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Types of Discourse: Coherence Versus Cohesion

This document discusses different types of discourse such as academic, legal, and religious discourse. It also discusses the difference between coherence and cohesion in discourse. Cohesion refers to grammatical and lexical links between sentences while coherence refers to the overall meaning and purpose of the text. The document provides several examples of cohesive devices like pronouns, conjunctions, and lexical repetition that contribute to a text's cohesion. It also discusses how coherence is achieved through macrostructures, topics, mental schemas, and other organizing principles.

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66 views25 pages

Types of Discourse: Coherence Versus Cohesion

This document discusses different types of discourse such as academic, legal, and religious discourse. It also discusses the difference between coherence and cohesion in discourse. Cohesion refers to grammatical and lexical links between sentences while coherence refers to the overall meaning and purpose of the text. The document provides several examples of cohesive devices like pronouns, conjunctions, and lexical repetition that contribute to a text's cohesion. It also discusses how coherence is achieved through macrostructures, topics, mental schemas, and other organizing principles.

Uploaded by

Ana
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Types of Discourse

Coherence versus Cohesion


Types of discourse
• to linguist Michael Halliday, discourse is "a unit of language larger than a
sentence and which is firmly rooted in a specific context.

Academi
Legal Religious
c

Mass-
media
Types of discourse
• presence of the social actor

indirec
direct
t
Types of discourse
• structure

formal ritual
Seven standards of textuality

Beaugrand and Dressler Introduction to text linguistics 1981


Text Cohesion
• Verb forms
• Parallelism
Pronouns
• Referring expressions
• Repetition and lexical chains Lexical signposts
• Substitution
• Ellipsis Key words
• Conjunction (Halliday and Hasan
1976) Anaphoric examples
Cohesion
• Grammatical :
• Reference
• Substitution
• Ellipsis
• Lexical:
• Repetition
• Synonyms
• Superordinates
• General words
• I spent the night, working at my project and it was really difficult. Yet I
am not very tired. So I am almost finished. Then, in the early morning, I
fell asleep.
Analyze cohesive devices:
• The more I see other countries, the more I like my own.
• Is he sick today? I think so.
• David hit the ball and the ball me.
• I’ll take this sandwich. It looks good.
• That looks good, the sandwich.
• Nice tattoo! Thanks. I am getting a new one.
• The book was important. It was a volume of poetry.
Cohesion
• If the translator is a man, He translates.
• If the translator is a woman, She translates.
• If the translator is either a man or a woman,
• S/HE translates .
• If the translator is a computer,
• S/H/IT translates.
CONCLUSION
• These links are neither necessary nor sufficient to account for OUR sense
of the unity of discourse.
• Their presence does not automatically make a passage coherent and their
absence does not automatically make it meaningless.
Is there cohesion?
• John was reading a newspaper. Newspaper is America contain several
pages. The first page of the book was lost. The lost child has been found.

• Is there Coherence?
Is there cohesion?
• John baught a cake at the bakeshop. The birthday card was signed by all
the employees. The party went on until after midnight.

• Is there Coherence?
Coherence
• The quality of meaning, unity and purpose perceived in
discourse.

1. Global Coherence
2. Linear Coherence
Coherence
• The quality of meaning, unity and purpose perceived in discourse.
• How is global coherence achieved?
• Macrostructures
• Macro proposition
• Topicality
• Scheme
• Function
Narrative macrostructures
• Setting : character, place, time
• Theme : event, goal
• Plot : episode, episode, episode
• Resolution
BPSE pattern
• Background: people, time, place
• Problem: need, dilemma, puzzle, obstacle,lack
• Solution: how to meet the need, to resolve the dilemma, to solve the
puzzle, to overcome the obstacle, to remedy the lack
• Evaluation: successful, partial
Macroproposition
• A proposition is a unit of meaning which can be realized in discourse and
expressed as a simple declarative sentence
• Van Dijk [1988]considered news topics to be semantic macrostructures;
that is, topics are propositions that contain the gist, upshot or most
important information about the story.
• Paragraphs contain propositions that are hierarchically organized into
more general macroproposition.
Topicality
• Makes discourse coherent, topics organize language.
• The topic – comment distinction is essential to communication, all
communications are a comment on a topic.
• [Donald 1992]
Mental scheme

• Mental model, Frame, metaphors for how


knowledge is stored ,organized and activated in
human memory.
• How does Top down processing work?
• How does Bottom up processing work?
• People understand language but cannot explain
how they do it.
Metadiscourse and discourse deixis in
monitoring a speech situation
• Direct address to the reader
the writer's intentions: "to sum
• rhetorical questions up," "candidly," "I believe"
the writer's confidence: "may,"
• certainty marker "perhaps," "certainly," "must"
directions to the reader: "note
• imperative that," "finally," "therefore,"
"however"
• Attitude marker the structure of the text: "first,"
• direct question "second," "finally," "therefore,"
"however"
Examples
• As I said it before
• The abovementioned data
• Later I’ ll explain
• Herein after represented by
• Do you follow me?
• Speak up!
• Sorry?
• Don’t you dare to talk to me like that!
Make it coherent

• 1However, nobody had seen one for months.


• 2He thought he saw a shape in the bushes.
• 3Mark had told him about the foxes.
• 4John looked out of the window.
• 5Could it be a fox?
42315 42531
Cohesion with no coherence
• My favourite colour is blue. Blue sports cars go very fast. Driving in this
way is very dangerous and can cause car crashes. I had a car accident once
and broke my leg…
CONCLUSION
• Metadiscourse organises communication.
• Discourse deixis points to the parts within the text.
• Organisational exchanges accompany communicative exchanges in the
process of communication alongside self presentation.

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