Cohesion in English: A Look at Texture, Ties and Devices

COHESIONIN
ENGLISH
MS. ERLINELA. GALANO
TESL 604 INTEGRATING LANGUAGE AND
LITERATURE

text
any passage,
spoken or written,
of whatever length,
that forms a unified whole

cohesion kō-hē-zhən
the use of repetition, transitional
expressions,
and other devices (called cohesive cues) to
guide readers and
show how the parts of a composition
relate to one another

cohesion kō-hē-zhən
linguistic features which link sentences
together and are generally easy to
identify;
the grammatical and lexical relationship
between different elements of a text
which hold it together

Cohesion
▪ ‘The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics by P.H. Mathews
(1997)’ defines cohesion in terms of syntactic unit (sentence).
▪ ‘ A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics by David Crystal
(1997)’ defines cohesion in terms of a grammatical unit (words)
▪ MAKH and RH (1976) argued that the concept of cohesion is
semantic one. For them, it refers to relation of meaning that:
exists within text
gives the text texture
defines the text as text

TEXT
Constituents of
Text
Texture Ties Cohesion

Texture, Cohesive ties,
and Cohesive devices

e.g. (1)
Once upon a time there was a little girl
and she went out for a walk
and she saw a lovely little teddybear
and she took it home
and when she got home she washed it.

e.g. (2)
He got up on the buffalo
I have booked a seat
I have put it away in the
cupboard
I have not eaten it.

Five Cohesive Devices to Create Texture
1.Reference
2.Substitution
3.Ellipses
4.Conjunction
5.Lexical cohesion
Grammatical
Cohesion

A B
Semantic relations are the basis of cohesion.

e.g. (3)
I had a little nut tree
Nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg
And a golden pear.

e.g. (4)
I play the cello.
My husband does, too.

e.g. (5.1)
Wash and core six cooking
apples.
Put them into a fireproof
dish.

e.g. (5.2)
Wash and core six cooking
apples.
Put the apples into a
fireproof dish.

Cohesive devices
3
co-reference
co-classification

Example of substitution
I play the cello.
My husband does, too.

Example of ellipsis
—’Can I borrow your pen?’
—’Yes, but what happened
to yours?’

A B Tie type
Example 3 little nut tree it
Example 4 plays the cello does
Example 5 your pen yours
Co-referential
Co-classification
Co-classification

Grammatical Cohesion
Reference
Substitution
Ellipsis
Conjunction
1
2
3
4

Halliday & Hasan's Taxonomy of
Cohesive Devices:
1. Reference
Replacement of words and
expressions with pro-forms.
e.g. pronouns,pro-modifiers.

Types of reference:
Personal (communication goal
of referent)
Demonstrative (proximity of
referent)
Comparative (similarity
to preceding referent)

Personal pronouns (e.g., I, he, she)
Possesive pronouns (e.g., mine, hers, his)
Possesive determiners (e.g., my, your, her)
Personal Reference

e.g.
I never met him before. My friends said
that he is a kind and helpful professor. I
wish I can see Professor Willy soon.
Personal Reference

Demonstrative Reference
e.g.
How do you like a cruise in that yacht?
Pick these up!
These are my favorites and those are my
favorites too.
Leave that there and come here.

Demonstrative Reference
e.g.
(in a fitting room)
Daughter: Mom, what do you think about this
dress?
Mom: Oh dear, I think that is too short for you.
Would you try this? (showing another dress she
is holding)

Comparative Reference
e.g. She has a similarly furnished room to mine.
The little dog barked as noisily as the big
one.
They asked me three equally difficult
questions.

This dish is too light, I want the heavier
one.
(in a boutique) Woman: I think this
blouse is too dark for my skin. Can I
have the lighter, please?
Comparative Reference

Reference
Exophora Endophora
Anaphora Cataphora

REFERENCE
(Situational)
{EXO}{PHORA}
(Textual)
{ENDO}{PHORA}
{ANA}{PHORA} {CATA}{PHORA}
OUT(SIDE) IN(SIDE)

exophora
e.g. (1)
Stop doing that here. I’m trying
to work.

For he's a jolly good fellow
And so say all of us.
e.g. (1.1)

endophora
e.g. (2)
I saw Sonia
yesterday. She was
sitting on the bench.

anaphora
e.g. (3)
▪ Child: why does that one come out?
▪ Parent: that what?
▪ Child: that one.
▪ Parent: that one what?
▪ Child: that lever there that you push
to let the water out.

cataphora
e.g. (4)
▪ Child: why does that one come out?
▪ Parent: that what
▪ Child: that one.
▪ Parent: that one what?
▪ Child: that lever there that you push to let the
water out.

e.g. (4.1)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.
(“The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost)

e.g. (4.2)
If you want some, I’ve
just made a fantastic
loaf of banana bread.

e.g. (4.3)
This is what he believed: that
all men were created equal.

e.g. (2.1)
We went to Devon for a holiday.
The people we stayed with had
four children.The eldest girl was
about nine.

For many years, East German people devised
1creative ways to sneak out of East Germany. Some
people dug tunnels; 2others tried crashing through
checkpoints with cars, trucks, and buses; and 3still others
flew out in small airplanes or balloons. One woman tied
herself to the bottom of a car and passed through a
checkpoint unnoticed. And one family sewed faked
Russian uniforms for 4themselves; then they pretended to
be Russian soldiers and simply drove through a
checkpoint. Some desperate people tried scrambling over
a barbed-wire fence or a wall. 5These people were often
shot.

Cohesive Devices:
2. Substitution
• replacement of one item by another
• a relation in wording rather than
in meaning

Types of
Cohesive
Relation
Linguistic
level
• Reference • Semantic
• Substitution
(including
ellipsis)
• Grammatical

Types of Substitution
• one
• ones
• same
Nominal
• do
• did
Verbal
•so
•not
Clausal

 Nominal Substitution:
 Nominal substitutes
for noun head : one/ ones
for nominal complement : the same
for attribute : so

e.g.
1. I’ve heard some strange stories in my time. But this one
was perhaps the strangest of all.
2. When I was a kid, I had a kitten. I wish I had the same
now.
3. John seems to be intelligent.
–Is he really so?

 Verbal Substitution:
e.g.
You think Joan already knows?
——I think everybody does.
Why didn’t you do the homework,
Joko? All of your friends did!

 Clausal Substitution:
e.g.
1.…if you’ve seen them so often. Of
course you know what they are like.
‘I believe so,’ Alice replied
thoughtfully.
2. Do you think that the assignment will
due this week? I hope not! I haven’t
written anything!

Cohesive Devices:
3. Ellipsis
• deletion of words, expressions or phrases;
• simply ‘substitution by zero’.

Types of Ellipsis
Nominal ellipsis
Verbal ellipsis
Clausal ellipsis

Nominal Ellipsis
e.g. Here are thirteen cards.
Take any (-).Now give me any three (-).
e.g. Some say one thing, others say another (-).
e.g. Which hat will you wear ?
This is the best (-).
e.g. Have another chocolate.
No thanks; that was my third (-).
e.g. Smith was the first person to leave. I was the second (-).

Nominal Ellipsis
e.g.
They do not like it, yet (they) said nothing.
How did you enjoy the exhibition?
—A lot (of the exhibition) was very good though
not all.

Verbal Ellipsis
e.g. Have you been swimming? Yes, I have.
e.g. What have you been doing? Swimming.
e.g. Is he complaining? He may be; I don’t care.
e.g. I haven’t finished it yet. I hope you’re going to have by
tomorrow.
e.g. Some were laughing and others cyring.
e.g. Were you laughing? No I wasn’t.
e.g. John came, did not he? NO, but he will.

Clausal Ellipsis
e.g. Smith was going to take part but somebody
telephoned and asked to see him urgently so he
had to withdraw. —Who ?
e.g. I kept quiet because Mary gets embarrassed
if anyone mentions about John’s name. I don’t
know why.
e.g. Who could have broken those tiles?- I can’t
think who.

Clausal Ellipsis
e.g.
Who was playing the piano?
—John was.
I hear Smith is having an operation.
—He has.

Cohesive Devices:
4. Conjunction
• a word or group of words used to
connect words, phrases, or clauses
• marks certain relationsips between
clauses and sentences

• and , or, furthermore, similarly, in additionadditive
• but, however, on the other hand,
neverthelessadversative
• so, consequently, for this
reason, it follows from thiscausal
• then, after that, an hour later,
finally, at lasttemporal
Types of Conjunctions

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

Additive conjunction
e.g. My client says he does not know his
witness. Further, he denies ever
having seen her.
e.g. Perhaps she missed her train. Or
else she’s changed her mind and isn’t
coming.

Adversative conjunction
e.g. He has little money in his pocket. However,
he insists to buy the movie ticket. He will walk
home for sure.
e.g. For the whole day he climbed up the steep
mountainnside, almost without stopping. Yet he
was hardly aware of being tired.

Adversative conjunction
e.g. All the figures were correct;
they’d been checked. Yet the total
came out wrong.
e.g. We maybe back tonight; I’m not
sure. Either way, just make
yourself at home.

Causal conjunction
e.g. You are not leaving, are you?
Because I’ve got something to say
to you.
e.g. I was not informed. Otherwise I
should have taken some action.

Causal conjunction
e.g. She was five minutes late
submitting her final project. As a
result, she lost 5% of her final
score.
e.g. I think I never met him before so
I didn’t respond to his call.

Temporal conjunction
e.g. First, you need to select fresh
lemons. Next, you cut them into
parts and squeeze them. Add some
sugar to the lemon water. Finally,
you can add some ice in it.

Temporal conjunction
e.g. The weather cleared just as the
party approached the summit. Until
then they had been nothing of the
panaroma around them.
e.g. At last, he finished the rehersal
for his role.

CONJUNCTIONS
▪ Coordinating conjunctions
connect words, phrases, or
clauses of equal grammatical
rank.
▪ For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
e.g. I used phonics in learning
to read, and so did you.
e.g. Though he seemed to be
tired, he did not refused to go
out.
▪ Subordinating conjunctions
connect clauses that are of
subordinate importance to the
independent clause or to some
element in the main clause.
▪ although, except, though, while,
if, whether as, as if, where,
wherever, in order that, so that,
after, as long as, as soon as,
before, since, when etc.
Coordination
Subordination

Cohesive Devices:
5. Lexical Cohesion
• achieved by the selection of vocabulary
• Two elements share a lexical field
(collocation)

Types of Lexical Cohesion
reiteration
collocation

1. Reiteration
“the repetition of a lexical term , or
the occurrence of a synonym of
some kind, in the context of
reference; that is, where the two
occurrences have the same referent”

Repetition
e.g. Pollution of our environment has occurred
for centuries, but it has become a significant
health problem only within the last century.
Atmospheric pollution contributes to respiratory
disease, and to lung cancer in particular. Other
health problems directly related to air pollutants
include heart disease, eye irritation and so on.

 Superordinate/hypernym
e.g. Henry’s has bought a new jaguar.
He practically lives in the car.
 Synonym
e.g. I turned to the ascent of the
peak.The climb is perfectly is easy.

 General noun
e.g. I turned to the ascent of the peak. The
thing is perfectly easy.
 Near -Synonym
e.g. There is a boy climbing that tree. The lad
is going to fall if he doesn’t take care.

John caught a snake underneath a bucket.
Repetition
The snake is going to
suffocate itself if it
stays there very long.
Synonym
The serpent is going to
suffocate itself if he
does not let it go.
Hypernym (superordinate)
The animal is going to
does not let it go.
General word
The poor thing is going to
does not let it go.

2. Collocation
Cohesion that is achieved
through the association of
lexical items that regularly
co-occur.

hair/comb, reader/writer,
door/window, chair/table,
north/south, peace/war,
bee/honey

e.g. Why does this little boy wriggle
all the time? Girls don’t wriggle.
e.g. It was hot. Dan was lining up for
an ice-cream.

References:
Beaugrand, R. & Dressler, W. (1981). Introduction to Text Linguistics, London: Longman.
Brown, G. & Yule, G. (1983). Discourse Analysis. Cambridge University Press.
Halliday & Hasan (1976). Cohesion in English. Longman. London & Newyork.
Hyland, K. (2006). English for Academic Purposes. Routledge, Great Britain.
Reid, J.M. The Process of Composition. Second Edition. Prentice Hall Regents.
Sanders, T. & Pander Maat, H. (2006). Coherence and Coherence: Linguistic Approaches.
Utrecht Institute of Linguistics OTS. Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Elsevier Ltd.
Tanskanen, S. (2006). Collaborating towards Coherence: Lexical Cohesion in English
Discourse. Amsterdam, John Benjamin Publishing.

Coherence vs. Cohesion
Coherence:
▪ very general principle of
interpretation of language in
context
▪ fewer formal linguistic
features
e.g vocabulary choice
▪ relationships deal with text as
a whole
▪ based on primarily semantic
relationships
 errors much more
obvious
Cohesion:
▪ formal linguistic features
e.g repetition,reference
▪ semantic relationships
between sentences and
within sentences
▪ determined by lexically
and grammatically overt
intersentential
relationships
 more recognizable

Cohesion in English: A Look at Texture, Ties and Devices

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