LE2034

Candidate Number: 907421

Portfolio for Discourse of Written English Week 2: Cohesion and Coherence:

Cohesion is a semantic concept, referring to meaning relations within a text (Halliday & Hasan, 1974: 4). For any discourse to be effective it is incumbent that the sentences and utterances are linked together. Cohesion refers to the connections that are found within the discourse itself. Cohesive devices are clues to how the text should be read, thus cohesion is only a guide to coherence (McCarthy, 1991: 34). Coherence refers to the associations and interpretations that are made by the reader whilst receiving the text, based on knowledge outside the discourse (Renkema, 2004: 103). Task 2: Find as many examples of cohesion (both repetition and connection) as you can in this extract from a chemistry textbook. What additional signals of connections between ideas might the writers have used? Did they need to do this?
(1) Some chemical reactions happen very quickly. (2a) When sticks of dynamite are set off to blast a rock face, (2b) the explosion happens very fast. (3) Other chemical reactions happen slowly. (4) A car takes several years to rust. (5) A bottle of milk takes a few days to turn sour.

This text is a good example of how readers need to make lexical connections to gain understanding. The use of repetition positions the reader accordingly to what the writer is expressing. Explosion, rust, and to turn sour are anaphoric references to the word reaction, resulting in subordinate repetition. Fast is an anaphoric reference to quickly, which is a simple paraphrase. There are two connective devices used in this text: When is a cause-consequence connective device that introduces the relationship between clause 2a and 2b, and Other is used as a contrast-connection to introduce a new idea that is the opposite to that which was previously explored in clauses 1-2b. However, using generalisation-examples could add to the coherence of the text. For instance, if for example was inserted before when in clause 2a, then it would be explicit to how the second sentence is related to the first. The same can be said for clause 4 and 5, in relation to clause 3. It is understandable why the author has chosen

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Candidate Number: 907421

not to do this as they expect the reader to have some shared knowledge of the subject. It is expected that the reader knows that explosions, rusting, and milk turning sour, are all chemical reactions, highlighting how repetition and lexical referencing are used for textual coherence.

Week 3: Clause Relations:

A clause is two or more words together that include a subject and a predicate. Winter (1994: 48) states that the clause is linguistically relevant, significant, and highly structured. How the clause functions within a sentence and subsequently the message of the text is important to its coherence. For the message to be successfully understood, the notion of relevance needs to be applied. Winter (1994: 47) affirms that communication is imperfect and we cannot say everything about anything at any time. Thus the writer must carefully select words and messages that they share with the reader. Therefore, the reader is being told something they do not know in relation to something that they do know (Winter, 1994: 46-48). Task A: All of the extracts below are authentic and taken from www.telegraph.co.uk. Read through them and decide what the relationships are between the clauses/sentences.
1.

Cumbria shootings: gunman Derrick Bird kills 12 then shoots himself. [2nd June 2010]

2.

Jennifer Aniston has reportedly ended her relationship with musician boyfriend John Mayer because he is obsessed with Twitter, it has been alleged. [23rd March 2009]

3.

If employers want good graduates, then they must pay for them. [12th October 2010]

4.

What were talking about is terrorists being able to actually use cyber methods, for example, to interrupt the National Grid to prevent proper instructions going to power stations, which are under computer control. [18th October 2010]

Extract 1: Time-sequence. This sentence is made up of two clauses. The first, gunman Derrick Bird kills 12 is independent whilst the other, then shoots himself is dependant. Both describe a part in the story. There is a common logical sequence of events between the clauses. The first clause is self explanitory, after 2

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Candidate Number: 907421

which the adverb then, a time-sequence connection, indicates that something happened after Derrick Bird went on his killing spree.

Extact 2: Cause-consequnce. This sentence starts with an independent clause followed by one that is dependent. We are told in the first clause that Jenifer Aniston has reportedly ended her relationship with musician boyfriend The reader is then left questioning why this phenomena has occurred. The next clause starts with the conjunction because, which is the consequence relationship between the two clauses, and continues to explain why Jenifer Aniston ended the relationship.

Extract 3: Condition-consequence. Both the clauses in this sentence are dependant of each other. Because the first clause is an if-statement, it simply cannot survive on its own as it is conditional to what the next clause is expressing. In this case, If employers want good graduates it is dependent on the fact that ..they must pay for them.

Extract 4: Means-purpose. This sentence starts with the interpersonal clause, What we are talking about This attempts to engage the reader on a personal level, so that the reader may feel more inclined to the writers views. The writer continues to express thier concern by using the infinitive of means to actually use cyber methods i.e. these are the means that terrorists can use. The writer then uses a generalization connection, for example, to relate the means with the purpose to inturrupt the national grid

Week 4: Culturally Popular Patterns: ProblemSolution:

Many texts can be seen as an interaction between reader and writer whereby the writer seeks to answer questions they think their reader will want answering, and the reader seeks to anticipate the questions that the writer is going to answer. To make the readers task easier, the writer can answer an agreed sequence of questions to function as a template that both the writer and reader know about and can refer to, i.e. a culturally popular pattern (Hoey, 2001: 119). 3

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Candidate Number: 907421

Problem-solution patterns are found when texts use questions to spell out the relationships between sentences. (Hoey, 2001: 120). Task 2: Analyse the following text in terms of Problem-Solution patterning: identify the lexical signals of (i) Problem and (ii) Response identify positive and negative evaluations of Responses Why do you think the elements of the pattern appear in the order they do?
1. Emotional rescue 2. THE NEW PT CRUISER 3. Suddenly therapy doesnt seem the answer after all. 4. Try a strong dose of the new Chrysler PT Cruiser instead. 5. It might be blessed with the most original styling on the planet, but it has some surprisingly sensible features too. 6. Like a 2.0 litre engine, 4 airbags, air conditioning and a 6-speaker CD player. 7. And with prices from 14,995 to 17,195 its a clear antidote to the daily grind. 8. Visit www.ptcruiser.co.uk or call 0800 616 159.

Problem Emotional

Response/Solution Rescue New PT Cruiser (Solution) Try a strong dose A clear antidote (solution) Visit www (solution)

Evaluation Doesnt seem to be the answer (negative) Most original styling on the planetsensible features (positive)

The order of the elements in this advertisement are fundamental to why this is an effective advert for positioning its consumer to buy the product. At first the consumer is met with the two words, Emotional rescue before knowing what the advert is about. The adjective emotional connotes instability and sadness and this problem is immediately met with a response, rescue. This automatically assumes that the consumer is unhappy and needs rescuing emotionally. Then the solution is revealed, The new PT Cruiser, which is what is going to rescue the consumer.

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The advert carries on through a negative evaluation, claiming that normal therapy is not good enough to rescue the consumer from their emotional torture, therapy doesnt seem the answer and instead they should try a strong dose of the new Chrysler PT Cruiser By creating this response, the advert puts its product on a pedestal over the normal therapies, as if it is claiming that it is the only thing that will make the consumer happy.

Finally the advert finishes by bombarding the consumer with a positive evaluation of the product; original styling with sensible featuresa 2.0 litre engineand a 6speaker CD player, draws the consumer into the desirable aspects of what the product offers. Its a clear antidote reverts back to the therapeutic imagery, but this time in a positive way, acting as an evaluation for the product, and summing up the advert effectively.

Week 5: Theme and Rheme:

The Theme is the starting point of any message; it is what the clause is going to be about (Halliday, 1985: 39). The theme is like a framework where the message is hung and is often a subject noun-phrase. The Rheme is the comment on the theme, i.e. what we need to know about the theme. In essence, the theme provides a framework within which the rheme can be interpreted. (Fries, 1994: 230). Task 1: Identify the Themes in the 2 Precinct articles (see appendix i.). What does your analysis tell you about the way the writers choose to organise their information and develop their texts? Themes in each article. Opportunities on show to local National success means more part-time schools students Students unmarked, ideational New opportunities marked, ideational They unmarked, ideational The 250 places unmarked, ideational Tricia Jenkins unmarked, Degree programmes unmarked, ideational ideational They unmarked, ideational Developments unmarked, ideational

1 2 3 4

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Candidate Number: 907421 Teaching unmarked, ideational Students unmarked, ideational Credits unmarked, ideational

8 All programmes unmarked, ideational 9 Further information marked, ideational As both of these are articles have been written for an academic paper, they keep inline with certain specific conventions one might expect from academic writing. Both articles are devoid of any interpersonal metafunctions as it not concerned about establishing a personal relationship with the reader, nor to persuade them for any purpose. Rather, their sole purpose is to be objective and factual.

All of the themes in these two articles are ideational. This shows that the writer is only concerned with the objects central to the article; such as the students, teaching and the degree programmes.

With the exception of just three, all of the themes are unmarked. Marked themes offer a description of the subject. In these articles they provide essential information about the theme. For example, it is important to know that the children are visiting; hence they become the visiting children.

The lack of marked themes indicates that the writer is not worried about describing the subjects to their readers. Instead, they are concerned about informing the reader of the functional role of the subject within the rheme. This gives the articles a rigid and organised linear structure, moving from one fact to another efficiently.

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Candidate Number: 907421

References: Fries, P. (1994) On Theme, Rheme and discourse goals. In: Coulthard, M. Advances in written text analysis. London: Routledge, p229 Georgakopoulou, A & Goutsos, D (1997). Discourse Analysis: An Introduction. Edinburgh University Press. p123-125. Hadley, G. (1995) Written Text Analysis In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of Spoken Classroom Discourse and Written Discourse. University of Birmingham Halliday, M & Hasan R. (1974) Cohesion in English. Longman Publication Group Hoey, M. (2001) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge p119-141 McCarthy, M. (1991) Discourse analysis for language teachers. Cambridge University Press, p34 McGee, I. (2009) Traversing the Lexical Cohesion Minefield. Oxford University Press Renkema, J. (2004) Introduction to Discourse Studies. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Winter, E. (1994) Clause relations as information structure: two basic texts structures in English, In: Coulthard, M. Advances in Written Text Analysis, p46-48, Routledge

LE2034

Candidate Number: 907421