GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL COHESION
By Arnis Silvia(arnis.silvia@gmail)
I.What is Cohesion?
The concept of cohesion cannot be separated from the concept of‘text’.A text,can be spoken or written that does form a unified whole.What differ text and non-text lies on the ‘texture’,and this texture is constructed by the cohesive relations between its lingustic features.Further,Beaugrand and Dressler1(1981)define a text as a communicative occurence,which meets seven standard of textuality:
•‘cohesion’referring to the surface ammatical dependencies in the surface text.
•‘coherence’referring to the textual he configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface text.
•‘intentionality’referring to the text writer’s attitude.
•‘acceptability’referring to the text reader’s attitude to the text.
•‘informativity’referring to the extent to which the message of the text is(un) expected,(un)known,etc.
•‘situationality’referring to the factors that make a text relevant to a situation.
•“intertextuality’referring to the factors which make the utilization of one text dependent upon knowledge of previously encountered texts.
Cohesion is in the level of semantic,which refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text,and that define it as a text(Ruqaiya and Hasan2,1976).Cohesion occurs when the interpretation of some element in the discourse is dependent on that of another.
"Wash and core six cooking apples.Put them into a fireproof dish."(in a cooking book)
1Beaugrand,R.and W.Dressler.Introduction to Text Linguistics,London:Longman,1981,p.3-10
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It is understood that"them"in the second clause refers to the previous noun"apples".This ties is called Anaphoric,and it gives cohesion between the two sentences,so that we interpret them as a whole;the two sentences together consitute a text.(Halliday&Hasan3,1976)
To see the difference between cohesive and not-cohesive text,see example below.
(1)To reach the movie theater you will need to turn right on the next intersection and
then go straight for about5minutes.You will see it on your right-hand side.
(2)A cat catches a mouse.The car broke down.I go swimming
(1)and(2)are constituted by two or more sentences.However,(1)is cohesive one each other,while(2)is not.
Like all the components of the semantic system,cohesion is realised through grammar and vocabulary(Tanskanen4,2006).Cohesion can therefore be divided into grammatical and lexical cohesion.Grammatical cohesion includes devices such as reference,substitution, ellipsis and conjunction,while lexical cohesion is divided into reiteration(repetition, synonymy etc.)and collocation(co-occurrence of lexical items).
II.Grammatical Cohesion
Grammatical cohesion is constructed by the grammatical structures each component tie each other.Halliday and Hasan5(1976)classify grammatical cohesion into4major classes:Reference,Substitution.Ellipsis,Conjunction.
II.1Reference
Reference occurs when one item in text points to another element for its interpretation.
•endophora>when the interpretation of reference lies within the text.
3Halliday,M.A.K and Hasan.R.Cohesion in English.London:Longman,1976,p.2
4Tanskanen,Sanna-Kaisa.Collaborating towards Coherence:Lexical Cohesion in English Discourse. Amsterdam,John Benjamin Publishing,2006.p.15
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•exophora>when the interpretation of reference lies beyond the text.
Example of exophora:
‘that’refers to the dress that the daughter is fitting in,and it is presented within the text. However,‘this’refers to the exphoric reference(another dress that the mother is holding) which is not presented in the text.
Endophora consists of anaphora and cataphora.Anaphora refers to presupposition of something that has gone before,while cataphora refers to the presuppossed element which is following.
Example1(anaphora):
In this sentence,‘his’and‘him’is anaphoric which refers to‘the man’.Without having a presuppossed clause‘the man is living alone’,we cannot decide what‘his’and‘him’refer to. Because we need to look back at the sentence gone before,these are anaphoric.
Example2(cataphora):
In this sentence,‘he’is cataphoric to the presupposed subject‘Justin Bieber’.We need to look forward to the following sentence to reveal what‘he’refers to.
In English these reference items are personals,demonstratives and comparatives (Halliday and Hasan6,1976).Personal reference.Personal reference,for instance I,you,she, they(subject pronouns),him,her,us(object pronoun),my,your(possessive pronoun),or ours,theirs,hers(reflexive prono
un).“Personal reference is reference by means of function in the speech situation.through the category of PERSON”(Halliday and Hasan7,1976). Demonstrative reference,such as:here,there,this,that,etc refers to the location of presupposed elements.Comparatives,such as:bigger,more dilligent,and etc refers to compared adjectives of one noun to another.The examples of these reference can be seen below.
Example3(personal reference):
I wish I Example4(demonstrative reference)
our
dreass 6Halliday,M.A.K and Hasan.R.Cohesion in English.London:Longman,1976,p.31discourse
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Example 5(comparative refere
II.2Substitution
Substitution and ellipsi
by another,and ellipsis is the om ellipsis can be interpreted nothing.But the mechanisms i case of ellipsis,fairly complex Differs from the refere more on the meaning.
Kinds of substitution:
8Halliday,M.A.K and Hasan.R.Co Nominal substitution
Verbal
substitution Clausal substitution
erence)
ipsis is quite similar.Substitution is the replac he omission of an item.“Essentially the two are as that for
m of substitution in which the ite s involved in the two are rather different,and plex.”(Halliday and Hasan 8,1976)
erence,substitution is more on the wording whi Cohesion in English .London:Longman,1976,p.88•one
•ones
•same •do •did
•so
•not have the placement of one item the same process;item is replaced by nd also,at least in the while the reference is

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