Cohesion and Coherence

Cohesion and Coherence

Hanif Nurcholish Adiantika, M. Pd

Discourse Analysis

Universitas Muhammadiyah Cirebon

Multiple Choice

1. Jane was brilliant. She got the best score.

1. From the sentence above, the word 'she' refers to...

• Brilliant

• Best

• Score

• Jane

Multiple Choice

2. 2. Here he comes our hero. Please welcome John

3. From the sentence above, the word 'he' refers to...

• Here

• John

• Hero

• Welcome

Multiple Choice

3. 3. The sun is really shining. It really burns me!

4. From the sentence above, the word 'it' refers to...

• Shining

• The Sun

• Burns

• Shining

Multiple Choice

4. 4. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are the best footballers of all time. They are absolutely unstoppable.

5. From the sentence above, the word 'they' refers to...

• Lionel Messi

• Cristiano Ronaldo

• Best Footballers

• Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo

Multiple Choice

5. 5. Don't you want to eat it, dude. The chocolate is really delicious.

6. From the sentence above, the word 'it' refers to...

• Eat

• Dude

• The Chocolate

• Delicious

Cohesion and Coherence

What makes a text good?

What makes a text coherent?

Introduction

Cohesion and Coherence are terms used in discourse analysis and text linguistics to describe the properties of written texts.

The ways a text makes sense to readers & writers through the relevance and accessibility of its configuration of concepts, ideas, and theories.

​Coherence

The grammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of a text which hold it together.

Cohesion

Definition

a. Formal linguistic features e.g. reference, conjunction, lexical items.

b. Semantic relationship between sentences and within sentences

c. Determined by lexically and grammatically overt intersentential relationships.

Cohesion

a. Very general principle of interpretation of language in context

b. Fewer formal linguistic features e.g. vocabulary choice

c. Relationships deal with text as a whole

d. Based on primarily semantic relationships.

​Coherence

Coherence vs Cohesion

​Is this text coherent?

The princess has been sleeping for 100 years. Galang has been cooking for 100 minutes. Dhuhal has been studying for 100 days. Doni has been eating worms for 100 months.

​Below is the same paragraph revised for coherence

Tiara is studying the present perfect continuous, and here are the sentences that she has written. The first is “The princess has been sleeping for 100 years”. The others include “Galang has been cooking for 100 minutes”, “Dhuhal has been studying for 100 days”, and “Doni has been eating worms for 100 months”. Tiara is smart, isn’t she?

​According to Halliday & Hasan (1976)

• A text is a semantic unit whose parts are linked together by explicit cohesive devices.

• Cohesive Devices: a semantic and/or lexico-grammatic relation between an element in text and some other element that is crucial to interpretation of it.

• Even though within sentence ties occur the cohesive devices across ‘sentence boundaries’ are those which allow sequences of sentences to be understood as text.

​Halliday & Hasan’s (1976) Taxonomy of CDs:

Reference: Replacement of words and expressions with pro-forms.

e.g. pronouns and pro-modifiers

Three types of Reference:

• Personal Reference

• Demonstrative Reference

• Comparative Reference