‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬

EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬

‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Lectures 3 & 4: Cohesion and Coherence

The theory of cohesion and coherence plays a significant role in discourse analysis. In their
seminal work Cohesion in English (1976), Halliday and Hassan argue that cohesion is a
semantic concept, indicating meaning relations in text. Moreover, cohesion falls into two
broad areas: grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Halliday and Hassan’s (1976)
account is mainly concerned with a comprehensive illustration of the abovementioned
types of cohesive ties. Halliday and Hassan define cohesion as "the set of possibilities that
exist in the language for making text hang together". Cohesion, in general, is a strategy a
language offers to create texts. It refers to the ties and connections that exist within a text
A text may be oral or written and it may consist of one sentence or more. In Halliday and
Hassan’s words, cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in the
discourse is dependent on that of another.

Thus, for Halliday and Hassan and other authors in the Hallidayan tradition, the
organizational structure of a text is composed of chains of relations that bring forth items
in the text and those relations are realized by means of exploiting cohesive devices.
Consequently, coherence is being created in this way from the Hallidayan point of view.
So, cohesion creates coherence.

Halliday and Hassan (1976, pp.75-84) recognize five types of cohesion: reference,
substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. The first four types belong to the
category of grammatical cohesion.

Halliday and Hassan (1976) produce their taxonomy of the types of cohesive relationship
in a way which can formally be established within a text. Therefore, the main cohesive
devices which bind a text together are of two main categories: grammatical and lexical
devices.

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Grammatical cohesion is established with the use of grammatical elements of the text
expressing the semantic relation within and between the sentences. It includes reference,
substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction.

As for Lexical cohesion, it refers to the relationships between any lexical item and some
previously occurring lexical item in the text quite independently of the grammatical
category of the items in question. It includes reiteration and collocations.

Grammatical Cohesion:
Reference
The relationship that holds between words is called reference. This device incorporates
utilizing language by speakers to refer to things and thoughts. What is referred to may fall
within or outside a text.

There are three types of reference, personal, demonstrative and comparative

Personal Reference: a reference by means of person includes:

Personal pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, they

Possessive pronouns; mine, yours, hers, theirs
Possessive determiners; my, your, her, their
Example: They told me you had gone by her car
Demonstrative Reference: is essentially a form of verbal pointing. The speaker identifies
the referent by locating it on a scale of proximity.

 this, these and here imply proximity to the speaker;

 that, those and there imply distance from the speaker.

Comparative Reference: contributes to textual cohesion by setting up a relation of contrast

expressed by such adjectives as same, identical, equal, adjectives in a comparative degree
such as bigger, faster and adverbs such as identically, likewise, so, such etc.

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

e.g. She has a similarly furnished room to mine.

The little dog barked as noisily as the big one.
They asked me three equally difficult questions.

As for Halliday and Hassan (1976, p.25), they argue that co-referential forms are forms
which, instead of being interpreted semantically in their own right, make reference to
something else for their interpretation. When the interpretation is within the text, this is an
"endophoric" relation, while in a situation where the interpretation of the text lies outside
the text, in the context of situation, the relationship is "exophoric". Endophoric relations
on the other hand, form cohesive ties within the text. Endophoric relations are also of two
types, those which look back in the text for their interpretation are anaphoric relations while
those which look forward in the text for their interpretation are cataphoric relations.

To illustrate, we can consider the following examples as instances of reference.

1. There was an orange on the table. So I ate it.

2. The woman prepared the dinner. She used a lot of seasoning.
In the first sentence above, ‘It’ refers back to ‘an orange’ while ‘She’ in the second sentence
refers back to ‘the woman’. This kind of references is referred to as an anaphora (i.e.
looking backward). The other kind of reference, where the pronoun is given first and then
kept in suspense as to its identity, which is revealed later, is known as cataphora (i.e.
looking forward).

3. He was aggressive. My Boss.

4. He made tremendous impact. The President.
Referring expressions help to unify the text and create economy because they save writers
from unnecessary repetition.

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Substitution

According to Halliday and Hassan’s (1976) account of ‘substitution’, there are ‘some
special words in English which contribute to cohesion by substituting for words that have
been already used by means of the substitution cohesive relation’. This relation resides
mainly in the wording rather than in the meaning. This stipulates a principal rule: the
substituting unit has a structural function that is similar to the one actualized by the
substituted units or items. Three types of substitution can be identified: nominal, verbal
and clausal.

5. I have eaten your meal. I must get you another one (Nominal substitution)
6. Do you play games? Yes I do (Verbal Substitution)
7. Does she say there is going to be a nationwide strike? Yes she says so. (Clausal
Substitution)
Ellipsis

Ellipsis is defined as an omission of a linguistic element. It can be thought of as a zero tie

or nothing owing to the fact that the tie is left unsaid. Yet, what is left unsaid is nevertheless
understood. The idea of omitting part of sentences on the assumption that an earlier
sentence will make the meaning clear is known as ellipsis. Ellipsis can be verbal, nominal,
or clausal, as follows:

8. Sade bought some oranges and Su some guavas (Verbal ellipsis).

9. Three members of staff went there and yet another three (Nominal ellipsis)
10. I left my meal in the kitchen and someone came in and ate it up without saying a word
to me. I wish I could find out who (Clausal ellipsis)
In 8, the verb ‘bought’ has been elided, In 9, the noun ‘members’ has been elided while in
10, ‘who’ replaces ‘someone’ and the clause ‘came in …’ has been elided.

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Conjunction

Halliday and Hassan (1976) maintain that conjunctive elements are cohesive not in
themselves but indirectly, by virtue of their specific meanings; they are not primarily
intended for reaching out into the preceding or following text but they express certain
meanings which presuppose the presence of other components in a discourse. Halliday
(1976) recognizes four types of conjunction. They are additive, adversative, causal and
temporal (sequential).

1. Additive: addition, introduction, similarity to other ideas

 Addition: and, and also, either (…. or), neither (… nor), not only (this)… but also
(that) as well, or, or else, furthermore, add to that, moreover, what is more, as a
matter of fact, in addition (to this), , to boot, besides (this), indeed, further, on top
of that, over and above that, into the bargain, as well (as this), to tell you the truth,
or, in fact, actually, to say nothing of, too, let alone, much less, additionally,
alternatively, on the other hand, not to mention (this), equally important,
 Introduction: such as, as, particularly, including, as an illustration, for example,
like, in particular, for one thing, to illustrate, for instance, especially, notably, by
way of example
 Reference: speaking about (this), considering (this), regarding (this), with regards
to (this), as for (this), concerning (this), on the subject of (this), the fact that
 Similarity: similarly, in the same way, by the same token, in a like manner, equally,
likewise, along the same lines, by extension
 Identification: that is (to say), namely, specifically, thus
 Clarification / Elaboration: that is (to say), I mean, (to) put (it) another way, in
other words

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

2. Adversative: signal contrast, conflict, concession, contradiction

 Conflict/Contrast: but, by (way of) contrast, while, whilst, on the other hand,
however, (and) yet, nor yet, whereas, …though, in contrast (to), when in fact,
conversely, still
 Emphasis: even more, above all, indeed, more importantly, besides
 Concession: but even so, nevertheless, though, even though, on the other hand,
admittedly, however, nonetheless, despite (this), notwithstanding (this), despite
the fact (possibility) that, notwithstanding (the fact) that, albeit, (and) still,
although, in spite of (this), regardless (of this), (and) yet, though, granted (this),
granted that, for all that, be that as it may, at the same time
 Dismissal: either way, whichever happens, in either (any) event, in either (any)
case, at any rate, whatever happens, all the same, just the same, even supposing
 Replacement / Correction: (or) at least, (or) rather, instead, on the contrary

3. Causal: signal cause/effect and reason/result/purpose

 Cause/Reason: because (of the fact that), as, since, for,3 for the (simple) reason
that, being that, for, in view of (the fact that), inasmuch as, seeing that, owing to
(the fact that), due to (the fact that), owing to (the fact that), in that, inasmuch as,
to the extent that, insofar as, forasmuch as [archaic], thanks to (the fact that)
 Condition: on (the) condition (that), granted (that), if, provided that, in (this/that)
case, in the event that, in such an event, as/so long as, unless, given that, granting
(that), providing that, even if, only if
 Effect/Result: as a result (of this), consequently, on this (that) account, arising out
of this, hence, for this reason, thus, because (of this), in consequence, so that,
accordingly, as a consequence, so much (so) that, so, therefore

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

 Purpose: for the purpose of, in the hope that, so that, with this intention, to this end,
to the end that, in order to, with this in mind, in order that, so as to, so; lest, in case,
for fear that, in order to avoid, to avoid the risk of
 Consequence: under the (these) circumstances, then, in that case, if not, that being
the case, if so, otherwise, under other (those) circumstances
 Respective: in this respect, here; otherwise, apart from this, in other respects

4. Temporal / Sequential: chronological or logical sequence

 Ordinal: in the (first, second, etc.) place, initially, to start with, first of all thirdly,
to begin with, at first, originally, for a start, secondly, …
 Continuation: then, next, subsequently, afterwards, after (this), hereafter, from
now on, as of now, eventually, henceforth; previously, formerly, earlier, before
(this), hitherto, so far, thus far, up until now, as yet; now, of course, well, surely,
after all
 Resumption: to get back to the point, to resume, anyhow, anyway, at any rate, to
return to the subject
 Conclusion: to conclude (with), as a final point, eventually, at last, last but not
least, in the end, finally, lastly,
 Digression: to change the topic, incidentally, by the way,
 Summation: as was previously stated, so, consequently, in summary, all in all, in
short, to make a long story short, thus, as I have said, to sum up, overall, as has
been mentioned, then, to summarize, to be brief, briefly, given these points, in all,
on the whole, therefore, as has been noted, hence, in conclusion, in a word, to put
it briefly, in sum, altogether, ultimately, to put it succinctly

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Lexical Cohesion
Halliday and Hassan (1976, p. 82) argue that lexical cohesion is established through the
structure of lexis or vocabulary. Lexical cohesion refers to the role played by the selection
of vocabulary in organizing relations within a text.

Lexical cohesion encompasses reiteration and collocation. Also, it involves using the
characteristics and features of words as well as the group relationship among them to
achieve cohesion. Some words are used repeatedly whereas other words are used as
umbrella terms under which some other words co-exist. Hence, there are two main types
of lexical devices. These are Reiteration and collocation.

Reiteration: implies saying or doing something several times. As a lexical device for
achieving cohesion, it is manifest in three ways. Repetition, Superordinate/Hyponym and
Synonyms or Near Synonyms and antonyms (opposite meanings)

Repetition: I met some young ladies at the conference. The ladies were good looking.
Superordinate/Hyponym: I bought plenty of fruits yesterday at the market. These fruits are
oranges, pineapples and berries.
Synonym: I was served with a good meal yesterday at the party. The food was delicious.
Antonym: good and bad, happy and sad.

Collocations: This is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularly occur.
A collocation is made up of two or more words that are commonly used together in English.
Think of collocations as words that usually go together. There are different kinds of
collocations in English. Strong collocations are word pairings that are expected to come
together, such as combinations with 'make' and 'do': You make a cup of tea, but you do
your homework.

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

Collocations may be strong or weak. Strong collocations are where the link between the
two words is quite fixed and restricted. Weak collocations are where a word can collocate
with many other words.
Very few words can collocate with the noun wish, like make a wish or fulfill a wish. This
makes wish a strong collocator. big can collocate with hundreds of words like big ocean,
big window, big fight…etc. therefore it’s a weak collocator.

Coherence in the Hallidayan Sense

Coherence is a semantic property of discourse formed through the interpretation of each

individual sentence relative to the interpretation of other sentences, with "interpretation"
implying interaction between the text and the reader. Coherence is the extent to which the
reader (or listener) is able to infer the writer’s (or speaker’s) communicative intentions
…shows how meanings and sequences of ideas relate to each other. Coherence in general
is the quality of an effective text that helps readers see relations among ideas and move
easily from one idea to the next. Halliday asserts that there are some basic steps or
procedures that should be taken into consideration for achieving text coherence like
organizing effective sentences, using parallel structures, repeating or restating words and
word groups, using pronouns and using transitional expressions that add or show sequence.

Thus, according to Halliday and Hasan (1976), a text is coherent which must satisfy two
conditions: one is a text must be consistent with context in which it is created, the other is
a text must have cohesion, that is, all parts in a text must be connected by cohesive devices.

Cohesion has to do with the relationships between text and syntax, and coherence has to
do with the knowledge or cognitive structures that are implied by the language used and
that contribute to the overall meaning of a given discourse. Cohesion and coherence are
semantic concepts and they are both part of the system of a language. Cohesion, is a textual
property and has to do with the textualization of contextual connections. Coherence, on the

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

other hand, is the discourse function of realizing those connections, and is a discursive
property. A text can therefore have no cohesion but derive a coherent discourse.
Conversely, a given text may be cohesive but discourse-incoherent. Examples a and b
illustrate this point in a very simple manner:

a) I went to Paris last week. And my grandma is a radio hostess.

b) Great! Oh, no!!

Example a is an instance of a cohesive text. We find cohesive devices such as reference (I)
and conjunction (and), but it is difficult to make a connection between the first clause and
the second, and consequently most hearers would catalogue the whole utterance as
incoherent (it is hard to find a connection between the fact that the speaker went to Paris
and the fact that his grandmother is a radio hostess). Thus, the speaker would most probably
be judged as lacking some mental capacities or simply as speaking non-sensically. Contrary
to example a, example b shows no signs of cohesion (there is no apparent use of reference,
substitution or any other cohesive devices), but derives a coherent discourse. The situation
can be a 10-year-old child sees her mother approaching with a bag in her hands and feels
happy because she thinks the bag contains the present she has been waiting for, (and so she
says “Great!”), but immediately after she realizes that the bag holds the books for her to
do the homework (and therefore she expresses her disappointment by exclaiming “Oh,
no!!”).

Macro Functions of Language:

The Ideational / Experiential Metafunction:

The Ideational function refers to the conceptualizing process involved in our mental
activities. Halliday (2004) provides us with a useful tool for distinguishing between
possible meanings of words, and thus for explaining how we make language coherent. He
explains that when we speak and write we use words to represent ideas and experiences.
Imagine, for example, you see two people wearing suits shaking hands in an office. How
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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

could you describe this event? You have to make choices about the language you use to
describe that seemingly simple experience. Once you have made your language choices
about the idea or experience you wish to describe, we can analyse the language you used
in terms of how it represents those ideas and experiences. This is the essence of Halliday’s
ideational metafunction, a short list of six possible choices that you make for each clause
that you produce. You can mostly ignore the prefix meta in the word metafunction. Just
remember that language has a function of representing ideas.
The six processes are:

01. Material processes – Verbs of doing, such as jump, kick and drive. These are verbs in
the sense that most people describe them; someone is doing something physical.

02. Mental processes – Verbs of thinking and feeling, such as wonder, love and worry.
These are verbs in which something is being done, but the process can’t be seen by
outsiders.

03. Verbal processes – Verbs of saying, such as talk, sing and shout. “Verbal” here is in
the sense of “relating to words”, not in the sense of “nouns and verbs”.

04. Relational processes – Verbs of being, such as be, seem and appear. Verbs of this type
often don’t mean anything; they just show a relation between two things. The verb “is” in
the film title: Life is Beautiful is not describing a process involving action of any sort; it
simply relates a concept, life, with an attribute, beautiful.

05. Behavioural processes – Verbs of conscious but often invisible action, such as stare,
listen and watch. Halliday called behavioural processes “minor processes” as they are less
common, but also less clearly defned than other processes.

06. Existential processes – Like behavioural processes, Halliday called these processes
“minor” ones. The word existential simply means “related to existence”. Existential

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 ‫ دراسات لغوية‬: ‫اسم المقرر‬ ‫جامعة عين شمس‬
EN-LING 32: ‫الكود‬ ‫كلية األلسن‬
‫ النظام الفصلي‬/ ‫ الثالثة‬: ‫الفرقة‬ ‫قسم اللغة اإلنجليزية‬

processes will typically begin with there and be (by a form of the verb be). There is a light
that never goes out means “A light that never goes out exists.”

Interpersonal Function:
It focusses on that language is primarily a social phenomenon. It also enables to project the
speaker in the desired way and to represent the speaker

Textual Function:
It includes speaker’s ability to create cohesive and coherent utterances or writings.

Sources:
Alba-Jues, L. (n.d.). Discourse Analysis for University Students. Filologia Inglesa. pp.
224-232
Al-Hindawi, F. H. & Abu-Krooz, H. H. (2017). Cohesion and coherence in English and
Arabic: a cross theoretic study. British Journal of English Linguistics, 5(3),1-17.
European Centre for Research Training and Development UK.
Halliday, M.A.K. and Hasan. R. (1976). Cohesion in English. Hong Kong: Longman.
Sutherland, S. (2016). A Beginner’s Guide to Discourse Analysis. US: Red Globe Press

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