HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES phan (ick ie nin AN INTRODUCTION TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS | | NGUYEN HOA I | ay | || HANOL- 2000 |FOREWORD | This is a condensed and well-compiled coprse book which would be of great use to Vietnamese students at our) College. With a good command of the concerned knowledge and from his experience of wonderful display in different chapters (madestly referred to as teaching the students this subject matter, “ author has made a book. ives) which are harmoniously arranged in th I strongly recommend the publication of {his coursebook, which will be useful to the students and lecturers in thk decade to come, with the hope that they all will greatly benefit from it Hanoi March, 1998 ‘Tran Huu Manh, Assoc. Prof.y Lithoduction + Uengeceshepar ras % func ten, | pA by GNion vom me) george yul) o tor A+ Hea / ¢ whats VA | Dawiel Nerase) cr What y hows bean falturig raft ou bohurePREFACE i | A ‘This An Introduction to Discourge Analysis is based on a series of lectures given to senior students at the College|of Foreign Languages (CFL), The Vietnam National University (VNU), Hanoi from 1993 to 1997. In writing this book, I had a single purpose of providing the students with just what an introduction is - getting them acquainted with the fundamentals and the useful analysis $kills involved in this fast changing field, which embraces a number of fisciplines. I also kept in mind that students at the University do notjhave ready access to materials and publications on the field, thus the homework section is designed to meet this demand. However, I feel that much needs to be done to improve it in the next edition. 1 I also hope that this course can be of som value and interest to those majoring in languages, and students from other foreign language institutions as well. i Following Brown and Yule and many others, I take the view that discourse analysis is concerned with language .in use. As such, the subject matter of discourse analysis happens also to be shared by conversation analysis, and pragmatics, as well. ‘Thus, 1 appeal to insights from these inter-disciplinary areas, where necessary. However, {want to make clear that since this is not a monograph on the subject, 1 have tried to limit myself to discussion of issues only where it was needed to clarify 4 point. e assumed a in the production of this “An Introduction”, I ha and I fairly basic knowledge of linguistics on the part of the student: dvew heavily, among other publications, on Brown and Yule’sDiscourse Analysis contains 9 chapters, ‘Clyne’s Cultural Vali tes in Discourse. This book ling with a number of issues. The first chapter subject matter of the ‘ield. I also made an effort between the two notic 1s discourse and text. The next is about cohesipn in English, where \'e looked at grammatical, lexical and logical cbhesive devices. Chapt r 3 examines context and the features of context which constitute the topic framework. Then, in chapter 4, I moved 6n to the next issue 0 a pragmatic approach to discourse analysis, considering such notions a presupposition, entailment, implicature, inference and the process of aking inferences. Speech Acts was the topic of the next chapter. In th : following two chapters, I examined the issue of discourse organisaticn in terms of content and formal structure. Chapter 8 treats the use of background knowledge in the interpretation of discourse and the © ganisation of this socio- cultural knowledge. The student may fee that the last part is not directly concerned with the subject matter o discourse as we defined at the beginning of the book. The insertion cf the topic was primarily aimed at providing a possible framework(s) whereby discourse analysis may be undertaken. It should be borne i1 mind that a number of possible approaches were presented here, :nd I would not claim that there is only one single best approach at all. I thank Prof. Dinh Van Duc of the S hool of Social Sciences & Humanities whose ideas I gained and b:nefited from, during my regular consultations with him, and were incorporated in the book. Some of the exercises were taken from Hatc 1 (1992), and R. Close. In a way, this course may be seen as a kind of c iscourse analysis digest for the students at CFL. I do not wish to lay :laims to the originality of most of the ideas presented here. I very much want to thank Associat’ Prof. Tran Huu Manh of CFL, VNU, and Mr Nguyen Xuan Thom, I ead of ESP section, for the trouble they took in reading the first draft cf this course, and also their 6 | |constructive comments that went toward improving it, and especially Prof. Tran Huu Manh, who took time off tojwrite the foreword to this edition. | | My thanks also go to Dr. Hoang Van Van, Mr. Nguyen Quang, Head of the Cross-Culture Section, CFL, VNU for giving me precious comments and suggestions. ' Errors are unavoidable. I welcome any further comments and criticisms that can help to improve the book. Nguyen Hoayd "eee Lo poo cae Pe did SPB BUN ca TABLE OF CONTENTS TOPICS page Chapter 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO DISCC URSE ANALYSIS 11 | | | 1. The'subject matter f diskou se analysis... ..-. .u 2. Implications ee analysis il 3. Discourse vs. Text} ...|. 2 4. Thefunctions of lahguage |... pppsehepdnacaascod 14 5. Spoken and Written language ..... 0.06.0 cece cece 16 | THEF oF Discoupsr | Chapter 2: COHESION IN ENGLISH 23 1. What is cohesion. 23 2. Coherence. Bex) 3. Grammatical cohesion. . . . . . eee e eee ees oe 4. Logical cohesive devices. .......... 0000005 38 5. Lexical cohesive devices. . . 32 6. Discourse reference a beceeeeee 34 Chapter 3: CONTEXT AND THE ROLE 9F CONTEXT IN THE INPERPRETATION OF DISCOURSE ey he ® % no ‘she fuchys that” bet AS What i Seouurte, pete specks 1. What is context? - sage 2. Features of context. 3. Co-text..... 5. ee 4. The principle of “local interpretation" anc of “analogy”. ..... 44 8Sexcture \kaledoy » £ seeker tints c ~ Ply nis content Victnoune te scar ple, geccal wile ek cont Chapter 4: A PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS “4 1. Some basic concepts . beens 54 2. Bases for inferencing. . . 60 3. The co-operative principle. . 61 Chapter 5: SPEECH ACTS 69 L. The concept of speech acts ee 69 2. Felicity conditions... beceeees : 70 3. Classification of speech acts... 7 Chapter 6: TOPIC AND THE REPRESENTATION DISCOURSE CONTENT wy 1. The notion “topic”... . . 0 2. Sentential topic. veces 79 3. Discourse topic. ... . ' 81 4. Topic framework... 0000. eee eee bocce sees 82 5, Relevance and speaking topically boc cceee es 85 6. Topic, boundary markers... 006... cece eee 87 7. Discourse topic and the representation of discourse content... 90 Chapter 7: THE REPRESENTATION OF DISCOURSE STRUCTURE 96 1. The linearisation of discourse... ... . . wees ... 96 2. Theme. : 96 3. Thematisation / staging. 98 4. information stracture: | 103fNagmade steacsnake oe NO Meg 9 ce mast — yvkpieature 7 = Se rational Uanplicahure arte? Lwtid quaural bukgmmnd) Somebinss ie prsppeahe Unde got HN) ee a general Chapter 8: USING BACKGROUND KNO WLEDGE IN THE INTERPRETATION OF DISC OURSE L Introduction... 000.66. .0e00eeeeeceecs ese eeeseeeebees 123, 2. Computing communicative function. f 3. Using background Inomindae Seoceeeeee G6 : Chapter 9: TOWARDS A DISCOURSE Ai/ALYSIS FRAMEWORK it 1 Opening remarks. .|.....- 131 2. Approaches to discourse analysis. 132 3. State of the art...) 220-202 00 25 4. Cultural values. 5. Frameworks for discourse analysis...... 6. Conclusion. ..... REFERENCES 152 Addrssser / Badass 4 Adena + chan 4 Ssediny 4 pepe i ae purge’ 4 Tpit, “ising Frm3 peel cunt = ppeeclh curcum'sfanw ca want ngor ' Geltre the few din rger smueal dricou se Chapter 1: AN INTRODUCTION TO DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 1. The subject matter of discourse analysis Brown and Yule (1983: viii) rightly remark: the term “discourse analysis” has come to be used with a wide range. of meanings which cover a wide range of activities at the intersection of many disciplines from sociolinguistics, philosophical linguistics to conyputational linguistics Scholars operating in the field of discourse analysis tend to focus on different aspects of discourse. Basically, there are three distinct strands of discourse analysis. It includes involvement in text grammar | dealing with cohesion and coherence. The other ditection has to, don with conversatign analysis. Finally, there is the sven of pragnitiett which may be Said to start with J. Austin’s “How to Do Things with ®: Gaur Words”, published posthanousy in 1962. sehor ilivecly BM Maret wa of Pansy | = vnybcohurn the analysis of discourse. In particular, I consider discourse analysis as Tn this we of lectures, I subscribe to the linguistics approach to a study of Kow and for what purposes language is used in a certain context, of situation. and the linguistic means to carry out these purposes, The view prevailing throughout these lectures is that the speakers/writers are put in the centerstage of communication and it is the speakers/writers who have topics, presuppositions, who assign information structure and who make inferences. It is also the hearers/readers who interpret and who draw inferences. This is essentially i a 0s communication a two-way process py means of language i 2. Impiications of discourse analysis; , | ‘The arrival of discourse analysis| on'the Hinguistic scene helps to explain many problems that the structural approach fails to account for 1Among these are the use of the definite arti: le, reference, substitution and ellipsis. e.g: There are too many loose ens, too many left- overs. Too much. Hanging over his h-ad. ‘There is little doubt that our grammar v ould say that "Too much” is wrong because it does not count as a sei tence, occurring between two stops. Or another simple example is the use of the definite article in the following example: I saw a dog. The dog was black and v hite. ‘The substitution of “the” by “a” will not render the sentence ungrammatical but we will feel that the two : entences do not constitute what we call “text” or “discourse”. In other vords these two sentences do not tick. A discou'se analyst would argue that thé tse of the definite 2article is determined by the link between the wo sentences. “With the development of pragmatics, t has become possible to provide an account. of textual meaning., often referred to as implicature. Brown and Yule (1983) offer a v sty interesting example of how one utterance can be used to generate m: ny implicatures. | a . e.g.: [saw Smith having dinner with. woman yesterday! Depending on the role relationships bet veen the two participants, it would be possible te interpret the utteranc : as a piece of good news, or a warning to a woman whose husband his been going out with his girl friend. | | | 3. Discourse vs. Text J think it is important to make a differe ice between discourse and text since a confusion of these two terms niay prove a pitfall for the discourse analyst in the long run. 12Griginaiiy, the term “rex?” acquired its interpretation as a type of jinguistic unit larger than the sentence as a result of linguists” dissatisfaction with the traditional understanding of linguistic levels where the sentence was generally regarded as the)largest unit. Basically, there are two approaches to text. The first sees text a “The verbal record of a commumicative act" (Brown and Yule, 1983: 6),or asthe linguistic product of a communicative process” (Widdowson, 1984: 100) The second approach tends to see text as a semantic or communicative category. For example, Halliday ‘and Hasan, 1976 view text as a “semantic unit” characterised by cohesion or a framework that is logical and general. De Beaugrande and Dregsler (1981: 3), define Text as a “communicative occurence ha possess seven constitutive iz., fohesion, coherence, conditions of textual commimicatioh, ituationality and intertextuality”. tl { intentionality, acceptability, informativity, § J take the view that is close to the way wé generally understand what discourse is, as is stated very clearly by Brown and Yule (1983; 1) discourse language in use...” i Widdowson probably is one of the first whd makes very clear and explicit the distinction between text and discourse. According to him, text typically has cohesion whereas discourse has coherence, which can be proved by the following example: A: Did you vote Labour or Liberal, Peter? B: I didn’t register, mate Although there is no formal link between A and B, the listener can infer that Peter didn’t vote because he didn’t register. 13Following Widdowson (1984: 4), the difference and the imterrelationships between the two can be best captured by the following: Discourse is a communicative prevess by means of interaction. Its situational outcome is a change in a state of affairs: information is ccnveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic product is‘ ext. (1984: 100). It follows that a text is simply a repres entation or a verbal record of the whole communicative process (that is discourse) in which many situational factors are involved. As such te t can be both written and spoken and there will be no limit on the s ze of a text. On the other hand, the analysis of discourse would invol e, among other things; the context of situations, the meanings or intent ons that the writer/speaker assigns to a linguistic means or expression. In light of this distinction, discourse analysis can be contrasted witi text analysis. Whereas discourse analysis is concerned with th> functional analysis of language in use, text analysis deals with the analysis of formal features of text such as cohesion, text structure and s » on with little reference to the extra-linguistic which gave rise to the te: t. We will make this point that these are comparable to two sides of a paper: there is a close tie between discoui impossible to draw any line between them. alysis and text anal /sis and sometimes it is 4. The functions of language. As defined above,’ the analysis of di course is the analysis of language in use. Therefore, it cannot be div »rced from the description of the functions of language, Essentially, i would be simpler to see language as having two functions: transacti: nal and interactional. The former is the one that serves to express the content of what we say or speak. The latter is involved in convey ng personal attitudes or 14| establishing social relations. It.may help tq remind.of other distinctions | suggested by Buhler (1934) - “represqntapive /expressive”, Jakobson | (1960) - “referential / emotive” dnd] Halliday - “ideational / interpersonal”, and Lyons (1977) - “descriptive 4 social-expressive” if ' i However, there are some other scholafs who add another dimension or function of language which is ofteh neglected, that is the function of language as an instrument of thought. This is especially significant in terms of the relationship between the use of language and cultural strategies. For example it is a well-known fact that people of different cultures use different type of discoufse structure. English people organise their essay in a linear manner. [By contrast, Orientals are said to apply something that may be called a “roundabout srructure”. Clyne (1994) remarks that it is due'to culture rather than | i language types. In the following section, we will focus on, the transactional and interactional functions. 4.1. The transactional function. No doubt, language is used to convey information from person to person. A man lost in the streets of a big city will want information to get out of the situation. Thus, if someone directing him to.go either along or straight ahead is actually feeding him information. But in so doing, he is also interacting with the poor guy, helping him out of the situation. It becomes clear that in such an example two functions are involved, with the transactional being primary only. Other cases would include a teacher lecturing hi: students on a subject, or a neighbour telling how he lost his car. It is quite reasonable to say that language used in such situation is “message-oriented” and in many situations it is important that the message is got right properly. A iw Mic free f { vig city Las Aintien — Sofeernwx GECp Foe [ en inpornurha4.2. The interactional function Humans use language: not only to trans nit information but also to establish rapport, personal relations or simp y to maintain relations. A simple example like |someone at a bus-stoy saying to another person standing by: It’s cold, isn’t it?. That would 1 1ake no sense to think that he is actually involved in the process of g.ving the information that “it’s cold”. Rather it js designed primarily tc get the other to talk. Such a function in sociolagical and anthropologi :al literature is frequently called “phatic” It will be obvious that spoken languag : is primarily interactional while written language is used primarily fo transactional purposes. It is, however, not uncommon to find cases of vritten language where the purpose is not primarily to pass on informa ion but to maintain social relationships like “thank you” letters, love le ters. 5. Spoken and Written language Following Brown and Yule, I will consider the differences between spoken and written language in ter ns of two aspects: manner of production, the representation of discourse. 5.1. Manner of production There is little doubt that spoken an! written language make somewhat different demands on the langua se producers. The speaker can vary his voice quality, adopting this or that posture, and gestures and so on to express a great deal, which w Il be denied the writer. A warm and breathy voice or a smile accompat ying “I'd love to” - a reply to a request, for instance, could mean a grest deal more than the same said in a sneering or nasal voice. The speaker also has to control and »ocess the production of communication under “circumstances whch are, probably, more 16demanding. He has to monitor what it is that he has just said and determine whether it matches what he wants tb say and the responses he means to make, and they should be appropriate. He may not remember much of what he said earlier. This is flearly a disadvantage. The writer, on the other hand enjoys some] advantages such as the possibility of looking over what he has already written, pausing between each word or taking his time in choosing a particular word or phrase to suit his needs. While the writer is under no pressure in terms of monitoring and processing communication simultaneously, he also runs against some disadvantages. There is no way of observing the reactions from the reader or the person he-wants to communicate with. Knowing how the others respond or ‘react is an obvious plus. Meanwhile, the speaker can monitor the reaction of the hearer and therefore be able to make immediate response to whichever way his hearer reacts. 5.2. The representation of discourse: text As was discussed before, the representation of discourse or the product of discourse is text both written and spoken. Here, I shall use text as a technical term, to refer to the verbal record/representation of a communicative act. Awrit t may be represented in many ways using different type-face, on different size of paper, in one or two columns, to serve various purposes of the writer. For example “Nothing compares to you" is actually written as “Nothing compares 2 U”. If you look at billboards, the picture will be interesting, and you will notice how letters are used or arranged to capture the attention of the passers-by. Also available are titles, headings, subdivisions and sub-headings used to indicate to the reader how the author intends to organise his arguments or ideas.Spoken texts . The problems involved with the no ion of spoken texts as the “verbal record” of a communicative ac are rather complicated. It would be very ‘simple to treat a tape-recc rding as a representation of this act. However] there are many othe things that can hardly be regarded as pertaining to text such as noise , laughter. i In general, a trans ee isiseen as the best record of th communicative act. But|things are not that simple. Brown and Yul raise the issue of|_whether |we should rader /greipbritin/ as “grap J othgr thir g is that the transcriber will uses, the spe aker’s voice, sex, intonation. | gestures or the p4ralinguistic means th:t I referred to earlier. Th significance of thdse méang are undenia!le. Thus the perception ant britain” or “great pritail surely lose out things like interpietation of what constitutes a spoken text is essentially subjective. | 5.3. Differences it forms between writte.: and spoken language The following list, of differences |etween written and spoken language is taken om Brown and Yule (1983). ‘a. The syntax of| spoken language is ty pically much less*structured than that of written language i. spoken language contain: many incomplete sentences, len simple sequences of phrases; e.g.: where to, mate? home. ii, spoken language typically contains rather little subordination. “and” is a very common co-ordinator in spoken language. iii. in conversational speech where sentential syntax can be observed, active deciarative forms are normally found.In written language an extensive set of metalingual markers exists to mark relationships between clauses (that-clauses, when and while, besides, moreover, however), in spoken language, the use of “and, but, then” is frequent: J was so tired, and I had to go home, rather than “hecause J was tired, I had to go home”. in written language, rather heavily premodified noun phrases occur frequently, such as: The federal ALP caucus aboriginal affairs committee topic-comment structures are quite common in spoken language. These people, they like drinking beer. in formal speech, the use of passive constructions is relatively infrequent. Active constructions are noticeable, as in: Oh everything they do in Edinburgh + they do it far slowly. in chat about the immediate environment, the speaker may rely on gaze direction to supply a referent: (looking at the car) beautiful, isn’t it? the speaker may replace or refine the expressions as he goes along: this man + this chap she was going out with. the speaker frequently uses a good deal of rather generalised vocabulary: a lot of, got, do, thing, nice, stuff, place and things like that. the speaker frequently repeats the same syntactic form several look at fire extinguishers + I look at. fire exits + T look at what gaugways are available + I look at electric cables times over, as in: what + are they properly earthed + are they properly covered. the speaker may produce a large number of prefabricated “fillers well, erm, I think, you know, if you see what I mean, of course, and soon. ;Summary: We have in this of discourse analysis language as it is used in real introductory lecture m: de clear the subject matter - that is, language in u se. We placed emphasis on tuations. «.lso, a clear distinction is made between the two notions which are oft :n mixed up - discourse vs. text. In our understanding, discourse is t e communicative process while text is the verbal or physical record 0 this process. Texts can be spoken and written. Attention is als there has been much! the other one, that is: is crucial since it is given to the functions of language. We think that emphasis on the comm unicative at the expense of , language as an instrw rent of thought. This point part of our culture. Tl e transactional function is basically the transmission of information, deas or thought, while the interactional is con relationships. It is n about one function t erned with maintain ng or establishing social pcessary to point out te fact that we do not talk the exclusion of the of 1er, but rather it is a matter of being primary o: ny ‘the listing of difierences in forms between spoken and written features listed there Exercises: 1. Explain the distinction petween} discourse and text, and find | examples of dis 2. Are the followit song, a sermon, 3. Can you give an which it is text. 4. Which of the fi which is sung bj reproduced by inglish can be useful, md in a way, some of the an occur across langua ses. | urse fand| texts. | exalnplbs discourse «texts: A book, a poem, a letter, a Hictionary. amp f atext and econstruct the discourse of lowing is spoken or written ianguage? A song a-singer; arguments nade at a debate; the lines actors and actresses in a play or film, an advertisement on] TV (commercial breat s). 7 song whe 200 Ay jumente & sung by a tinpro Spotter a educkel by acts and achisers aba 1 Te Cites YWhich of the following functions is primarily transactional and interactional? 2. How do you do? Tevterachional b. Tam fine, thank you. Inlerachtol A doctor telling a patient how to take medicines Jremrsachitmol c d. You go straight a few blocks and turn right, you can’t miss it. Teuractiorcel e _ Someone telling a story to a class of children. fnftractimce! 6. Just imagine you had a quarrel with a friend. Now, you volunteer a letter of apology. Which part of the letter shoutd be interactional and transactional. Can you write this imaginary letter? 7. Record « conversation in Vietnamese. Transcribe it and find out the elements you think that could be treated as primarily spoken, oo Following is an excerpt from a BBC interview. Identify the spoken features that occur in this interview. : i Well, although, er, quite a few, er people’re; walking around with long faces and many people’er, even though they were pitting a brave face on it, admitting in private that they weren't geiting what they wanted, { found one or two things that were happening off-stage, very very encouraging and one of them was a meeting called World Urban Forum that took place before the main Rio Event}down in the South of Brazil in a city called Carachiba, which is, er, a mpdel green city. It's built itself as Brazil’s green capital and jt’s been transformed by its mayor Hil-nana into a model of wholesome efficiency, which is remarkable, er, in the deep south of one} of the ae indebted countries in the world. It was a stage for this forum Where more than 75 mayors ot deputy mayors from big cities arbund thel world were joining together, er, try to raise the profile of utban envitonmental issues with i i | . the Earth Summit in mind.Er, but what emerged from the meetin, ; was that, er the citiés who were represented there seemed to be more tl an ready and certainly very willing to take er, into their own hands wt en it comes to cleaning up the environment without waiting, er for to down development aid, or for international treaties or for national le; islation. They are using in effect their powers and such by-laws and fiscal levers townhalls can pull to set their own targets. For exan ple, er, for emissions or greenhouse gases and there’s a network cf more than forty cities in Europe that was started in Hanover, Germar y. Er, that’s set limits of 30 % below existing levels by the year 2005 Since most environmental problems originate in cities it is very en ouraging to see that that’s where the solutions, practical solutions are 1 ow being find, found. This is certainly, er, an emerging tr-nd, er, 1 saw a big cross- section, different kinds of countries, differ :nt kinds of cities hell-bent on doing things their own ways and J talkec to er, er, an observer at this meeting, who, off strictly off the record, tol | me that ... | | | 22 !Chapter 2: COHESION IN ENGLISH L oN ae ‘tat je 1, What is cohesion Ree avd co cach wfc Sis wil prek op Seervec ctf or loge wae oy wah por we eye) 7 Basically, cohesion refe' texts to cohere or stick together. It and lexical relationships found among or between the sentences of text. Halliday and Hasan (1976) provide a aoe treatment of the problem. They say: “A tear has texnw and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a apt... the texture is provided hy cohesive relation”. It should be woted that Halliday’s “text” also covers the more popular tern} ““discouise". However, in this series of lectures, we advocate a digtinetion Jbetween “text” ancl “discourse”. (see chapter 1), | U ea | 2. Coherence | In contrast, coherence refers to thel type of semantic or rhetorical Coherence relationships that underline texts. Palmer (1983) writes refers to the rhetorical devices, to ways of writihy and speaking that bring about order and unity and emphasis”. Coherence can obtain on the basis of relevance, the co-operative principle] the common shared background knowledge between participants in kt speech event, and how discourse is structured, as well However, the important thing is that these two aspects of discourse are interrelated. Cohesion is seen as one of the ways of indicating coherence but it would be a mistake to identify it with coherence, and assume that there is a one-to-one correspondence between them. See the following example: e.g. A: My car’s broken down. B: There's u gurage down the roud 23 fii -teety Hog , AR wee BS Jenny Corn fe p hye rs B Yes the a| This mini-exchange shows that_althot gh cohesion is missing here, the text still ticks as it has overall coher nce. "The garage down the road" is connected with the fact that a ; arage is where people have their cars fixed that have broken down. In this lecture, we will be concerned ‘ith grammatical, lexical and logical means of cohesion. - 3. Grappa soem i nn ov ute ae of 3.1. Substitution ioe atferctecs nd hanes am speech ; Substitution is basically a device v hich shows the relationship between sentences,-where it is desirable tc avoid repetition. Most of the substitutes are pro-forms within senten :es, which are used across sentences. They include: a. Pro-forms for nouns (i.e. pronov 1s). Pronouns are frequently used where nouns are not repeated. E.g.: The guys applied for a schol uship. Unfortunately, they were all rejected. ‘The President will be unveiling h s plan tomorrow. He is expected to touch upon the issu-- of social security. One and ones can also be used for a noun phrase or for an indefinite noun phrase. In addition, all, a y, each, either, neither, some and none can behave in the same way. E.g: I don’t like this vase. Give 1 1¢ the black ove. My brothers want to go into business None want to go to university. b. Pro-forms for adverbials. There are not many such forms in tle English language, but those which are used include here, there and then 24 &E.g: My brother works in the States. Iie lives there with his wife. | Some quasi-proforms aré like it lor like that. E.g: She plays the piano with great concentration and with great ¢nergy. I’m afraid that she doesn’t study like that (Quirk, 1973). | d. There are pro-forms for predicate and prédication as well (See Quirk, 1973 for the concept of predicate ie predication). They involve auxiliaries such as “do, can, may, should * and some complex ones like “do so, so do... , so... dodo that, do it” Eg: John doesn’t smoke. Oh, I think he does Your wife id she would go to the States this month. Of course, she did it last week. The two words “nor and so” are those pro-forms used for the direct object clause. They commonly occur after such verbs as : assume, believe, fancy, guess, hope, imagine, think, understand and suppose E.g: Is she leaving tomorrow? I think so/not 3.2. Ellipsis (Tine (ve) Ellipsis is very common in spoken English. Basically, it may be ’ . . defined as)the omission of certain elements from a sentence, allowed by context. However, ellipsis takes place in written language, too. It is necessary to distinguish between substitution and ellipsis Since ellipsis is simply an omission of certain elements in context, there exists the possibility of recovering them, if the speaker or writerwants. On the other hand, such possibility do :s not exist with respect to | i substitution. i | E.g: The pregident called on Congr: ss to approve the budget. He thought it was the r ght thing to do. (substitution) When did sh¢ arrive? Probably ( sh: {did so} or {she arrived}) yesterday. (ellipsis) According to. Quirk (op.cit), ellipsis may happen under 3 conditions and in various combinations su: h as question - response, statement - question, and statement - statem¢ nt a. Repetition: the speaker repeats what has een said by the first. Eg: Are you 0.K? Yes, J am (O.K). b. Expansion: the speaker adds to what has been said by the first. E.g: Will they lose the game? Probably (they will lose the game). c. Replacement: the second speaker replac: s what has been said by the first with new information. E.g: — How much did it cost you? {it cost me) 79 dollars. 3.3. Parcelling ( Pfiep who} Parcelling is a way of indicating text 1al cohesion, by which we mean placing a syntactically dependent_s:ntence-element out of its usual frame and setting it off by a full stc > like'an independent unit. Parcelling is not uncommon in spoken. ind written English. It is observed that parcelling serves the purpose of focusing on certain part of information which could be otherwise ost if it were placed in its 26usual position. It should be kept in mind that this is possible because of the strength of cohesion that exists in discourse. Following is an example of parcelling. E.g: The prosecuting officer takes his |seat at a little table to the left of the chairman. He ‘spreads a few documents out in front of him. Not many, but enough for a semence of death. an “he tinh What appears to be striking from a traditional point of view of is the fact that “nor many senter death” is separated from the preceding by a full stop, yet it does not count as a sentence, traditionally. However, its occurrence is made possible due to its cohesive relationship to the preceding Nevertheless, it is apparent that the parts which can be used this way are mostly co-ordinated or secondary ones of a sentence F f fac Wy) 3.4. Structural parallelism uae ty nce If two or more sentences have identical or very similar structure, this parallelism may serve as a means of connecting sentences with the ection being further reinforced by lexical equivalence and implications of semantic relationship. It is obvious from the following example that the construction “Wherever there's .. we bring...” recurs in the second sentence apart from such synonyms as “despuirifeur”” and hopeivonfidence” .g: Wherever there’s despair, we bring hope. Wherever there’s fear, we bring confidence 274. Logical cohesive devics Logical cohesive devices are also pow :rful sentence connectors. They demonstrate the logical relationships t olding between sentences, thus creating or a following types: ssing cohesion. It is sossible to distinguish the 4.1. And | Ir can be said that what donnects|two :entences by way of “and” does not differ from What links|two, clauses i 1 a compound sentence. | Eg: It was al coma n where thei > were few blacks | ' and few bedrds. | problem. ind that remairs the Republican 4.2. Enumeration i . Enumerators indicate a listing of what is being said. There are a number of them avajlable in English, inclu ling: fi finally; to begin with, to. start with, for me thing ... for another; another thing, one final point. vecond ... next. E.g: Since |the Americans stop) ed opposing the granting of |IMF loans, More fu ids have become available. Ta stait with, Vietnam git $ 300 million in loan from the ADB and the WB. 4.3. Addition The addition relationship is often ex essed by two classes of. additive conjunets: reinforcing and equative cOnjuncts. The former covers such items as: also, too,. further nore, moreover, then, in addition, above all, and what is more; ancl neither, nor, and either which requires the sentences they link to be negative. “neither, nor” do 28not, and “yoo” generally requires both to be positive. The latter embraces: equally, likewise, similarly and in the same way. E.g: US companies do not realise that their goods are headed for Vietnam. Also, they could not figure out who the middlemen are. 4.4. Transition The transitional “now” introduces a new stage in the sequence of thought. E.g: I’ve talked about the situation in Africa. Now, I'd like to move on to the next item on our agenda In addition, there are other formal transition markers such as: with reference to, with respect to, with regard to. “incidentally” and “by the way” add explicitly that what is being said is a digression. 4.5. Summation Summation as a cohesive device generatises or sums up what has been discussed or said earlier. Some conjuncts such as: then, all in all, in conclusion, to sun up, in a nutshell, can be used to indicate this. E.g: The techniques discussed are valuable. Sensible stress is laid on follow-up work. supported by good evidence. In all, this is an interesting and well-written book. Some sentences may also perform the same function like: I shall conclucelsum up by saying i4.6. Apposition Apposition markers can be used to refer back to the previous sentences. They include: namely (often abb eviated to viz. in formal written English), in other words, for example (often abbreviated to e.g or eg), for instance, that is (often abbreviatec to i.e. or ie in specialised written English), and that is to say. Eg: Some si example, No started a Chi Grant from th hols receive their share. In 1990, for jthern State University in South Dakota nese Studies Program with a § 72,000 ye CCK Foundation. Additionally, there are other expressions like Another way of putting itis... or Ane 4.7. Result Result markers mentioned or said in consequently, hence asa result. ” E.g: These pe | evicted over 4.8. Inference An inference fipm what jis implicit in the preceding sentence or sentences can be indi ‘ample would be ..., whi: h serve the same purpose. indicate the results or -onsequences of what was he preceding sentence: . These indicators include: formal), so (informal: , therefore, thus (formal), i | | | ople refused to pay the rent. So, they were i he weekepd. | | | i | | ated by such markers ts: else, otherwise, then, in other words, in that dase. | E.g: She’s ndt coming tonight. [1 tht case, I'll have to cancel my flight. 304.9. Reformulation or replacement These markers introduce another way of saying the same thing by means of such conjuncts as: hetter, rather, in other words, or again E.g: They are enjoying themselves. Rather, they appear to be doing so. 4.10. Contrast Contrast may be introduced by the conjunction but or other antithetic conjuncts like: instead, then, on the contrar 'y, intby contrast, by comparison, on the other hand. E.g: Miss Ha has taught Russian for more than 10 years now. Bur next year her school will cut Russian from the curriculum. ‘The contracts do not go to the Americans. /nstead, they go to European and Asian companies. | | 4.11. Concession Concession markers introduce or signal thé unexpected, surprising nature of what is being said in view of what was said before. This (informal), besides (a blend of reinforcing category contains such markers as: anyhow (informal), anyway ith concessive), else, however, nevertheless, still, though, yet, in ay case, at any rate, in spite of that, after all, on the other hand, all thelsame E.g: There is no reason that MIT cannot sell what it h: to offer. Higher education is| a tnajor|export. Zn any case, academics are only too happy to |receive foreign contributions. 4 It is also noted that certain adverbials that assert the truth of ntences are often employed to express some notion of concession,roughly equivalent to “this ar least iste". They are: actually, admittedly, certainly, really: wasn’t called up by the army. Actually, 1 olunteered. (Quirk, 1973). 4,12. Comparison The most obvious comparison markers ae found in adjectives and adverbs, including: more, as, less, least. ‘Ihe previous context can provide the clue to the basis of comparison. F or example: Mary used to listen to records most of the time. Sally was a more hardworking, student. than Mary was). (Quirk, 1973) 5. Lexical cohesive devices We can expect successive sentences t show some relationship through lexical means, which involve the em sloymerit of synonyms or lexical equivalents, antonyms and association 5.1. Reiteration i ‘The simplest form for such lexical equi: alent ocours as a result of repetition. For example, the word “Tokyo” is repeated twice in the following example: | Tokyo insists \that the plutonium is vital to its future. Over the next decade, Tokyo plans t: import 30 tons of plutonium for its fast breeder reactor program, a technology that doesn’t yet exist in c: mmercial form. 5.2. The use of synonyms ‘Another form of lexical equivalence is through the use of synonyms or near syapnyms, which is very f equent in English. This is 32to avoid unnecessary repetition. For example, the following extract shows how skilfully the writer makes use of such synonyms as: drop 5 { out of, shut down, abandon, cancel: ‘The US began dropping out of the program in 1977. France shut down its. commercial super Phoenix breeder in 1990. Germany abandoned its completed reactor in 1991. Last week, Britain cappelled its fast breeder program because it conclided that the technology was unlikely to) become| commercially viable for 40 years. al | : Cohesion may also result:from the use of antonyms. For example, the connection between the two rae beloW is largely dependent on the antithesis between men and women} 5.3, The use of antonyms | Discrimination is undoubtedly practised against women in the field of scientific research. We don’t find men complaining that they are not being interviewed for positions that they are clearly qualified to fill (Quirk, 1973) 5.4. Association ! Association may be defined as that existing between two or more words of one and the same semantic field, possessing seme common semantic properties and not antithetic ones. The following example she : us how such lexical items as: milizary, conflict, armed force: and units are used, thus creating a strong cohesion between sentences. Military conflicts with the evolving social values of civilian society is nothing new. The armed forces avestill recoiling from the mere -prese ice, let alone the theoretical equality of women whik some units have integrated the genders effectively. 6. Discourse reference English has a number of signals to mark the identity between what is being said or talked about and wha was said before. This relationship is often called in semantics reft rence. Basically, there are two types of discourse reference: anaphc ‘ic, if it points back or cataphoric if it points forward. Halliday di: tinguish a further type or reference termed exophoric, helped by the c text of the situation. For example, a man looks at the sun and remark: : It’s beautiful. “Ir” in this context does not refer to anything that was said before, but relates to part of the situation in which the speaker anc the hearer are. We believe that for the analyst of text as a verbal record of discourse. The first two are of greater interest and practical value. 6.1. Anaphoric reference markers only The markers of this type include: that those the foregoing, the former ... the latter, For example: Many people think that they cai get by without working hard. That’s a big mistake. 6.2. Cataphoric reference markers only These embrace: as follows, the following, thus, below. E.g: The two parties hereby agree upon the following terms and conditions. They shall :o-operate in good faith in ensure the success of the pr ject. 34