Coherence Cohesion and Deixis

1. BY : MARISKA HASIANA PARAPAT
Coherence, Cohesion and Deixis
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2. Keypoints:
 Coherence
 Cohesion
 Deixis
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3. Coherence
 Coherence can be thought of as how meanings and
sequences of ideas relate to each other.
Typical examples would be
general> particular; statement> example; problem>
solution; question> answer; claim> counter-claim. It
lays emphasis on meaning.
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4. The original
 I couldn't seem to find the right
room —
 none of them had the number
 designated on my pass. First, I wound
 up at the Department of Verification,
 then the Department of
Misinformation,
 then some clerk from the Pressure
 Section advised me to try level eight,
 but on level eight they ignored me.
 mark-up of coherence devices
 *I couldn't seem to find the right
 room [the topic sentence: all other
 sentences in this paragraph support
this idea of confusion and
 disorientation] — none of *them
 [pronoun referring to "room"] had
 the number designated on my pass
 *First [enumeration], *I [pronoun]
 wound up at the Department of
 Verification, *then [enumeration &
 transition of addition] the
 Department of Misinformation, *then
 [enumeration & transition of
 addition] some clerk from the
 Pressure Section advised me to try
 level eight, *but [transition of
 contrast] on level eight they ignored
me.
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5. Cohesion
 Cohesion is the grammatical and lexical relationship
within a text or sentence. Cohesion can be defined as the
links that hold a text together and give it meaning.
 There are two main types of cohesion:
1. grammatical, referring to the structural content
2. lexical, referring to the language content of the piece.
A cohesive text is created in many different ways. In Cohesion
in English, M.A.K. Halliday and identify five general
categories of cohesive devices that create coherence in texts:
reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion, and
conjunction.
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6. How to achieve cohesion?
 Cohesion can be achieved through the use of the
following referential devices:
 Anaphoric reference
 Cataphoric reference
 Exospheric reference
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7.  Anaphoric reference is the most common type of
reference, used unknowingly in everyday
conversation and writing. It occurs when the writer
refers back to someone or something that has been
previously identified, to avoid repetition. Some
examples: replacing "the taxi driver" with the
pronoun "he" or "two attractive girls" with "they".
Another example can be found in formulas such as
"as stated previously" or "the aforementioned".
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8.  Cataphoric reference is less common in speech but
can be used for dramatic effect in writing. It occurs
when the audience is introduced to someone as an
abstract, before later learning his or her name. For
example: "Here he comes, our award-winning
host... it's John Doe!" Cataphoric references can
also be found in written text, for example "see page
10".
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9.  Exophoric reference is also uncommon in speech
but can be used to describe generic or abstract
situations in writing. It occurs when the writer
chooses not to introduce a character (or group of
characters), but instead refers to them by a generic
word such as "everyone". The prefix "exo" means
"outside", and the persons or events referred to in
this manner will never be identified by the writer.
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10.  Ellipsis is another cohesive device. It happens when,
after a more specific mention, words are omitted
when the phrase needs to be repeated.
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11. Conjunction
 Conjunction creates cohesion by relating sentences
and paragraphs to each other by using words from
the class of conjunction, or numerals. This can be
temporal (after,before), causal (because),
coordinating (and), adversative (but, however),
additive (further) or discourse markers (now, well,
after all).
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12. Lexical cohesion
 Lexical cohesion is basically created by repetition
(reiteration) of the same lexeme, or general (aka shell)
nouns, or other lexemes sharing the majority of semantic
features: The bus ... - the vehicle ... - the chassis ....
 Lexical cohesion can also form relational patterns in text in
a way that links sentences to create an overall feature of
coherence with the audience, sometimes overlapping with
other cohesion features. The understanding of how the
content of sentences is linked helps to identify the central
information in texts by means of a possible summary. This
allows judgements on what the text is about.
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13.  For example, 'it', 'neither' and 'this' all refer to an
idea previously mentioned. 'First of all', 'then' and
'after that' help to sequence a text. 'However', 'in
addition' and 'for instance' link ideas and arguments
in a text.
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14.  Cohesion is the glue that holds a piece of writing
together. In other words, if a paper is cohesive, it
sticks together from sentence to sentence and from
paragraph to paragraph. Cohesive devices certainly
include transitional words and phrases, such as
therefore, furthermore, or for instance,
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15.  that clarify for readers the relationships among ideas
in a piece of writing. However, transitions aren't
enough to make writing cohesive. Repetition of key
words and use of reference words are also needed for
cohesion.
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16. What is Deixis
 Deixis is an important field of language
study in its own right - and very important
for learners of second languages. But it has
some relevance to analysis of conversation
and pragmatics because it directly concerns
the relationship between the structure of
languages and the context in which they are
used.It is often and best described as
“verbal pointing”, that is to say pointing by
means of language. The linguistic forms of
this pointing are called deictic expressions,
deictic markers or deictic words; they are
also sometimes called indexicals.
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17. DEIXIS
 Deixis means “pointing via language”.
Any linguistic form used to do this
“pointing” is called a deictic
expression. Words like here, there,
this, that, now and then, as well as
most pronouns, such as I, we, you,
he, her and them are deictic
expressions.
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18. Deixis expressions include such lexemes (words) as:
 Personal or possessive pronouns (I/you/mine/yours)
 Demonstrative pronouns (this/that)
 (Spatial/temporal) adverbs (here/there/now)
 Personal or possessive adjectives (my/your)
 Demonstrative adjectives (this/that)
 Articles (the).
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19. Deixis is reference by means of an expression
whose interpretation is relative to the context of
the utterance, such as
• who is speaking
• the time or place of speaking
• the gestures of the speaker
• the current location in the discourse
• The topic of the discourse
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20. Deictic expressions fall into three categories
 (1) Person deixis: Any expression used to point
to a person: me, you, him and them.
 (2) Time deixis: words used to point to a time:
now, then, tonight, last week and this year…
 (3) Space/spatial/place deixis: words used to
point to a location: here, there and yonder
 Two other types are added by some linguists:
1. Discourse deixis: any expression used to refer
to earlier or forthcoming segments of the
discourse: in the previous/next paragraph, or
Have you heard this joke?
2. Social deixis: honorifics (forms to show respect
such as Professor Ali)
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21. Examples….
 Suppose Harry just wanted to say the following
sentense,the power was suddenly off:
 Listen, I’m not disagreeing with you but
with you and not about this but about
this.
 In the darkness, we cannot get any deictic
information, after hearing the sentence, we
cannot understand what is said.
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