Overview of Todays Lecture

! what gives a text its texture

! the concept of cohesion:
! grammatical cohesion,
! lexical cohesion
! the concept of coherence.

ENGE 3670
Language, Meaning, and Text

Prof. Carmen Lee

Text and Texture

! Text is a piece of language that has meaning.
! This meaning is created through

Linking sentences
within a text
- Cohesion

connections and relationships between

elements such as words and sentences in the
text.
! These elements then create the texture of a

text.

What is Cohesion?
! the use of explicit cohesive devices, or

connecting devices to hang sentences in a

text together grammatically or lexically.
! Devices that link the structure of a text are

Cohesion

called grammatical cohesion.

! Devices that link the vocabulary or words of

a text are called lexical cohesion.

Substitution

Some COHESIVE DEVICES

Grammatical Cohesion

Lexical cohesion

! Substitution

! Lexical chains

! Ellipsis

! Reiteration

! Referential cohesion
! Anaphora

! Collocation

! To replace a longer structure in a sentence with a

shorter one (usually a single word).

! one

! Cataphora

! do

! Exophoric reference

! so

! Conjunctions

Substitution - Nominal
! Nominal substitution (replacing a noun or

a noun phrase)

e.g. Besides wearing a meat dress, Lady Gaga had also worn
a hair one, which was designed by Chris March.

Substitution - Verbal
! Verbal substitution (replacing a verb

or a verb phrase)

A: I think my students enjoy reading about Lady Gagas meat dress.

B: Yes, they do.

Substitution - Clausal
Clausal substitution (replacing a
sentence or a clause)
e.g. Ever thought youd sit down at
a restaurant and say, Hmmm, I think the
meat dress steak looks tasty, I think Ill
order that!? I didnt think so

Ellipsis
Omission of one or more parts of a sentence (noun, verb,
or phrase) which is understood and can be easily
recovered from the context.
e.g. There is much to support the view that it is clothes that
wear us, and not we, them.

Ellipsis
! Nominal Ellipsis (omitting a noun or

noun phrase)
! Verbal Ellipsis (omitting a verb or verb

phrase)
! Clausal Ellipsis (omitting a sentence or a

clause)

Referential Cohesion
! The use of a referring expression

to refer to another expression in

a text.
! Anaphoric reference
! Cataphoric reference
! Exophoric reference

Anaphora/Anaphoric
Reference

Anaphora/Anaphoric
Reference

! The use of a referring expression (typically a

! The definite article the can serve as a form of

pronoun) to talk about something that has

already been mentioned earlier in the text.
Gaga wore the meat dress to accept her Video of the
Year trophy for "Bad Romance

anaphoric reference because it refers the readers

back to an earlier mention of a particular noun.
e.g. Lady Gaga appeared in a dress made completely of
meat. The dress was designed by Franc Fernandez.

It was really difficult for me to sit next to Lady

Gaga while she was wearing that outfit.

Cataphora/Cataphoric
Reference

Reference vs Substitution
(i) Kelly needs a break. She will visit her family in Singapore next week.

! The use of a referring expression to point to a later

expression in the text.

(ii) Samuels computer is too slow. He must get a faster one.

Why is (ii) substitution not reference?
Only those expressions that require specification can become referring
expressions.
- The she in (i) directly connects to Kelly semantically there is only one
particular she in this case.
- In (ii), one is indefinite by nature which refers to any computer that Samuel
needs at the moment of speaking. It is only used to shorten the sentence.

e.g. When she was challenged by the reporters, Lady Gaga

insisted that the dress was not intended to offend anyone.
e.g. The American singer-songwriter, Lady Gaga, created a buzz
as she performed at the 2010 MTV Video Awards in
a dress made entirely of raw meat.
!

Exophoric Reference /
Exophora
! This kind of reference occurs when the

referent of a referring expression is not

explicit in the text (thus it does not create
cohesion!).
! The reader (or hearer) needs to look

outside the utterance to recover the

meaning.

Exophoric Reference /
Exophora
e.g. If *you want to know more about this
controversy, you can read the comments people
have left on animal rights blogs.
*The referent of you is not stated in the
article. Readers have to think outside the
article to realize that you refers to whoever
is reading the article.

Exophoric Reference / Exophora

Conjunctive relations

! homophora: a type of exophora, specific meaning from

cultural or common knowledge, not from its context of
use

! Devices that explicitly mark links between

various elements in a piece of text.

! e.g. Lady Gaga Meets The President!!

e.g. Lady Gagas Outfits for The Queen and Prince Charles
Were Extremely Different

Additive Conjunctions
! used when we want to add ideas or

information to an initial point.

! e.g. and, also, in addition, additionally,

! Major types of conjunctions:

1. Additive conjunctions
2. Adversative conjunctions
3. Causative conjunctions
4. Temporal conjunctions

Adversative conjunctions
! used to signal that a contrasting

or opposing point is about to be

made.

furthermore, moreover, as well as

! e.g. but, however, on the other hand.
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Causative conjunctions
! used when a cause or consequence

is about to be given.

Temporal conjunctions
! used to indicate time sequence

of ideas or events.
! e.g. After, first, next, previously, then.

! e.g. as a result, because, consequently,

as a consequence, therefore, thus.

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Lexical Cohesion

Lexical chain
The use of semantically related words in the same text to develop a
lexical chain that reveals the theme of the text.

! Lexical chain
! Reiteration
! Collocation

We thought wed seen everything in terms of Lady Gagas

ou#itsshes worn telephones as hats, cigare<es as
sunglasses, PVC to meet the Queen, decorated her Birkin
Bag...well, we could go on forever. But her latest ou#it
for Vogue Hommes Japan takes the cake. Gaga dons a bikini
and a Eny beret made from raw steaks and her lips and nails
are painted red. Take a look and tell us what you think.
(source: Lady Gagas Meat Bikini: Tasteful Or Tasteless?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/07/lady-gagas-meat-bikini-voguehommes_n_707357.html)

Reiteration
The repeated use of a lexical item/phrase/sentence as a
means of highlighting the theme of the text, thus also linking
various parts of the text.
e.g. Lady Gaga definitely made a statement at the 2010 MTV
Video Music Awards in this meat dress. Yes, it's meat. Real meat.

Collocation
The usual co-occurrence of different lexical items (i.e. some words
always occur together) to indicate associations between vocabulary
items. Both text producer and consumer know that only certain
words collate with each other.
This knowledge of collocation is yet another property that gives a
text its texture. Some examples:
Verb + Noun/NP: pay attention, break a record, make the bed,
take a photo
Adjective + Noun: fast food, key factor, heavy rain, hard time
Adverb + Adjective: highly successful, deeply concerned,
strongly recommended

Reiteration
Using synonyms is another common way to reiterate
keywords related to the subject of a text.
e.g. Lady Gaga tried once again to shock the world,
this time by wearing a meat dress during
her acceptance of the Video of the Year award at
MTVs Video Music Awards. Wearing a dress made
out of cuts of dead cows is offensive enough to bring
comment

Cohesion vs Coherence
! Do cohesive devices guarantee

the coherence (logical

connection of ideas) of a text?

! The text does make use of many cohesive devices

Is this text cohesive?

such as conjunctions and anaphora.

! The first man landed on the moon.

At the same time, there was a fly in

my aunt's soup. Her soup, however,
did not even taste of chocolate.
Is this text coherent?

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! The first man landed on the moon. At the

same time, there was a fly in my aunt's soup.

Her soup, however, did not even taste of
chocolate.
! BUT it is incoherent, i.e. there are no meaning

connections between the ideas in the sentences.

Cohesion and Coherence

Cohesion and Coherence

! Cohesion is concerned with

! how well words and sentences are connected in a
bigger piece of text.
! the appropriate and accurate language use, such as
conjunctions and pronouns
! the use of cohesive devices to achieve clear and
economical links between sentences and
paragraphs.

! Coherence is about the logical ordering of ideas

! However, the use of cohesive devices does not

! Incoherent writing causes readers to put a lot of

guarantee the coherence of a text.

and meanings in text.

! If a text is coherent,
! it is organized so that the ideas are linked clearly and
logically;
! it is reader-friendly;
! it guides the reader through the ideas being presented;

effort into trying to understand and connect the

ideas presented.

Coherence
! coherence is not something that can be measured or

easily spotted. It is largely interpretive.

! Whether a text is coherent depends not only on the

internal connections between different parts of a

text, it also relies on the readers experience and
expectations.

Interpreting coherence

Interpretative frameworks:
! Generic framework: the expectations we

have about different kinds of texts

! Cultural models: our beliefs and values of a

particular discourse community, based on

our experiences with the text and the
people, objects and events associated with
the text.

Cohesion in the digital world

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Recommended reading
! Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R.

(1976).Cohesion in English. London:

Longman.

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