Coherence, cohesion and deixis

B Y : MA RI S KA H A S I ANA P A R APAT

Coherence, Cohesion and Deixis

mariskahasiana 12/27/2014

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Keypoints:

Coherence

Cohesion

Deixis


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Coherence

Coherence can be thought of as how meanings and sequences of ideas relate to each other.

Typical examples would be

general> particular; statement> example; problem> solution; question> answer; claim> counter-claim. It lays emphasis on meaning.


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The original I couldn't seem to find the right

room —

none of them had the number

designated on my pass. First, I wound

up at the Department of Verification,

then the Department of Misinformation,

then some clerk from the Pressure

Section advised me to try level eight,

but on level eight they ignored me.

mark-up of coherence devices

*I couldn't seem to find the right room [the topic sentence: all other sentences in this paragraph support

this idea of confusion and disorientation] — none of *them [pronoun referring to "room"] had the number designated on my pass *First [enumeration], *I [pronoun] wound up at the Department of Verification, *then [enumeration & transition of addition] the Department of Misinformation, *then [enumeration & transition of addition] some clerk from the Pressure Section advised me to try level eight, *but [transition of contrast] on level eight they ignored

me.


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Cohesion

Cohesion is the grammatical and lexical relationship within a text or sentence. Cohesion can be defined as the links that hold a text together and give it meaning.

There are two main types of cohesion: 1. grammatical, referring to the structural content2. lexical, referring to the language content of the piece.

A cohesive text is created in many different ways. In Cohesion in English, M.A.K. Halliday and identify five general categories of cohesive devices that create coherence in texts: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion, and conjunction.


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How to achieve cohesion?

Cohesion can be achieved through the use of the following referential devices:

Anaphoric reference

Cataphoric reference

Exospheric reference


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Anaphoric reference is the most common type of reference, used unknowingly in everyday conversation and writing. It occurs when the writer refers back to someone or something that has been previously identified, to avoid repetition. Some examples: replacing "the taxi driver" with the pronoun "he" or "two attractive girls" with "they". Another example can be found in formulas such as "as stated previously" or "the aforementioned".


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Cataphoric reference is less common in speech but can be used for dramatic effect in writing. It occurs when the audience is introduced to someone as an abstract, before later learning his or her name. For example: "Here he comes, our award-winning host... it's John Doe!" Cataphoric references can also be found in written text, for example "see page 10".


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Exophoric reference is also uncommon in speech but can be used to describe generic or abstract situations in writing. It occurs when the writer chooses not to introduce a character (or group of characters), but instead refers to them by a generic word such as "everyone". The prefix "exo" means "outside", and the persons or events referred to in this manner will never be identified by the writer.


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Ellipsis is another cohesive device. It happens when, after a more specific mention, words are omitted when the phrase needs to be repeated.


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Conjunction

Conjunction creates cohesion by relating sentences and paragraphs to each other by using words from the class of conjunction, or numerals. This can be temporal (after,before), causal (because), coordinating (and), adversative (but, however), additive (further) or discourse markers (now, well, after all).


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Lexical cohesion

Lexical cohesion is basically created by repetition (reiteration) of the same lexeme, or general (aka shell) nouns, or other lexemes sharing the majority of semantic features: The bus ... - the vehicle ... - the chassis ....

Lexical cohesion can also form relational patterns in text in a way that links sentences to create an overall feature of coherence with the audience, sometimes overlapping with other cohesion features. The understanding of how the content of sentences is linked helps to identify the central information in texts by means of a possible summary. This allows judgements on what the text is about.


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For example, 'it', 'neither' and 'this' all refer to an idea previously mentioned. 'First of all', 'then' and 'after that' help to sequence a text. 'However', 'in addition' and 'for instance' link ideas and arguments in a text.


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Cohesion is the glue that holds a piece of writing together. In other words, if a paper is cohesive, it sticks together from sentence to sentence and from paragraph to paragraph. Cohesive devices certainly include transitional words and phrases, such as therefore, furthermore, or for instance,


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that clarify for readers the relationships among ideas in a piece of writing. However, transitions aren't enough to make writing cohesive. Repetition of key words and use of reference words are also needed for cohesion.


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What is Deixis

Deixis is an important field of language study in its own right - and very important for learners of second languages. But it has some relevance to analysis of conversation and pragmatics because it directly concerns the relationship between the structure of languages and the context in which they are used.It is often and best described as “verbal pointing”, that is to say pointing by means of language. The linguistic forms of this pointing are called deictic expressions, deictic markers or deictic words; they are also sometimes called indexicals.


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DEIXIS

Deixis means “pointing via language”. Any linguistic form used to do this “pointing” is called a deictic expression. Words like here, there, this, that, now and then, as well as most pronouns, such as I, we, you, he, her and them are deictic expressions.


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Deixis expressions include such lexemes (words) as:

Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours)

Demonstrative pronouns (this/that)

(Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now)

Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your)

Demonstrative adjectives (this/that)

Articles (the).


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Deixis is reference by means of an expression whose interpretation is relative to the context of the utterance, such as

• who is speaking

• the time or place of speaking

• the gestures of the speaker

• the current location in the discourse

• The topic of the discourse


Deictic expressions fall into three categories

(1) Person deixis: Any expression used to point to a person: me, you, him and them.

(2) Time deixis: words used to point to a time: now, then, tonight, last week and this year…

(3) Space/spatial/place deixis: words used to point to a location: here, there and yonder

Two other types are added by some linguists:

1. Discourse deixis: any expression used to refer to earlier or forthcoming segments of the discourse: in the previous/next paragraph, or Have you heard this joke?

2. Social deixis: honorifics (forms to show respect such as Professor Ali)


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Examples….

Suppose Harry just wanted to say the following sentense,the power was suddenly off:

Listen, I’m not disagreeing with you but with you and not about this but about this.

In the darkness, we cannot get any deictic information, after hearing the sentence, we cannot understand what is said.


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Education

Coherence, cohesion and deixis