GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL COHESION

By Arnis Silvia ([email protected])

I. What is Cohesion?
The concept of cohesion cannot be separated from the concept of text. A text, can be
spoken or written that does form a unified whole. What differ text and non-text lies on the
texture, and this texture is constructed by the cohesive relations between its lingustic
features. Further, Beaugrand and Dressler1 (1981) define a text as a communicative
occurence, which meets seven standard of textuality:

cohesion referring to the surface text, i.e. grammatical dependencies in the surface
text.

coherence referring to the textual world, i.e. the configuration of concepts and
relations which underlie the surface text.

intentionality referring to the text writers attitude.

acceptability referring to the text readers attitude to the text.

informativity referring to the extent to which the message of the text is (un)
expected, (un)known, etc.

situationality referring to the factors that make a text relevant to a situation.

intertextuality referring to the factors which make the utilization of one text
dependent upon knowledge of previously encountered texts.
Cohesion is in the level of semantic, which refers to relations of meaning that exist

within the text, and that define it as a text (Ruqaiya and Hasan2, 1976). Cohesion occurs
when the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another.
"Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish." (in a cooking
book)

Beaugrand, R. and W. Dressler. Introduction to Text Linguistics, London: Longman, 1981, p. 3-10

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.4

It is understood that "them" in the second clause refers to the previous noun "apples". This
ties is called Anaphoric, and it gives cohesion between the two sentences, so that we interpret
them as a whole; the two sentences together consitute a text. (Halliday & Hasan3, 1976)
To see the difference between cohesive and not-cohesive text, see example below.
(1) To reach the movie theater you will need to turn right on the next intersection and
then go straight for about 5 minutes. You will see it on your right-hand side.
(2) A cat catches a mouse. The car broke down. I go swimming
(1) and (2) are constituted by two or more sentences. However, (1) is cohesive one each
other, while (2) is not.
Like all the components of the semantic system, cohesion is realised through grammar
and vocabulary (Tanskanen4, 2006). Cohesion can therefore be divided into grammatical and
lexical cohesion. Grammatical cohesion includes devices such as reference, substitution,
ellipsis and conjunction, while lexical cohesion is divided into reiteration (repetition,
synonymy etc.) and collocation (co-occurrence of lexical items).

II. Grammatical Cohesion

Grammatical cohesion is constructed by the grammatical structures each component
tie each other. Halliday and Hasan5 (1976) classify grammatical cohesion into 4 major
classes: Reference, Substitution. Ellipsis, Conjunction.

II.1 Reference
Reference occurs when one item in text points to another element for its
interpretation.

endophora > when the interpretation of reference lies within the text.

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.2

Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa. Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse.

Amsterdam, John Benjamin Publishing, 2006. p.15
5

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.33

exophora > when the interpretation of reference lies beyond the text.

Example of exophora:
(in a fitting room)
Daughter: Mom, what do you think about this dress?
Mom: Oh dear, I think thats too short for you. Would you try this? (showing another dreass
she is holding).
that refers to the dress that the daughter is fitting in, and it is presented within the text.
However, this refers to the exphoric reference (another dress that the mother is holding)
which is not presented in the text.
Endophora consists of anaphora and cataphora. Anaphora refers to presupposition of
something that has gone before, while cataphora refers to the presuppossed element which is
following.

Example 1 (anaphora):
The man is living alone. His wife left him for 9 years.
In this sentence, his and him is anaphoric which refers to the man. Without having a
presuppossed clause the man is living alone, we cannot decide what his and him refer to.
Because we need to look back at the sentence gone before, these are anaphoric.

Example 2 (cataphora):
Hes a superstar, hes the best in his era. Lets welcome.. Justin Bieber!
In this sentence, he is cataphoric to the presupposed subject Justin Bieber. We need to
look forward to the following sentence to reveal what he refers to.
In English these reference items are personals, demonstratives and comparatives
(Halliday and Hasan6, 1976). Personal reference. Personal reference, for instance I, you, she,
they (subject pronouns), him, her, us (object pronoun), my, your (possessive pronoun), or
ours, theirs, hers (reflexive pronoun). Personal reference is reference by means of function
in the speech situation. through the category of PERSON (Halliday and Hasan7, 1976).
Demonstrative reference, such as: here, there, this, that, etc refers to the location of
presupposed elements. Comparatives, such as: bigger, more dilligent, and etc refers to
compared adjectives of one noun to another. The examples of these reference can be seen
below.
Example 3 (personal reference):
(1) I never met him before. My friends said that he is a kind and helpful professor. I wish I
can see Professor William soon.
(2) Those three thiefs! Those three thiefs! They were shot by the sheriff!

Example 4 (demonstrative reference)

(1) There I was born and grew up. There I met him, my beloved one. There we raised our
kids. There, in a small town called Slawi.
(2) (in a fitting room) Daughter: Mom, what do you think about this dress?
Mom: Oh dear, I think thats too short for you. Would you try this? (showing another dreass
she is holding).

6
7

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.31
Ibid, p.37

Example 5 (comparative refere

erence)
(1) This dish is too light, I want the heavier one.
(2) (in a boutique) Woman:
n: I think this blouse is too dark for my ski
skin. Can I have the
lighter, please?

II.2 Substitution
ipsis is quite similar. Substitution is the replac
placement of one item
Substitution and ellipsi
by another, and ellipsis is the
he om
omission of an item. Essentially the two are the same process;
ellipsis can be interpreted as that form of substitution in which the ite
item is replaced by
nothing. But the mechanismss iinvolved in the two are rather different, and
nd also, at least in the
case of ellipsis, fairly complex
plex. (Halliday and Hasan8, 1976)
Differs from the refere
erence, substitution is more on the wording whi
while the reference is
more on the meaning.

Kinds of substitution:

Nominal
substitution

one
ones
same

Verbal
substitution

do
did

Clausal
substitution

so
not

Co
in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.88
Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion

Nominal substitution is a process of replacement of Nouns with one, ones or same.

Verbal substitution is a replacement process of Verbs with do , did or other auxiliary
verbs. Clausal substitution is replacement process of clause, by so or not. These
substitution is aimed at avoiding the similar words to be repeated exactly at the next
sentences or clauses. The examples of each type of substitution is presented below.
Example 6 (nominal substitution)
(1) My axe is too blunt. I must get a sharper one.
(2) When I was a kid, I had a kitten but then it lost. I wish I had the same now.

Example 7 (verbal substitution)

(1) You think Joan already knows? - I think everybody does.
(2) Why didnt you do the homework, Jono? All of your friends did!

Example 8 (clausal substitution)

(1)... if you've seen them so often. of course you know what they're like'.
'I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully. (Halliday and Hasan9, 1976)
(2) Do you think that the assignment will due this week? I hope not! I havent written
anything!

II.3 Ellipsis

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.131

Ellipsis is the process in which one item within a text or discourse is omitted or
replaced by nothing. Ellipsis occurs when something that is structurally necessary is left
unsaid, as it is has been understood already. Where there is ellipsis, there is a
presupposition, in the structure that something is to be supplied. or 'understood. This is not
quite the same thing as saying that we can tell from the strtucture of an item whether it is
elliptical or not. For practical purposes we often can; but it is not in fact the structure which
makes it elliptical. An item is elliptical if its structure does not express all the features that
have gone into its make-up - all the meaningful choices that are embodied in it. (Halliday
and Hasan10, 1976)
The difference between ellipsis with reference and substitution is presented below.
(ibid)

Example 9 (comparation among ellipsis, reference, and substitution)

a. This is a fine hall you have here. Im proud to be lecturing in it. (reference)
b. This is a fine hall you have here. I've never lectured in a finer one. (substitution)
c. This is a fine hall you have here. I've never lectured in a finer. (ellipsis)
Alike substitution, there are also three types of ellipsis, namely nominal ellipsis,
verbal ellipsis, and clausal ellipsis. In nominal ellipsis, the Noun is omitted. In verbal ellipsis,
the Verb is omitted, while in clausal ellipsis, the clause/s is omitted.
Example 10 (nominal ellipsis) the omitted noun is bracketed
(1) They do not like it, yet (they) said nothing.
10

Ibid, p.144

(2) How did you enjoy the exhibition?- A lot (of the exhibition) was very good though not
all.

Example 11 (verbal ellipsis)

(1) Have you been swimming?- Yes, I have (been swimming).
(2) What have you been doing?- (I have been) Swimming.

Example 12 (clausal ellipsis)

Who was playing the piano? John was.
I hear Smith is having an operation? He has.

II.4 Conjunction
Conjunction refers to a specification of the way in which what is to follow is
systematically connected to what has gone before. Conjunctions is usually structure a
text/discourse in a precise way and bring the presented elements into a logical order .
Halliday and Hasan (in Brown and Yule11, 1983) mentions four types of conjuctions, namely
additive, adversative, causal, and temporal.

Example 13 (additive conjunction)

11

Brown, G. and Yule, G. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983,p. 191

(1) For the whole day he climbed up the steep mountainside, almost without stopping and in
all this time he met no one.
(2) Doing work with passion will bear great result. Similarly, doing work professionally will
keep you at the top.

Example 14 (adversative conjuction)

(1) He has little money on his pocket. However, he insists to buy the movie ticket. He will
walk home for sure.
(2) Bawang Merah acts so arrogantly to everyone. On the other hand, her sister, Bawang
Putih acts so politely.

Example 15 (causal conjunction)

(1) She was 5 minutes late submitting her final project. As a result, she lost 5% of her final
score.
(2) I think I never met him before so I didnt reply for his call.

Example 16 (temporal)
First, you need to select fresh lemons. Next, you cut them in two parts and squeeze them.
Add some sugar to the lemon water. Finally, you can add some ice in it.

Some also propose another type of conjunctions based on the parts they connect into: simple
adverb conjunctions, compound adverbs, and prepositional expressions. Simple adverbs
connect simple clauses and sentences. Compound adverbs connect compound sentences. And
prepositional expressions connect paragraphs. These types can be seen below.

Simple
adverbs

FANBOYS (for, and, but, or, yet, so)

accordingly, subsequently, actually
therefore, thereupon, whereas

Compound
adverbs

furthermore, nevertheless, anyway,

instead, besides
on the contrary, as a result, in
addition

Prepositional
ional
expressions

as a result of that, instead of that, in

addition to that
in spite of that, because of that

III. Lexical Cohesion

als with the meaning in text. This is the cohesi
ohesive effect achieved
Lexical cohesion deals
by the selection of vocabulary
ary (Halliday and Hasan12, 1976). It concerns
rns the way in which
lexical items relate to each other
ot
and to other cohesive devices so thatt te
textual continuity is
created. Lexical cohesion concerns
c
two distinct but related aspects:
cts: reiteration and
collocation.

III.1 Reiteration
Reiteration is the repe
repetition of a lexical item, or the occurrence
ce of a synonym of
some kind, in the context of reference; that is, where the two occurrenc
ences have the same
referent (Halliday & Hasan13 1976). Reiteration could be in the form of re
repetition, synonym,
hypernym, and general word.
d. All these devices have the function of reiter
iterating the previous
item, either in an identical or somewhat modified form, and this is the bas
basis for the creation

12
13

C
in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.274
Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion
Ibid p.318-319

of a cohesive tie between the items.Often the tie is strengthened by the fact that the items are
co-referential (Tanskanen14, 2006).
Example 17 (reiteration)

a. I've been to see my great-aunt. The poor old girl's getting very forgetful these days.
b. Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queershaped little creature and
held out its arms and legs in all directions, 'just like a star-fish', thought Alice. The poor
little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it.
c. Henrys thinking of rowing the Atlantic. Do go and talk to the wretched fool.

III.2 Collocation
Collocation is the use of a word that is in some way associated with another word in
the preceding text, because it is a direct repetition of it, or is in some sense synonymous with
it, or tends to occur in the same lexical environment (Halliday & Hasan15, 1976).
Collocation is probably the hardest lexical cohesion to analyze. To clearen this concept, the
place of reiteration and collocation can be figured as follow.

14

Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa. Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse.

Amsterdam, John Benjamin Publishing, 2006. p.32
15

Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976, p.319

Example 18 (collocation)
Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye,
Four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie,
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing,
Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before a king?
The king was in his counting-house, cotmting out his money,
The queen was in the parlour, eating bread and honey,
The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes.
Along came a blackbird and pecked off her nose.
The collocation happens between king ... queen, parlour . .. garden, dish ...eat, rye ...
bread.

REFERENCES

Beaugrand, R. and W. Dressler. Introduction to Text Linguistics, London: Longman, 1981

Brown, G. and Yule, G. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983
Halliday, M.A.K and Hasan. R. Cohesion in English. London: Longman, 1976
Tanskanen, Sanna-Kaisa. Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse.
Amsterdam, John Benjamin Publishing, 2006