Types of Discourse

Coherence versus Cohesion

 Types of discourse
• to linguist Michael Halliday, discourse is "a unit of language larger than a
sentence and which is firmly rooted in a specific context.

Academi
Legal Religious
c

Mass-
media
 Types of discourse
• presence of the social actor

indirec
direct
t
 Types of discourse
• structure

formal ritual
 Seven standards of textuality

Beaugrand and Dressler Introduction to text linguistics 1981

 Text Cohesion
• Verb forms
• Parallelism
Pronouns
• Referring expressions
• Repetition and lexical chains Lexical signposts
• Substitution
• Ellipsis Key words
• Conjunction (Halliday and Hasan
1976) Anaphoric examples
 Cohesion
• Grammatical :
• Reference
• Substitution
• Ellipsis
• Lexical:
• Repetition
• Synonyms
• Superordinates
• General words
• I spent the night, working at my project and it was really difficult. Yet I
am not very tired. So I am almost finished. Then, in the early morning, I
fell asleep.
 Analyze cohesive devices:
• The more I see other countries, the more I like my own.
• Is he sick today? I think so.
• David hit the ball and the ball me.
• I’ll take this sandwich. It looks good.
• That looks good, the sandwich.
• Nice tattoo! Thanks. I am getting a new one.
• The book was important. It was a volume of poetry.
 Cohesion
• If the translator is a man, He translates.
• If the translator is a woman, She translates.
• If the translator is either a man or a woman,
• S/HE translates .
• If the translator is a computer,
• S/H/IT translates.
 CONCLUSION
• These links are neither necessary nor sufficient to account for OUR sense
of the unity of discourse.
• Their presence does not automatically make a passage coherent and their
absence does not automatically make it meaningless.
 Is there cohesion?
• John was reading a newspaper. Newspaper is America contain several
pages. The first page of the book was lost. The lost child has been found.

• Is there Coherence?
 Is there cohesion?
• John baught a cake at the bakeshop. The birthday card was signed by all
the employees. The party went on until after midnight.

• Is there Coherence?
 Coherence
• The quality of meaning, unity and purpose perceived in
discourse.

1. Global Coherence
2. Linear Coherence
 Coherence
• The quality of meaning, unity and purpose perceived in discourse.
• How is global coherence achieved?
• Macrostructures
• Macro proposition
• Topicality
• Scheme
• Function
 Narrative macrostructures
• Setting : character, place, time
• Theme : event, goal
• Plot : episode, episode, episode
• Resolution
 BPSE pattern
• Background: people, time, place
• Problem: need, dilemma, puzzle, obstacle,lack
• Solution: how to meet the need, to resolve the dilemma, to solve the
puzzle, to overcome the obstacle, to remedy the lack
• Evaluation: successful, partial
 Macroproposition
• A proposition is a unit of meaning which can be realized in discourse and
expressed as a simple declarative sentence
• Van Dijk [1988]considered news topics to be semantic macrostructures;
that is, topics are propositions that contain the gist, upshot or most
important information about the story.
• Paragraphs contain propositions that are hierarchically organized into
more general macroproposition.
 Topicality
• Makes discourse coherent, topics organize language.
• The topic – comment distinction is essential to communication, all
communications are a comment on a topic.
• [Donald 1992]
 Mental scheme

• Mental model, Frame, metaphors for how

knowledge is stored ,organized and activated in
human memory.
• How does Top down processing work?
• How does Bottom up processing work?
• People understand language but cannot explain
how they do it.
Metadiscourse and discourse deixis in
monitoring a speech situation
• Direct address to the reader
• rhetorical questions
• certainty marker
• imperative
• Attitude marker
• direct question
the writer's intentions: "to sum
up," "candidly," "I believe"
the writer's confidence: "may,"
"perhaps," "certainly," "must"
directions to the reader: "note
that," "finally," "therefore,"
"however"
the structure of the text: "first,"
"second," "finally," "therefore,"
"however"
 Examples
• As I said it before
• The abovementioned data
• Later I’ ll explain
• Herein after represented by
• Do you follow me?
• Speak up!
• Sorry?
• Don’t you dare to talk to me like that!
 Make it coherent

• 1However, nobody had seen one for months.

• 2He thought he saw a shape in the bushes.
• 3Mark had told him about the foxes.
• 4John looked out of the window.
• 5Could it be a fox?
42315 42531
 Cohesion with no coherence
• My favourite colour is blue. Blue sports cars go very fast. Driving in this
way is very dangerous and can cause car crashes. I had a car accident once
and broke my leg…
 CONCLUSION
• Metadiscourse organises communication.
• Discourse deixis points to the parts within the text.
• Organisational exchanges accompany communicative exchanges in the
process of communication alongside self presentation.