chapter 3

cohesion in english discourse

(10 hours / Theory: 8, Practice: 2)

Lecturer: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ho Ngoc Trung

hongoctrung74@gmail.com
0913306484
 OBJECTIVES

In this chapter, we will learn:

• grammatical cohesive devices
• lexical cohesive devices
• REQUIRED READINGS:
English
1. Carthy M. M. (1993). Discourse Analysis for Language
Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2. Halliday M.A.K. & Hasan R. (1976). Cohesion in English.
London: Longman.
3. Van H. V. (2006). Introducing Discourse Analysis. Hanoi:
Education Publisher.
Vietnamese
4. Diệp Quang Ban (2002). Giao tiếp, văn bản, mạch lạc, liên kết,
đoạn văn. Hà Nội: NXB Khoa học xã hội.
5. Trần Ngọc Thêm (1985). Hệ thống liên kết văn bản tiếng Việt.
Hà Nội: NXB Khoa học xã hội.
6. Hồ Ngọc Trung (2012). Phép thế trong tiếng Anh (trong sự liên
hệ với tiếng Việt). Hà Nội: NXB Khoa học xã hội.
 CHAPTER OUTLINE
3.1 Grammatical cohesion
3.1.1 Reference
3.1.2 Substitution
3.1.3 Ellipsis
3.1.4 Conjunction
3.2 Lexical cohesion
3.2.1 Reiteration
3.2.1.1 Repetition
3.2.1.2 Synonymy
3.2.1.3 Antonymy
3.2.1.4 Superordinate and Meronymy
3.2.1.5 General word
3.2.2 Collocation
 3.1 grammatical cohesion
(7.5 hours / Theory: 6, Practice: 1.5)

Grammatical cohesion is the surface

marking of semantic links between clauses
and sentences in written discourse, and
between utterances and turns in speech.

Grammatical cohesive devices include

reference, substitution, ellipsis and
conjunction.
 3.1.1 reference
(2.5 hours / Theory: 2, Practice: 0,5)
 Definition: Reference expresses the
relationship of identity which exists
between units in discourse.
Referential cohesion helps readers
interpret the text.

Barack Hussein Obama II (born

August 4, 1961) is REFERENCE
the 44th and current President of the
United States. He is the first African
American to hold the office. Obama
previously served as a United States
Senator from Illinois, from January
2005 until he resigned following his
victory in the 2008 presidential
election. EXOPHORIC ENDOPHORIC

Classification: There exist two ways

of classifying reference:
1. Based on pointing direction:

Reference is classified into exophoric ANAPHORIC CATAPHORIC

(i) and endophoric reference.
Endophoric reference is further
classified into anaphoric (ii) and
cataphoric reference (iii)
2. Based on reference realisation:

Reference is classified into personal reference

(iv), demonstrative reference (v), and
comparative reference (vi)

REFERENCE

PERSONAL DEMONSTRATIVE COMPARATIVE

 (i) Exophoric reference:
References to assumed, shared worlds outside the text are
exophoric reference, for example:

The government are to blame for unemployment.

We always take the car since we can just put the kids, the dog
and the luggage into it.

Eighty per cent of Britain’s sewage works are breaking

pollution laws, according to a report to be published this week.
The cost of fulfilling a government promise to clean them up
will run into billions, and put the entire privatisation
programme at risk.
Endophoric reference:
References to the entity/items within the
text are endophoric references.
(ii) Anaphoric reference: points the reader/listener
backwards to a previously mentioned entity, process or
state, for example:

Many people think that they can get by without working

hard. That’s a big mistake.

It rained all day and night for two weeks. The basement
flooded and everything was under water. It spoilt all our
calculations.

And the living room was a very small room with two
windows that wouldn’t open and things like that. And it
looked nice. It had a beautiful brick wall.

You entered into a tiny little hallway and the kitchen was off
that.
(iii) Cataphoric reference: points the reader or
listener forwards. It draws us further into the text
in order to identify the elements to which the
reference items refer. This is a classic device for
engaging the reader’s attention; referents can be
withheld for quite long stretches of text. For
example:

This should interest you, if you’re keen on boxing.

The world heavyweight championship is going to
be held in Chicago next June.
She claims Leo Tolstoy as a distant cousin. Her
grandfather was Alexei Tolstoy-the famous ‘Red Count’
who sided with Lenin’s revolutionaries. Now, Tatyana
Tolstaya has put pen to paper, in her case to
demonstrate that someone from the family can write
compactly.

The trip would hardly have been noteworthy, except for

the man who made it. In mid-July, a powerful American
financier flew to Mexico City for a series of talks with
high-level government officials, including President
Miguel de la Madrid and his finance minister, Gustavo
Patricioli.
 Activities
I. What does it refer to in this short extract? In
detail, state what type of reference it belongs to.
Translate the extract into Vietnamese and
suggest different Vietnamese equivalents of the
word it.

1.
A pioneering ‘school-based management’
programme in Miami-Dade County’s 260 schools
has also put some budget, salary and personnel
decisions in the hands of local councils, composed
largely of teachers . ‘It’s recognition that our voices
and input are important,’ says junior highschool
teacher Ann Colman.
2.
Like the idea of deterring burglars with a big, ferocious
hound – but can’t stand dogs? For around £45 you
can buy an automatic dog barking unit – Guard Dog,
or the Boston Bulldog, both available by mail order
from catalogues like the ones you‘re sent with credit
card statements. You plug it in near the front door and
its built-in microphone detects sharp noises.
II. Identify the cataphoric reference item and its referent in
this extract, and state its role in the discourse.

It has often been compared to New Orleans’s Mardi Gras as an

outdoor celebration. Certainly New York’s Mulberry Street and
surrounding blocks have been as crowded over the last few
days as Royal and Bourbon Streets in the French Quarter are
for the Mardi Gras. More than three million people are
estimated to have celebrated the 61st annual Feast of the San
Gennaro down in Greenwich Village since it began on
Thursday.
II. Find exophoric references in the following extract and consider
whether they are likely to create cultural difficulties for a Vietnamese
learner of English.

King trial jury adjourns with transcript

The Jury in the trial of three people accused of conspiring to murder

the Northern Ireland Secretary, Mr. Tom King, adjourned last night after
more than seven hours’ deliberation.
They spent the night within Winchester crown court buildings, where
the trial is taking place. Five hours after they retired to consider their verdict,
the judge recalled them to answer a question they had put to him in a note.
That question was “Can we convict if we think the information collecting
was for several purposes, or does the one whole aim must be murder?”

The judge said the Crown had to prove an agreement to murder so that
the jury was sure. It was not sufficient to prove it as a possibility or
probability, but it must be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
iv. Personal reference:
Personal reference items are expressed through
personal pronouns, possessive pronouns and
possessive determiners (or possessive adjectives). They
serve to identify individuals and objects that are named
at some other points in the text, for example:

I turned to go indoors when I saw a girl waiting in the

next doorway. I couldn’t see her face, only the white silk
trousers and the long flowered robe, but I knew her for
all that. She had so often waited for me to come home at
just this place and hour.
 SPEECH ROLES OTHER ROLES

SPEAKER ADDRESSEE SPECIFIC GENERALISED

HUMAN
HUMAN NON-HUMAN

I me he him It it one one

mine my his his [Its] its - one’s
ONE
you you she her
yours your hers her
MORE THAN we us they them
ONE
ours our theirs their
Notes:
- One never occurs as possessor/head, although it does as
Possessor/Modifier, for example:
Do they pay one’s debts? (but not * Do they pay one’s?)

- British English retains one in second and subsequent occurrences,

where American English normally substitutes he:

- One can hardly be expected to reveal one’s/his innermost secrets

to the first casual enquirer, can one/he?
- I said, ‘I’m not going to walk. You’ll have to pay for a trishaw.’ One
had to keep one’s dignity.
- One forgets so quickly one’s own youth.

- In English, no distinction is made between I and you according to the

number of addressees or according to the social hierarchy or the
social distance between addressee and speaker. (Elizabethan
English distinguished thou-singular, familiar from you-plural, singular
showing respect or distance).
- The form its is also rare as Head, but it does occur:
You know that mouse you saw? Well that hole there must be its.

- Personalization of he/she:

Adam said that he did have an old dog. She was eleven years old,
and of course nobody would want to buy her.

Could you ask your dog to be still?’ I said.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. Duke. Duke. Sit down, Duke.’ Duke sat down and
began noisily to lick his private parts. I filled out glasses and
managed in passing to disturb Duke’s toilet. The quiet lasted a very
short time; he began to scratch himself.

Only the 3rd person is inherently cohesive, in that a 3rd person form
typically refers anaphorically to a preceding item in the text. First
and second person forms do not normally refer to the text at all, and
hence they are normally interpreted exophorically by reference to
the situation.
-In some cases 1st and 2nd person forms can be
used endophorically:

John and I have finished our work. Can we start

our lunch now?

or when I/you occurs in quoted speech:

There was a brief note from Susan. She just

said, ‘I am not coming home this weekend.’
 Speech roles
I, you, we (‘you and I’)
Typically exophoric (non-cohesive):
speaker, addressee(s)
writer, reader(s)
Secondarily anaphoric (cohesive):
speaker, addressee in
quoted speech
Other roles
he, she, it, they, we (‘and
others’)
anaphoric (cohesive)
person(s) or thing(s)
previously referred to
exophoric (non-cohesive)
person(s) or thing(s)
identified in context of
situation
Possessive pronouns are doubly
anaphoric because they are both
referential and elliptical: they are
anaphoric (i) by reference, to the
possessor, and (ii) by ellipsis, to the thing
possessed.
 In the following example, only (C) satisfies the
presuppositions of the second sentence:

A. Can you find another programme?

B. Can you help Mary?
C. Can you hand Mary a programme?

Hers has got lost.

v. Demonstrative reference:
Definition: Demonstrative reference is
essentially a form of verbal pointing. The
speaker identifies the referent by locating
it on a scale of proximity. The system is
as follows:
Neutral: the

Selective: near near far

far (not near)

participant: singular this that

plural these those

circumstance: place here there

time now then
 The selective nominal demonstratives:
this, these, that, those

In principle, they embody within themselves 3 systematic distinctions:

• between ‘near’ (this/these) and ‘not near’ (that/those)
• between ‘singular’ (this/that) and ‘plural’ (these/those)
• between Modifier (this etc.+ noun) and Head (this etc. without noun)

a. Near and not near: this/these vs that/those

Both this and that regularly refers anaphorically to something that
has been said before. In dialogue there is some tendency for the
speaker to use this to refer to something he himself has said and
that to refer to something said by his interlocutor:

There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness. This

is what I can’t understand.

A: There seems to have been a great deal of sheer carelessness.

B: Yes, that’s what I can’t understand.
or this/these is used when the referent is associated with
the speaker:

I like the lions, and I like the polar bears. These are my
favourites.
Those are my favourites too.

Co-existing with this tendency is another one whereby

proximity is interpreted in terms of time; in this case, that
tends to be associated with a past-time referent and this
for one in the present or future, for example:

We went to the opera last night. That was our first outing
for months.

We’re going to the opera tonight. This’ll be our first

outing for months.
 b. Singular and plural: this/that vs
these/those

The plural forms may refer anaphorically not only to a preceding

plural noun, but also to sets that are plural in meaning:

‘Where do you come from?’ said the Red Queen. ‘And where are
you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers all
the time.’
Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she
could, that she had lost her way.

On the other hand, the singular demonstrative may refer to a whole

list irrespective of whether or not it contains items that are
themselves plural:

A: I’ve ordered two turkeys, a leg of lamb, some cooked ham and
tongue, and two pounds of minced beef.
B: Whatever are you going to do with all that food?
 c. Head and Modifier:

A demonstrative as Modifier may refer without restriction to any

class of noun. A demonstrative as Head (‘demonstrative pronoun’),
on the other hand, while it can refer freely to non-humans, is highly
restricted in its reference to human nouns; it cannot refer to a
human referent except in the special environment of an equative
clause, for example:

Do you want to know the woman who designed it? That was Mary
Smith.

Who are those colourful characters?-Those must be the presidential

guards.

Who’s that? This is John.

Those are the people I was telling you about.

If the demonstrative is used with a noun,
then the meaning is always identical with
that of the presupposed item:

A: There’s a cat trying to get in. Shall I

open the window?
B: Oh, that cat/that animal/that trickster’s
always coming here cadging.
Some more examples of anaphoric and cataphoric
demonstratives:

They broke a Chinese vase. That was careless.

‘Give your evidence,’ said the king; ‘and don’t be

nervous, or I’ll have you executed on the spot.’
This did not seem to encourage the witness at all.

He told me this: He was thinking of moving to a

bigger city.
Distinction should be made between structural
cataphora and textual cataphora:

+ Structural cataphora e.g. He who hesitates is lost. is a

realization of a grammatical relationship within the
nominal group and has no cohesive text-forming
function.

+ Textual cataphora e.g. These were the verses the

White Rabbit read: -[followed by the verses] is true
reference forward in the text; it therefore is cohesive, not
by picking up what has preceded but by anticipating
what is to follow.
 The
+ Exophoric the: The item is identifiable in one of the two ways:

(1) A particular individual or subclass is being referred to, and that

individual or subclass is identifiable in the specific situation/in the
immediate situation.

Don’t go. The train is coming. (This differs from A train is coming)
Mind the step.
Pass me the towel.
The snow is too deep.

(2) The referent is identifiable on extralinguistic grounds no matter what

situation:

The sun/The moon/the child (=all children)

+ Endophoric the: There are two possibilities: reference forwards, and
reference backwards.

Cataphoric reference with the is limited to the structural type.

Unlike the selective demonstratives (this, that, these, those), the
can never refer forward cohesively. It can only refer to a modifying
element within the same nominal group as itself , e.g:

The ascent of Mount Everest

The party in power
The people who predicted a dry summer
The best way to achieve stability
Anaphoric reference with the is the only one of the four conditions
in which the is cohesive, for example:

She found herself in a long, low hall which was lit up by a row of
lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all round the hall,
they were all locked.

Note: various types of reference may co-occur at the same time:

Last year we went to Devon for a holiday. The holiday we had there
was the best we’ve ever had.

Look at the moon! The daytime moon always seems so sad.

Demonstrative adverbs: here, there, now,
then

Notes:
Demonstrative there vs pronoun there as in there’s a
man at the door.

Demonstrative now vs conjunction now as in Now what

we’re going to do is this. (conjunction: to emphasize or
draw attention to what is about to be said.)

Demonstrative then vs conjunction then as in then

you’ve quite made up your mind? (conjunction, meaning
in that case, therefore, as a result of this)
+Here/there as demonstratives = at this/that place:

Her eyes rested on the writing table behind him. It was here they
had worked.

Adam stopped at the post office. He thought he would go inside to

get warm. Then he thought he would feel even much colder when
he came out. As he stood there, he thought of what his friend Merrill
had said to him.

He knew the horse could take him to where there was luck, if only
he forced it. So he would mount again and start on his furious ride,
hoping at last to get there.

In the sitting-room there was a photograph of herself and Pyle.

They had been photographed in the botanical gardens beside a
large stone dragon. She held Pyle’s dog on a leash – a black chow
with a black tongue. A too black dog. I put the photograph in her
box. ‘What’s happened to the dog?’ I said.
‘It isn’t here. He may have taken it with him.’
+ Here/there as demonstratives = in this/that respect:

‘Of course it would be all the better,’ said Alice: ‘but it wouldn’t be all the
better his being punished.’
‘You’re wrong there, at any rate,’ said the Queen.

+ Then = at the time just referred to’:

In my young days we took these things more seriously. We had different

ideas then.

This time, he stayed until the end of April. By then, he had so many furs
that he had to leave his strays behind.

As soon as we get there, he’ll understand everything. Xia will know then
that....

+ Now = this stage of affairs having come about’, e.g:

The plane touched down at last. Now we could breathe freely again.
vi. Comparative reference:
Comparative reference is expressed
through adjectives and adverbs and
serves to compare items within a text in
terms of identity or similarity. The system
is as follows:
COMPARISON

GENERAL

IDENTITY
same, equal, identical/identically

SIMILARITY
such, similar/so, similarly, likewise

DIFFERENCE
other, different, else/differently, otherwise

PARTICULAR

NUNERATIVE
more, fewer, less, further/so-as-equally-+ quantifiers,
e.g. so many

EPITHET
Comparative adjectives and adverbs, eg. better/
so-as-more-less-equally-+ comparative adjs & advs, e.g. equally good
+ General comparison:
General comparison expresses likeness and
unlikeness between things, without respect to
any particular property: two things may be the
same, similar or different, for example:

We have received exactly the same report as

was submitted two months ago.

There are other qualities than conviviality

needed for this job.

Find a number equal to the square of the sum of

its digits.
Instances of cohesive cataphora, with
comparatives, are not very common, but
they do occur:

The blow would have knocked anyone

else cold. The champ just leaned to one
side, then straightened again.
Comparatives may be exophoric, the referent
being retrievable from the situation:

I was expecting someone different. (from you)

Would you prefer the other seats? (other than
those you sit here)

The above examples may become anaphoric as

follows:

A: Jennings is here to see you.

B: I was expecting someone different.
They’ve given us special places in the front row. Would
you prefer the other seats?

As with other types of reference, the referent may be a

passage of any extent:

“Everybody says ‘Come in!’ here,” thought Alice, as she

went slowly after the Gryphon: “I never was so ordered
about in all my life, never!”

‘I see nobody on the road,’ said Alice. ‘I only wish I had

such eyes,’ the King remarked, ‘To be able to see
nobody – and at that distance, too!’
+ Particular comparison:
Particular comparison means comparison that is in
respect of quantity or quality

more mistakes, as many mistakes (quantity)

easier/more difficult tasks, Cambridge rowed faster, she
sang as sweetly (quality)

Examples of structural cataphora (non-cohesive):

There were twice as many people there as last time.

He’s a better man than I am.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are
dreamt of in our philosophy.
Examples of cohesive cataphora:
She thought that in all her life she had never seen soldiers so
uncertain on their feet: they were always tripping over one thing or
other, and whenever one went down, several more always fell over
him.

Examples of exophora (non-cohesive):

So big! (pointing)
Would you like the water cooler?
Go more slowly!

Examples of anaphora:

A: Must I endure all this?

B: All this? no, more! Fret until your heart breaks.

Apparently Brown resigned, when his proposal was rejected. I wish he

could have acted less precipitately.
THE END