Textual Cohesion and Coherence: A Comprehensive Guide
Textual Cohesion and Coherence
Consistency
Consistency is the fundamental property of a text that allows it to be viewed as a communicative unit. It’s the ability to form a unitary whole where all parts work together effectively. A text is coherent when the information revolves around a central idea (topic) and aligns with the speaker’s communicative intention. This means the information doesn’t violate universal norms of human knowledge (our understanding of the world), fits the communicative situation, and is understood within that specific context. Syntactic and semantic mechanisms (cohesion) create the relationships between the parties involved.
In a consistent text, all sentences are organized around a central idea, allowing the text to be interpreted as a meaningful unit. Paragraph organization is a key element of consistency.
Cohesion
Cohesion is the structural property of text that establishes links between semantic and syntactic elements. It’s how the text is held together.
Semantic Cohesion
Lexical Repetition
Words related to the main thematic clusters are repeated.
Semantic Relationships
Words are grouped around core meanings according to their semantic relationships.
- Semantic Field: A set of words in the same grammatical category that share some significant features (semes), even if other features differ.
- Associated Fields: Words connected by meanings, suggested meanings, conceptual proximity, or significant opposition. This reflects the relationships between the things the words represent.
- Synonymy: Several signifiers with a single meaning.
- Antonymy: Relationship between terms with opposite meanings, sometimes allowing for degrees of opposition.
- Hyperonymy: A lexical unit (the genus) that includes the meaning of other terms.
- Hyponymy: The terms included within the genus.
- Wildcard Words: Words with broad meanings that can replace many other words, though with less precision.
- Metaphor: Naming an object, idea, or situation using the name of something else that bears a resemblance, creating cohesion through recurrence.
- Metonymy: Naming a thing by the name of something else with which it has a relationship of contiguity, creating cohesion through replacement.
Grammatical Cohesion
Grammatical Recurrence
- Figures of Speech:
- Polysyndeton: Repetition of the same conjunction to link propositions or statements.
- Anaphora: Repeating one or more words at the beginning of a clause or verse (e.g., that, their, there, it).
- Gradation: Gradual arrangement of elements or meanings in a sentence, paragraph, or text.
- Cataphora: Anticipating an idea that is expressed later.
- Substitutions: Ensure text cohesion by avoiding excessive repetition. Cataphora and anaphora are examples.
- Ellipsis: Omitting linguistic elements that can be deduced from the context without hindering understanding.
- Nominal Ellipsis: A noun is omitted.
- Verbal Ellipsis: A verb is omitted.
- Sentence Ellipsis: A subordinate clause is omitted.
Connectors
- Addition: Express the sum of ideas (e.g., and, moreover, also, as well as, furthermore, besides).
- Intensification: Emphasize a point (e.g., over, even more, what’s more, indeed).
- Opposition: Express contrast between statements (e.g., yet, nevertheless, still, however, although, while).
- Concession: Acknowledge a point while contrasting it (e.g., yet, nevertheless, still, however, although, while).
- Restriction: Limit the scope of a statement (e.g., but, yet, however, somehow, to some extent, though).
- Exclusion: Present alternatives (e.g., rather, instead).
- Cause and Effect: Express causal relationships (e.g., therefore, consequently, hence, so, because, since).
- Comparison: Highlight similarities (e.g., similarly, likewise, in the same way).
- Reformulation: Restate an idea in a different way (e.g., that is, in other words, i.e.).
- Recapitulation: Summarize information (e.g., in brief, in short, in sum, to summarize).
- Exemplification: Provide examples (e.g., for example, such as, for instance).
- Correction: Rectify a previous statement (e.g., rather, that is, well).
- Ordering: Indicate the sequence of information (e.g., first, to begin with, finally, lastly).
- Transition: Shift between topics (e.g., on the other hand, moreover, then, next).
- Digression: Depart from the main topic (e.g., by the way, incidentally).
- Time: Indicate temporal relationships (e.g., after, before, then, since, when, until).
- Space: Indicate spatial relationships (e.g., next to, above, below, left, right).