewpoint that a writer is taking. Instructions or procedures are written to describe how something is done through a series of sequenced steps.
There are many patterns that can be used to organize ideas in a text. There are five most commonly used patterns of organization. Sequence or chronological patterns are used to list events in a series or information in chronological order. A spatial text pattern organizes information according to how things fit together in physical space. A compare-and-contrast-pattern text points out likenesses (comparison) and/or differences (contrast) among facts, concepts, events, people, etc. Advantage-disadvantage pattern divides information about a topic into its “good” and “bad” parts, or pro’s and con’s. A cause-effect pattern shows relationships between an action or response and a pre-existing reason. A text in a problem-solution pattern first offers evidence of the stated problem and identifies different aspects of the problem. The topical pattern involves the dividing of a topic into its components or logical parts and each component represents a main section of information.
3. The relationship
The relationship between cohesion and coherence has long been a controversial issue in text linguistics. a revised model of correspondence theory, in which the comparison of cohesion and coherence will be made in four aspects: etymology and acceptation, research subject, form and function.
3.1 Etymology
Etymologically, both cohesion and coherence derive from cohere. Cohere comes from the Latin word cohaerere, (co- + haerere), which means to stick, adhere，and to have internal elements or parts logically connected so that aesthetic consistency results.
3.2 Research subject
Both constructs represent how words, constituents, and ideas conveyed in a text are connected. Cohesion deals with the connectedness between elements at low levels of text, that is, among sentence elements, and clauses normally within a paragraph. Coherence expresses the continuity that exists between one part of text and another and the overall relation of all parts.
3.3 Device
Though cohesion and coherence are semantic relations, they manifest themselves in this way or that by means of certain devices. There are some overlaps among cohesive and coherent devices, especially in terms of conjunctions. Different cohesive devices do not work alone. Instead, they function together to create a sense of connectivity. This is also true of coherent devices.
3.4 Function
Text cohesion models text in terms of relations between words or referring expressions to help determine how tightly connected the text is. Text coherence models text in terms of macro level relations between clauses or sentences to help determine the overall argumentative structure of the text.
This lecture has provided a glimpse of theories, evidence and applications of cohesion and coherence from a textual perspective. But for the restriction of time and energy, an empirical study and further discussion should be carried out in terms of pedagogical implications of the research. Thus the present research would be friendlier to those interested.
Major References
Brown, G., & G. Yule. 1983. Discourse Analysis.
Carrell, P.L. 1982. Cohesion is not coherence. TESOL Quarterly, 16(4), 479-488.
Halliday, M.A.K. & R. Hasan. 1976. Cohesion in English.
McCarthy, M., & R. Carter. 1994. Language as Discourse: Perspectives for Language Teaching.
Werlich, E. 1983. A Text Grammar of English. 2nd ed. Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer.
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