INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH TEXT LINGUISTICS

Professor Christopher Gledhill
(Notes de cours, Linguistique du texte anglais, 48LGAN23, EILA, Université Paris Diderot)
However, it seems to me that the general principles of communicative cooperation raised by Grice
seem to be applicable to many Western / European cultures.
3.2 Coherence and Cohesion
It could be argued that coherence and cohesion are the most important phenomena we can study
in text analysis. Coherence refers to the implicit organisation of a text (i.e. covert, hidden, tacit
structure); it is a feature which competent language users come to expect in a given text. The
coherence of a text allows us to predict its form and content, and to tacitly understand many
elements which may be missing from the formal text. On the other hand, Cohesion refers to the
explicit organisation of a text (i.e. overt, tangible, visible clues). Cohesion takes the form of
cohesive devices (binding and linking words or other formal aspects of the text).
In order to understand the difference between Coherence and Cohesion, consider the following
question:
What is the best order for the clauses ABCD 5 in the table below?
Initial Order Best Order Example sentences Notes
A
B
C
D
I defeated the enemy
I shot at him
I was on guard duty
I saw an enemy soldier
There are two aspects of this sequence which lead us to see it as a ‘Text’, Coherence and Cohesion.
These are summarised below:
Coherence
The implicit patterns of meaning (semantic, contextual) which make up the
expectations we have about a text. Generally, we expect a text to ‘hang together’
as a whole and to obey the basic conventions of speech and / or writing. For
example, a simple narrative can be idealised in terms of Rhetorical Structure:
• Situation
• Problem
• Resolution
5 This exercise comes originally from Eugene Winter (1977), and was also reported in Hoey, Michael (1991)
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