ENG2601
GENRES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE: THEORY, STYLE AND POETICS
Unit 1: Coherence, cohesion and intertextuality
(Summary)
, Unit 1: Coherence and Cohesion
Cohesion
• Cohesion is vital to any text in order for it to be understood.
• Cohesion is the “glue” that binds words/phrases together in order for it to make
sense.
• In English, cohesion is referred to as textual cohesion with two sub categories;
- Grammatical cohesion
Þ Reference cohesion
Þ Substitution cohesion
Þ Ellipsis cohesion
Þ Conjunction cohesion
- Lexical cohesion
Þ Repetition cohesion
Þ Synonymy cohesion
Þ Antonymy cohesion
Þ Collocation cohesion
Grammatical Cohesion
• Grammatical cohesion is the use of grammatical elements to create cohesiveness in
texts.
• The use of grammatical elements are used to tie a text together.
• As mentioned above, there are four sub-categories for grammatical cohesion.
- Reference cohesion
- Substitution cohesion
- Ellipsis cohesion
- Conjunctive cohesion
1. Reference cohesion
• Consider the following text:
“You can’t see Theo now. He is in a meeting.”
• In the above sentence you can see there is relation between Theo and he.
• He refers to Theo, and when you read the sentence you understand who he is by
referring to Theo.
• We now see that both words (he and Theo) refer to the same thing, therefor this is
an example of reference cohesion.
• Consider another example:
“Professor Smith went to London for a conference. The weather was freezing there,
and she had to buy a new winter coat.”
GENRES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE: THEORY, STYLE AND POETICS
Unit 1: Coherence, cohesion and intertextuality
(Summary)
, Unit 1: Coherence and Cohesion
Cohesion
• Cohesion is vital to any text in order for it to be understood.
• Cohesion is the “glue” that binds words/phrases together in order for it to make
sense.
• In English, cohesion is referred to as textual cohesion with two sub categories;
- Grammatical cohesion
Þ Reference cohesion
Þ Substitution cohesion
Þ Ellipsis cohesion
Þ Conjunction cohesion
- Lexical cohesion
Þ Repetition cohesion
Þ Synonymy cohesion
Þ Antonymy cohesion
Þ Collocation cohesion
Grammatical Cohesion
• Grammatical cohesion is the use of grammatical elements to create cohesiveness in
texts.
• The use of grammatical elements are used to tie a text together.
• As mentioned above, there are four sub-categories for grammatical cohesion.
- Reference cohesion
- Substitution cohesion
- Ellipsis cohesion
- Conjunctive cohesion
1. Reference cohesion
• Consider the following text:
“You can’t see Theo now. He is in a meeting.”
• In the above sentence you can see there is relation between Theo and he.
• He refers to Theo, and when you read the sentence you understand who he is by
referring to Theo.
• We now see that both words (he and Theo) refer to the same thing, therefor this is
an example of reference cohesion.
• Consider another example:
“Professor Smith went to London for a conference. The weather was freezing there,
and she had to buy a new winter coat.”
