Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

The absence of connectives and the maintenance

of coherence in publicity texts
Verónica Vivanco*
Department of Applied Linguistics, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Calle Javea 7,
28230 Las Rozas, Madrid, Spain
Received 30 May 2003; received in revised form 7 October 2004; accepted 16 November 2004

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore the distinctive features of publicity messages with respect to other
kinds of texts. Since the aim of advertising is to point the consumers’ ideas in a certain direction, the
communicative intention becomes generally constrained by persuasion strategies, such as are studied
in pragmatics.
Publicity discourse seems to have some specific features which distinguish it from other genres.
As regards coherence strategies, previous studies have shown that scientific and technical texts make
great use of connectives in order to predict and signal the type of discourse relations and the relation
between adjacent elements or sentences. An examination of technical advertisements taken from
specialized journals reveals a relatively low number of connectives. In contrast, coherence is
maintained with the aid of lexical and semantic resources. Additionally, what we refer to as
‘micromarkers’ help pinpoint relations. Although these micromarkers have little lexical or semantic
content, they are a necessary tool for tying together the concepts they refer to. It turns out that the
absence of auxiliary vocabulary, such as connectives, may be an advantage when storing information
in the mental reservoir.
# 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Cohesion; Coherence; Publicity; Advertising; Connectives; Lexical signalling; Micromarkers

* Tel.: +34 916394626.

E-mail address: veronicavivancocervero@yahoo.es.

0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2004.11.002
1234 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

1. Introduction

For van Dijk (1989), coherence is a semantic property of discourse, based on the
interpretation of each individual sentence, as related to the interpretation of the rest of the
sentences in the message. He considers coherence as the sharing of global ties that exist
even in the absence of linearly present ties. On the other hand, there are texts devoid of
cohesive devices, where continuity is based on content: examples are messages with a lack
of grammatical cohesion that nevertheless show semantic and conceptual unity.
Hasan points out the following on coherence:
‘‘One very important aspect of education is the production of coherent discourse. A
teacher aims to educate and train in such a way that the students are able ‘to talk
about’ their selected topics in a coherent and connected way.’’
(Halliday and Hasan, 1985: 95)
Hasan (ibid.: 71) establishes textual (in-)coherence in terms of texture, which she defines
as the meaning relations that establish a genre; the specific character of the genre
depends on the relations found in the individual messages. In this way, the study of
coherence helps clarify the relation among the constituents of a text. For Hasan, the
purpose of analysing what she calls ‘cohesive harmony’ is to provide a measure of the
coherence of a text. On this basis, she distinguishes between the text’s peripheral tokens
and relevant tokens: the former are established by meanings that do not participate
in identity chains or lexical strings, whereas relevant tokens refer to central meanings.
Thus, the smaller the ratio of peripheral to central tokens, the higher the level of
discourse coherence.
The notion of textual coherence is based on the assumption that one can make sense of a
text. This is the reason that, whenever coherence is not signalled by means of connectives,
we still assume the text is coherent. On reading a new text, even though it may not make any
sense, the reader tries to look for, discover, or disclose coherence. We even look for it so
desperately that sometimes, we use our own, subjective interpretations of the text in order
to clarify its obscure meanings. In this way, looking for coherence becomes a path to the
understanding of a text; such a path must be negotiated by the parties involved in the
process: the author and the reader. The quest for coherence is based on the principles of
interpretability and comprehension, features that are based on thematic structure and
semantic relations, but need to be negotiated in an ever-continuing process of cooperation
between author and reader. Reading can thus be described as a ‘cooperative process’ (see,
e.g., Mey, 2005).
Discourse signalling, being connected to coherence, has been the topic of many research
studies. Early studies by Winter (1974, 1977) were followed by Crombie (1985) and Hoey
(1983, 1993). For these researchers, the previous studies had started from two premises: the
first being that textual coherence as a network of structured relations was of two types:
relations between adjacent sentences and clauses, and relations among the different parts of
a text, which help maintain cohesion. The second premise was that any text has linguistic
indicators that make (the) readers easily perceive that they are reading a whole unit,
composed of related sentences (cf. Winter, 1974, 1977; Crombie, 1985). All of this seems
clear in the case of texts which make use of cohesion markers, but not so obvious for those
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1235

texts which, despite having coherence, do not use such markers. However, readers
recognize the text as a coherent unit since the concepts it uses have coherence. For Graesser
and Zwaan (1995), coherent discourses are built up of sequences connected by inferences
from the surrounding sentences.
Our findings support Knott and Dale (1994) and Dahlgren (1998: 166) on the
impossibility of there being text coherence without any linguistic signalling, even though
there are texts which show little signalling and still maintain coherence, as our analysis
demonstrates. Even so, these texts are harder to read, since signalling acts as guidance for
the reader.
In many cases, readers assume a text is coherent because it uses logical arguments,
although connectives or cue sentences are not in evidence. As Soria and Ferrari (1998: 41)
suggest, contrastive relations, either in written or oral messages, are lexically marked more
often than are consequential or additive relations, which show a lower rate of lexical
signalling. Therefore, for them (1998: 42), ‘‘lexical marking of discourse relations is not
entirely optional but is at least partially constrained by the type of relation signalled and by
the means of expression.’’

2. Research studies on coherence and lexical signalling

For Dahlgren (1998: 65), discourse relations are equated with coherence relations
and they are more often signalled syntactically or semantically than lexically. For Francis
(1986), lexical signalling helps to identify text sections and to evaluate information.
Hoey (1983: 178) indicates that signalling promotes a dialogue between reader and
writer. The former interprets the author’s purposes by means of lexical and semantic clues.
Other authors also discuss the interaction between reader and text, where author and text
could be considered to be identical because of a metonymy by which the product is taken
for the agent. So, we suppose the interaction between reader and writer to be the same as
that involving reader and text, since (as per the above) writer and text can be considered
synonyms.
The great variety of types of signals described by Evensen (1990) suggests that many
different features can be signalled in discourse: metatextual deixis, markers of text parts
and lexical dyads, topic markers, temporal pointers and connectors used as pointers.
Hoey (1983, 1994), McCarthy (1990) and Winter (1994) have focused on lexical
signalling in discourse. This, in Meyer’s opinion (1975), is a non-content oriented
perspective of the text, which, however, highlights some aspects of the content and
structure. We suggest that content aspects are embodied in lexical signalling, whereas
structure is revealed by means of either lexical or syntactical markers. However, we believe
the concept of content differs from Harris’ notion (1986: 159) of how I view the facts and
evaluate them in a text being a subjective matter. We suggest that ‘content’ is related to the
gist of the text, to the essential meaning which, depending on the writer’s attitude, may be
more objective or subjective. Nevertheless, we consider that how the writer sees the facts
may differ from our perspective of the situation; we can express our personal opinions, not
so much in terms of content but about how it is presented. Content is theoretically a neutral
concept, equivalent to facts. On the other hand, some types of discourse (persuasive,
1236 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

argumentative) may have a biased content, meaning that there may be a lack of equilibrium
in the presentation of information chunks.

3. Context of the study

Our modern world is very much shaped and influenced by publicity and marketing
techniques, that is, persuasion and argumentation are applied to any context (Fowler, 1991;
Bhatia, 1996; Gutiérrez, 1994, 1997).
From this perspective, it becomes obvious that publicity draws on different semiotic
modes and uses, takes advantage of and makes the most of any linguistic and extralinguistic
factor that the service, object or person being promoted may show. For those reasons, since
the aim of advertising is to point the consumers’ ideas in a certain direction, the
communicative intention becomes generally constrained by persuasion strategies such as
are studied in pragmatics (Vivanco, 2001).
The need to capture the customers’ attention is the first need in the marketing environment
and, since publicity is often costly, messages need to be brief. This briefness is an advantage
because short messages are easier to process, and easier to accommodate in the mental
storage. Another consequence of this need for briefness is the absence of conventional
coherence markers, which makes publicity seem urgent and quick in its attempt to save
reading or listening time. Although conventional coherence markers are not common in
advertisements, coherence still is maintained by the lexical clues running through the text.
Therefore, we consider that the two main language features of publicity discourse are
brevity and persuasion. These characteristics could make the task of attracting the readers’
attention more difficult, but in fact they are an ideal combination for the goal of effectively
communicating the message to the potential customer.

4. The corpus

In this section we report on our analysis of six publicity texts from the technical press;
all of them published in 2003. The reason for choosing advertisements was that, firstly,
publicity has freer and more creative discursive features which set it apart from many other
genres. Secondly, we have chosen the field of industry and technology because it is an area
where relatively little research has been done. Finally, we selected the six advertisements in
question mainly because of their brevity, which makes them ideal for textual analysis.
We chose the publicity field since most studies on scientific and technical discourse have
been based on the research article genre. The purpose of the present study is to show that
advertising texts convey coherence despite their lack of conventional coherence markers.
We believe that publicity texts, owing to the brevity of the message, omit what, perhaps, is
considered to be unnecessary information in the links indicated by connectives. The texts
we chose are the following:

Text 1: ‘CFD WITH ALL THE CAE TOOLS YOU NEED’, in G. Gibbons (ed.),
Aerospace America, 11 February 2003, p. 7.
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1237

Text 2: ‘HOW DO YOU GET ALL OF THE FLIGHT SUPPORT SERVICES YOU
NEED WITHOUT GOING ALL OVER THE GLOBE? ASK ARINC’, in
M. North (ed.), Aviation Week and Space Technology, 17 February 2003, p. 12.
Text 3: ‘SHARING THE SAME DRIVE. THAT’S HOW WE TURN THE BLADES’,
in M. Morris (ed.), Flight International, 4 February 2003, p. 21.
Text 4: ‘ARE YOU PREPARED TO MEET THE CHALLENGES OF SECURING
THE HOMELAND’, in M. North (ed.), Aviation Week and Space Technology,
24 February 2003, p. 55.
Text 5: ‘IMAGINE THIS’, in Chemical Education (American Chemical Society),
vol. 80, num. 2, February 2003, p. 117.
Text 6: ‘LOW POWER HIGH PERFORMANCE’, in G. Gibbons (ed.),
Aerospace America, 11 February 2003, p. 13.

5. Method of analysis

As previously mentioned, many studies of scientific and technical discourse deal with
the research article, the most important genre in the dissemination of results and findings.
Publicity discourse, on the other hand, has usually been studied from the perspective of
general linguistic language features and of the general consumers. Our study focuses on
advertisements in science and technology periodicals. Vivanco (2001) points out that
advertisements addressed to large technological companies are on a different axiological
scale from those focusing on small consumers. In the former, values such as beauty, design,
luxury, etc., are the least important factors, whereas resistance, durability, etc., become the
central points by which the seller tries to promote the product.
Apart from the difference in axiology between the two subgenres, publicity in science
and technology journals is also different in other ways as to its general discourse. Urgency
is, in our opinion, the cause of the striking omission of the connectives which are normally
used to signal coherence. Despite this lack of conventional markers, advertising texts still
show coherence, which we demonstrate in the analysis of the following features:

- lexical signalling as general marker of coherence: identical or related words help

maintain the topic, introduce new subtopics, or present the problem from a different
perspective. By this means, texts present the same semantic concept working through
different grammatical functions and placed in various syntactic collocations. If the same
word is repeated throughout the message, this may produce coherence by means of
repetition.
- semantic signalling: inside this group we include different semantic relations such as
synonymy, antonymy, hyperonymy, hyponymy and cohyponymy, as well as holonymy
and partonymy.
- micromarkers such as determinants, possessives, deictics, conjunctions, etc., which act
as signals that either maintain existing topics or present new ones (Gumperz, 1985). For
Alcaraz (2000: 98), micromarkers delimit both the topic and the subtopic.
- appearance of pronouns in place of nouns.
1238 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

Besides pointing out the evident lack of procedural vocabulary (Luzón, 1999) in
advertising discourse, we also discuss the ratio of the number of words and the number of
coherence devices, noting that the first influences the second, in a parallel, ascending
progression.
All these coherence features help maintain the topic of the discourse as they build a
uniform tissue of information. At the same time, information cannot be stationary since
progression is a characteristic of textuality: this way, information advances by introducing
new topics and related elements as we see in the following advertising messages.

6. Analysis

Text 1: 96 words
CFD WITH ALL THE CAE TOOLS YOU NEED

The CD Adapco Group’s powerful CFD code STAR-cd and range of associated es-tools
(Expert System Tools) offer you the ability to handle complex geometries, a wide range of
physical models and fast, accurate solver technology.
In the aerospace industry, we are recognized as a provider of the most accurate and cost-
effective design tools available. Typical applications include jet pumps, cabin environment
control, external aerodynamics, propulsion, aeroacoustic noise prediction, missile systems
and more.
Whatever your flow application, let us show you how our software and services can help
you.
Aerospace America, February 2003, p. 7

The last phrase, let us show how we can help you, ends a message which begins by
outlining the products and services the company offers, and finishes by listing these
products and services and inviting the potential customer to try them, which is the real
objective of the advertisement. In this text, coherence is maintained throughout the
message by the use of the idea that the tools the clients need are provided by the company.
Apart from that, the advantages mentioned are not demonstrated from any specific point of
view, so subjectivity may be taken as an ingredient of this message, which is enhanced by
euphoric adjectives.
In this text, we find a single theme, presenting the company’s products and services from
a comparative perspective, as the reliable solution to possible problems the potential
customer may have. Thus, at the lexical level we find words which enhance the credibility,
reliability and expertise of the company, words which could be said to belong to the core
vocabulary of technology: powerful, range, ability, handle, complex, geometry, wide
range, fast, accurate solver, technology, recognized, provider, most accurate, cost-
effective, design tools, available, applications, show, help.
In the section listing, the typical applications of the company we find a lexical group that
is usually dealt with as cohyponyms; in reality, we find concepts here that belong to
different semantic fields: partonyms (jet pumps), mixed up with non-partonyms (cabin
environmental control) and with sciences (aerodynamics). These cohyponyms cope with a
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1239

wide range of offers, as the advertisement claims; the offers are enhanced by the addition of
the word more.
Among the repetitions, we find CFD, tools and range that appear twice. There is also a
determiner (the) that situates the ambit of the company three times, three pronouns (you, 3;
we, 1; us, 1), and a possessive (our) that are focussed on the company.
Text 1 creates cohesion by means of coherent lexis. The type of vocabulary
the message uses focuses on technical reliability by using repetitions and determiners
which make the reader see the content as a whole unit of meaning. Most genres
would have used at least one connective device (so) before introducing the last
sentence, which figures as a natural consequence of the whole range of offers in the
advertisement.

Text 2: 113 words

HOW DO YOU GET ALL OF THE FLIGHT SUPPORT SERVICES YOU NEED
WITHOUT GOING ALL OVER THE GLOBE? ASK ARINC

Take the direct route to all the flight support services you need. From high-speed
Internet for passengers to worldwide weather briefings and everything in between,
ARINC Direct empowers you with the ultimate level of efficiency from anywhere in the
world. Plan trips, track and stay in touch with your airplanes, or schedule RVSM
upgrades and monitoring. All using ARINC Direct’s unique web interface. Or if you
prefer, an ARINC Direct flight coordinator can provide you the same services with a
more personal touch, over the phone, from our 24x7 operations and dispatch center.
Aviation Week and Space Technology, 17 February 2003, p. 12

The advertisement opens with a question posed and answered by the company, which is
the ‘bait’ to catch reader’s attention. ARINC offers a wide range of options and solutions to
potential customers (from web to telephone access), so coherence runs through the whole
text by the maintenance of the topic through the unity of ideas. However, there seems to be
a gap between the introductory question and the rest of the message, which, perhaps, may
be considered as a mechanism to activate the readers’ interest.
The text advances from the introduction (question and explicit answer) to the
development based on the range of offers made by the company to meet customer needs.
All of the flight—all over the globe are the appealing phrases by which the text is
introduced. We find an underlying single theme, based upon a lexical linear pattern
of efficiency and range of use (from the web to a more personal access over the
phone), which helps bind the text in a unity of signification. The wide range of
options is clearly shown by the correlate from. . .to and by the expression Everything in
between. In this type of publicity text, any possible question the client may ask is
covered by the existence of generic linguistic forms which help to anticipate unforeseen
demands.
Flight support services and you need are repeated twice, whereas ARINC appears four
times. We also find the synonym pair (all over the globe/worldwide).
At the level of micromarkers, we find both the article the and the pronoun you appearing
6 times, whereas the possessive your is seen only once.
1240 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

Text 3: 134 words

Sharing the same drive. That’s how we turn the blades.

Building helicopter engines takes more than using the smartest design, the best steel, or
the sharpest electronics. Engine builders need to share the same culture and values as the
pilots and operators who depend on their power plants and the mechanics who maintain
them. Turbomeca has been dedicated to the rotorcraft community for over 50 years. Day
after day we listen and talk to you our customers world-wide, and we move forward with
your comments by constantly improving our product range to better fit your needs and by
moving support closer to operators, wherever they may be. Your drive to fulfil your every
mission relies upon our drive to keep you powered. And that’s the common drive we share
to keep your blades turning.
Flight International, 4 February 2003, p. 21

Here we find a type of content which takes us beyond the modern strategy of selling a
product by its appearance, quality materials or advanced technology. In this case, building
aircraft ‘takes more than using the smartest design, the best steel, or the sharpest
electronics’. This does not mean that the company does not apply these features but that it
doesn’t stop at that; it also draws on the observations and opinions of those who work with
aircraft.
We find the same balanced structure as in the previous text, since the message is split
into three different sections: introduction, development and end. The first part ‘Sharing the
same drive. That’s how we turn the blades.’, is also reflected in the ending ‘And that’s the
common drive we share to keep your blades turning.’, so progression is marked by a
circular pattern. The repetition of the word blades both in the introduction and in the last
part helps replace old by new information (Winter, 1974). The switch from ‘the blades’ to
‘your blades’ personalises the message as it connects the sections of the text.
The content of Text 3 also follows a linear pattern. At the lexical level we find a
continuous structure which focuses on improving the shared interests between the
company and aircraft pilots, operators and mechanics: sharing, same, dedicated,
community, listen, talk, customers, move, forward, constantly, improving, product, range,
better, fit, needs, moving, support, fulfil, mission, relies, drive, keep, common, share.
Working for, building and sharing the interests of a same aeronautical community are
the topics around which the content of the message spins. We find word families such as to
build, builders; sharing, share (2); and community, common which pertain to the same
semantic field, but are active in different functions.
The deixis is enhanced as well by means of words of similar content: for over fifty years/
day after day and worldwide/wherever they may be.
At the same time the text is full of micromarkers that provide coherence to the discourse
and also imply a bond between the company and the customers: the pilots and operators
who depend on their power and the mechanics, we listen and talk to you, your comments,
your needs, your drive, our drive, to keep you powered, common drive we share, your
blades. These determiners (the, 9), relatives (who, 2), possessives (their and our, 1; your, 3)
and pronouns (you and we, 2; they and them, 1) either concretise the topic (determiners and
possessives) or avoid unnecessary repetition (relatives and pronouns).
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1241

Text 4: 188 words

Are you prepared to meet the challenges of securing the homeland?

Homeland security and defense. A weekly electronic and print intelligence service for
the global homeland security and defense community.
With homeland security and defense against terrorism, a global priority, are you
prepared to meet the challenge? If you are a public official, can you afford to do without
timely, pertinent intelligence on security developments and planning techniques? If you are
a supplier of security-related goods and services, will you be ready to provide material and
support when and where it’s more needed?
Current news, data and competitive intelligence on:
Federal, state and local programs, policies and budgets
The Transportation Security Administration, the White House Office of Homeland
Security and other U.S. and world government agencies
Counterterrorism
Aviation security
State and local law enforcement and security agencies
Emergency response. Urban search and rescue
International intelligence. Law enforcement and security agencies
Corporate industrial intelligencies
Robots, special vehicles and other ground equipment
Communications equipment
Biometric technology
Terror simulation
Signals intelligence technology
Passenger and cargo screening technology
Biological and radiological decontamination
News products and services
Business opportunities and industry events
More. . .
Aviation Week and Space Technology, 24 February 2003, p. 55

The highly convincing structure of the first part stimulates the potential clients to
wonder about their needs; but the offer seems to appeal at least as much to the emotional as
to the rational. The structure is clearly divided in two parts: the argumentation and the
enumerative part, which does not provide any description about the potential advantages.
Current news, data and competitive intelligence on constitutes the limit between
argumentation and description, but the two parts are linguistically and structurally
detached, so that readers have to guess the non-explicit link between the two rhetorical
structures in order to discover that the enumeration represents the requirements for solving
the problem. The possible exemplifier such as is obviously missing after to provide
material and support, an option which leads us directly to when and where it’s more
needed? Perhaps this linguistic cut is made in order to surprise the reader/client (Cook,
1992), which highlights the difference between the publicity genre and the academic
genres, in which this cohesive device would have most likely been used.
1242 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

The advertisement advances from the presentation of the problem to the list of potential
services and solutions. While this list cannot cover everything, other answers may be found
in the final more, which includes all the range of possibilities that do not appear in the list.
More may be considered to be a substitute or supplement for anything the client wants from
the company and signals the end of the advertisement.
Text 4 shows a problem–solution structure which is somehow veiled. The message
confronts the reader or potential client with the problem of securing the homeland. The text
begins with the question Are you prepared to meet the challenges of securing the
homeland?, that conveys an implicit negative answer: ‘no’, which is repeated in the third
paragraph are you prepared to meet the challenge?, later on addressing two different
potential customers: public officials and suppliers. We note that the word problem is not
clearly stated in the message, but its existence is something easily perceived or, at least that
is what the author probably intends to make readers believe.
Security developments and planning techniques, and providing material and support are
the two problems that, supposedly, officials and suppliers cannot solve for themselves and
for which this company has the solutions.
Security and defence are the central matters of the message, but they are viewed as a
patriotic issue (homeland) and as a challenge with innovative solutions, when they really
represent some of the habitual concerns of officials and suppliers.
Lexically speaking the text uses vocabulary related to intelligence, developments and
technologies. These are the clues to solving the problems of national security and defence.
Lack of security and defence can be rectified by the intelligence, developments and
technologies provided by the company.
The most extended word group in the text is that related to security: securing, security
(9) and the compound security-related. Other frequent words are homeland (4), defense (3),
equipment (2), technology (3), services (2) and challenge, both in singular and plural forms
in the group to meet the challenges.
Current news, data and competitive intelligence on introduces a group of 30
cohyponyms which represent either mixed concepts such as aviation security (general) or
robots, special vehicles and other ground equipment (concrete).
The pronoun you is repeated six times in an attempt to capture the clients’ attention. We
also find the appearance of the definite article (3) and the indefinite article (2) referring to
the jobs carried out by potential customers (public official and supplier). When is used to
pinpoints time events.

Text 5: 175 words

Imagine this:

4X Greater accuracy and More Elements New in Cache 5.0 with MOPAC 2002* PM5,
the first new MOPAC method since 1986, challenges experimental accuracy. 4X greater
accuracy. The new PM5 method improves accuracy up to 4X greater than PM3 and AM1
with new experimental data and algorithms. All main group elements. For the first time, all
main group elements are included in one semiempirical method-including Li, Be, B, Na,
Mg, K, Ca, and more, opening up new areas of study such as biological systems. Transition
metals. AM1-d provides more accurate geometries and heats of formation than current
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1243

methods. For example, AM1-d heats of formation accuracies are comparable to PM3.
Giant molecules. MOPAC 2002 provides the patented MOZYME algorithm that enables
very fast SCF and geometry optimisations, reaction modelling on molecules of up to
20,000 atoms, and quantum chemistry calculations on whole proteins and polymers for the
first time. Over 40 other enhancements. Includes more robust transition state search,
intersystem crossing, improved solution models, MNDO-d for more accurate geometries,
dynamic memory allocation, and more.
Chemical Education, vol. 80, num. 2, February 2003, p. 117

Here the content structure governs the rhetorical structure and partitioning of the text.
The introduction is followed by the development part which deals with the description of
the real features and advantages of the product. This description is quite detailed (up to 4X
greater than PM3 and AM1, including Li, Be, B, Na, Mg, K, Ca, and more,. . .). And more,
the signal of the end of lineal progression, even seems to be a constant addition to the text (3
tokens) in an attempt to cope with any of the customers’ possible demands.
Here, hypothetical thought (imagine this) becomes reality, making experimental
accuracy turn true. The text follows a double pattern since it focuses on the contrast
between imagination and reality, which is reflected in the use of the term accuracy (7
words). In Winter’s opinion (1994: 64), the writer has to signal that the situation is
hypothetical, a perspective which the text does not seem to reflect: in the message,
imagination suddenly becomes reality.
Some of the words are repeated very often: new (5), accuracy (5: 4 singular, 1 plural),
accurate (2), more (6), elements (2), MOPAC (3), method (3: 2 singular, 1 plural),
experimental (2), 4X (2) and geometry (1 singular, 1 plural). Some of this vocabulary
belongs to the same family as accuracy and accurate. In other cases, we find words
belonging to the same field of knowledge: algorithm and geometry are terms pertaining to
mathematics, whereas molecules, atoms, quantum and polymers belong to chemistry.
Among the micromarkers we find the demonstrative this in the heading to make
reference to an imaginary device, and the definite article the which appears five times with
singular nouns. While and for example are the only connectives that appear in Text 5,
which shows a heavy load of unconnected information. Without some knowledge of
chemistry, the text becomes very hard to follow: in a case like this, the presence of
connectives would probably be a great help to understand the way in which sentences
relate to each other.

Text 6: 157 words

LOW POWER, HIGH PERFORMANCE

The BD950 has been designed for the challenging machine guidance and control
environment. Both land and marine seismic applications benefit from the easy upgrade path
of the BD950. Its low power capabilities allow the BD950 to be used in a variety of
compact, portable applications. Maximum Versatility in a Small Package. The BD950 from
Trimble is everything you’ve ever dreamed of in a dual-frequency RTK GPS receiver
housed on a single compact card. Get your product to market faster, while providing a more
portable solution to the end-user. With exceptionally low power requirements, the BD950
1244 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

can handle a wider range of applications in a smaller package, keeping your customers
happy and boosting your business.
HIGH-TECH, LOW-HASSLE FEATURES
Accurate to the centimetre
Industry-standard compact form factor: 80 mm  100 mm
Easy to upgrade from L1 to L1/L2
Low power requirements: typically less than 1.5 W in L1/L2 RTK mode
External frequency input
Easy to integrate
Chemical Computing Group, 11 February 2003, p. 13

The text shows features of progression and partition even in its graphical aspect: the two
aspects in the title divide the unit in clear-cut cores. Low power, high performance heads
the part devoted to a more or less detailed description of the product, whereas High-tech,
low hassle features begins the enumeration of the main features of the appliance advertised.
The message has a linear kind of progression without concluding remarks, thus leaving the
decisions to the reader.
In this text we find a comparison-contrast pattern with antonyms in contrastive pairs
referring to different concepts: low power-high performance, maximum versatility-small
package, dual frequency-single compact card, low power-wider range, high-tech-low
hassle capabilities. The sets of contrastive pairs are based on adjectives rather than nouns.
Contrastive relations (Mann and Thompson, 1986; Hobbs, 1985; Sanders et al., 1993;
Knott and Mellis, 1996) often show a distinction between or among the opposing parts,
often involving a negative component that usually appears in the second part. This way,
contrastive relations usually range from the positive to the negative pole; however, in the
examples in question we notice that all the qualities are positive and follow a dual
direction: on the one hand, we find the opposition maximum/small package and on the
other, the contrast dual/single; the route taken is opposed to that of the pair low power-high
performance, but it nevertheless follows a contrary option in high-tech-low hassle.
The use of adjectives in scientific texts, according to Soler (2002: 145), ‘‘allow[s]
scientists to describe and qualify phenomena observed during the experimental stage and to
anticipate agreements or oppositions to claims with caution and strategical consideration of
the opinions and view of peers’’. Unlike what is the case in scientific texts, in our concrete
instance, positive adjectives fill up the text while ignoring, in our opinion, the view of peers.
Apart from this, many of the adjectives are not very optimistic.
Single comparisons, either positive or negative also appear in the advertisement (faster,
less than) together with other lexical signals that, following the antonymic grouping
structure, also mark different degrees of size, capability, etc. (low power capabilities,
upgrade). The advantages the text tries to emphasize are related to the combination of
minimum size with maximum accuracy; hence it does not appear to fit into Winter’s pattern
(1977: 30), which is based upon a comparative affirmation and a contrastive denial.
Sentences 3 and 4 of this text especially could have been linked by the simple use of a
colon, an economic way to show a relation between parts in which the second, maximum
versatility in a small package, acts as a summary of the first. Low power appears 4 times;
BD950, 5; and compact and portable, 2.
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1245

Among the micromarkers used in this message we note the use of both the definite and
indefinite article in a similar ratio: a (7), the (8), whilst the pronoun you (1) appears less
often than the possessive your (3).

7. Results

The different texts reveal various features used to achieve coherence: all of them make
use of repetitions, articles and pronouns, and of some use word families, mostly synonyms
and cohyponyms. An exception is Text 6, which shows antonyms, perhaps in direct relation
to its use of contrastive devices. Its perspective is the opposite of that in Text 4, which also
has a dual pattern, but one of problem and solution, which is indirectly referred to in the
title.

Text
1 2 3 4 5 6
Content Reliability Range Collaboration Problem/ Accuracy Low
of use solution power/
high
performance
Word families 3 1 1
Repetition 6 8 4 29 32 13
Synonym 2 4
Antonym 10
Cohyponym 6 30
Correlation 2
Article 3 6 9 3 5 8
Pronoun 5 6 6 6 1 1
Possessive 1 1 5 3

Relative 1

Text 1 reveals a lexical content referring to reliability which includes six hybrid
cohyponyms and six lexical repetitions. We also find three determiners, five pronouns and
one possessive adjective.
Text 2 is based upon a range of use pattern. Here we find two correlations, eight lexical
repetitions and two synonyms. The definite article and the pronoun you appear six times
each, whereas there is only one possessive.
Text 3 follows a collaboration model to capture the reader’s attention. There are three
word families that are shown in different categories or number, four repetitions and
four synonyms. We also find nine definite articles, six pronouns, five possessives and a
relative.
1246 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249

Text 4 has a dual and contrastive pattern (problem–solution) that is presented from a
more or less veiled perspective. The message shows a lexical family presented in different
categories, 29 repetitions, 30 cohyponyms, 3 definite articles and 6 pronouns.
Text 5 deals with accuracy presented in a contrastive pattern (hypothetical-real). We
also find a word family appearing in different categories, 2 fields of knowledge, and 32
lexical repetitions. There are also a demonstrative and 5 articles.
Text 6 shows a contrastive pattern based upon the combination of the terms low power
and high performance. From the beginning the text is full of adjectival antonyms (10) and
repetitions (13). The definite article is found eight times, along with possessives (3) and one
pronoun.

8. Discussion

From our analysis we note that the number of coherence signals increases in accordance
with the number of words in the text. We consider coherence signals to be all the devices
that help link the topic in a unity of ideas: word families, semantic relations of any type,
micromarkers and pronouns relating to antecedents. Summing up the different clues
appearing in each text, and leaving apart connectives, the ratio of coherence devices to the
number of words is as follows:

Text Words Devices of coherence Percentage of coherence (%)

1 96 21 21.875
2 113 25 22.123
3 134 32 23.880
4 188 69 36.702
5 175 41 23.428
6 157 35 22.292

From this, we can see that coherence can be maintained despite the lack of use of
connectives. The figures reveal a direct correlation between the number of words and the
use of coherence signals and thus imply a great contrast with respect to some previous
studies focused on specific discourses (Luzón, 1999; Lundquist, 1991; Martin, 1993). In
this connection, we would like to specifically point out the very limited use of procedural
vocabulary which appears habitually in scientific and technical texts.
The six texts in this study reveal coherence features despite the lack of the connectives
that, according to Dahlgren (1998: 67), lead to the construction of coherent sentences.
These connectives such as because, as a result, consequently, in order to, so that, because,
in summary, first, second, similarly, likewise, in contrast, then, next, that is to say, evidently,
that means. . . are not found in the texts analysed here.
On the other hand, when, while and for example appear in the texts, showing background
and constituency respectively. Evidently, three connectives in a total amount of 863 words
appear to be a markedly low number of this type of coherence markers. Our belief is that
 V. Vivanco / Journal of Pragmatics 37 (2005) 1233–1249 1247

this is due to the urgency of the message, and for two reasons, both of the economical and
the cognitive type. To these, we can add Cook’s (1992) assumption of the reader’s attention
being called through the omission of cohesive elements.
The high cost of publicity could trigger the omission of link words in the text explicitly
informing the reader about the type of relation between the elements. However, omission
also brings some advantages in capturing and maintaining the would-be buyer’s attention,
since the excessive length of the message would be a disadvantage in storing and retrieving
information. However, what may be clear for the expert reader in the field becomes blurred
for the layman: for us, cohesion is more than the surface marking of coherence; it acts as a
clarifying device which helps guide through the semantic relations between sentences. In
contrast, in academic genres the objective of conveying information as clearly as possible
makes the use of connectives necessary. So, in spite of the general scarcity of connectives,
we suggest that the texts reveal a high level of coherence.

9. Concluding remarks

Publicity is known to have a highly persuasive aim: to point the consumers’ ideas in a
certain direction; the communicative intention becomes generally constrained by
persuasion strategies, such as are studied in pragmatics.
Advertisements are usually short, both because of the cost and because a brief message
is usually more easily remembered. However, the vital point for advertising is to catch
and maintain the potential customer’s attention and act on it by being convincing and
credible.
Publicity discourse seems to have some specific features which distinguish it from other
genres. Previous research on coherence features has revealed that scientific and technical
texts usually make great use of connectives in order to predict and signal the type of
discourse relations within the text. These features are remarkably scarce in our technical
publicity texts, where coherence is maintained through lexical and semantic resources that
are enhanced by means of micromarkers which help pinpoint relations. Although these
micromarkers have little lexical or semantic content, they are necessary in order to bind the
concepts they refer to. It seems that conventional connectives may be considered by
advertising copywriters to be superfluous as they do not increase the semantic load of the
message.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr. Jacob Mey and Roger Thompson for the review of
this article.

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Verónica Vivanco is a senior lecturer at the Department of Applied Linguistics of the Polytechnic University of
Madrid, where she has been teaching for 15 years. Her field of research is technical lexis. Among her publications
are: El léxico politécnico español e inglés: lingüı́stica y humanismo, published by ERIC; Léxico técnico
aeronáutico: formación, contaminación y solución, published by the Open University of Spain; and Homonymy
and Polysemy. Semantic Theory and Lexicographic Application, published by Ediciones del Sur.