Coherence

(linguistics)

Coherence in linguistics is what makes a text semantically meaningful.

It is especially dealt
with in text linguistics. Coherence is achieved through syntactical features such as the use of
deictic, anaphoric and cataphoric elements or a logical tense structure, as well as
presuppositions and implications connected to general world knowledge. The purely
linguistic elements that make a text coherent are subsumed under the term cohesion.

However, those text-based features which provide cohesion in a text do not necessarily help
achieve coherence, that is, they do not always contribute to the meaningfulness of a text, be
it written or spoken. It has been stated that a text coheres only if the world around is also
coherent.

Robert De Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler define coherence as a "continuity of senses"

and "the mutual access and relevance within a configuration of concepts and relations".[1]
Thereby a textual world is created that does not have to comply to the real world. But within
this textual world the arguments also have to be connected logically so that the
reader/hearer can produce coherence.

"Continuity of senses" implies a link between cohesion and the theory of Schemata initially
proposed by F. C. Bartlett in 1932[2][3] which creates further implications for the notion of a
"text". Schemata, subsequently distinguished into Formal and Content Schemata (in the field
of TESOL[4]) are the ways in which the world is organized in our minds. In other words, they
are mental frameworks for the organization of information about the world. It can thus be
assumed that a text is not always one because the existence of coherence is not always a
given. On the contrary, coherence is relevant because of its dependence upon each
individual's content and formal schemata.

See also

M.A.K. Halliday

Systemic functional linguistics

Coh-Metrix

Sources
1. De Beaugrande, Robert /Dressler, Wolfgang: Introduction to Text Linguistics. New York, 1996. P. 84 –
112.

2. Bartlett, F.C. (1932).

Remembering: A study in experimental and social psychology. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

3. Brady Wagoner. Culture and mind in reconstruction: Bartlett's analogy between individual and group
processes (https://www.academia.edu/1851721/Culture_and_mind_in_reconstruction_Bartletts_ana
logy_between_individual_and_group_processes) . Aalborg University, Denmark.

4. Carrell, P.L. and Eisterhold, J.C. (1983) "Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy (http://tesol.aua.
am/tq_digital/TQ_DIGIT/VOL_17_4.PDF#page=26) ", in Carrell, P.L., Devine, J. and Eskey, D.E. (eds)
(1988) Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading. Cambridge: CUP.

Bußmann, Hadumod: Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft. Stuttgart, 1983. S. 537.

Further reading

A Bibliography of Coherence and Cohesion by Wolfram Bublitz at Universität Augsburg (htt

ps://web.archive.org/web/20090418002153/http://www.philhist.uni-augsburg.de/lehrstue
hle/anglistik/sprachwissenschaft/bibliography/)

This semantics article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it (https://en.wikip
edia.org/w/index.php?title=Coherence_(linguistics)&action=edit) .