Cohesion versus Coherence

Cohesion realizes the Coherence realizes the

relation between relation between
meaning and its forms. meaning and the context.
(Crystal, 1985)

Lexical and Coherence is the effect

grammatical cohesive realized by these
devices in a text cohesive devices.
(Zongyan, 1992)

Cohesion is the explicit Coherence is the relationship

relationship among between illocutionary acts of
sentences. utterances. 2
(Widdowson, 1978)
Cohesion versus Coherence

… “Coherence is in the eye of

the beholder.”
Thornbury (2005: 36)

the way a text hangs sense-making quality

together, i.e. how it is /capacity of a text to
made cohesive ‘make sense’
Thornbury, 2005

is a surface feature of is the quality that the reader

texts, independent of derives from the text: it is not
simply a function of its cohesion.
the reader. Thornbury, 2005 3
Coherence

A: That’s the telephone.

B: I’m in the bath.
A: OK.
(Widdowson, 1978: 29)

• No cohesive ties
• However, our mind tells us these fragments of linguistics
messages do form a unified whole instead of some
unrelated sounds.
• We recognize this as a coherent instance of discourse.

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Coherence

A: That’s the telephone. (Can you answer

it, please?)
B: (No, I’m sorry I can’t answer it
because) I’m in the bath.
A: OK. (I’ll answer it then.)
The elements in the brackets are not supplied by the two
speakers (neither A nor B) but are provided by the two
listeners (both B and A).
A discourse with coherent relations  there is coherence in it.
5
Coherence
Construct a context in which this dialogue could
conceivably haven taken place.

A: What’s this?
B: That? It’s a watch. Why?
A: Funny looking one if you ask me.

6
Coherence
Construct a context in which this dialogue could
conceivably haven taken place.

A: How much was it?

B: Oh, you don’t really want to know, do you?
A: Oh, tell me.
B: Wasn’t cheap.
A: Was it a pound?
A: Pound fifty.

7
Coherence
(Context: A is addressing her husband who is clearing out a
garden shed.)
A: Are you wearing gloves?
B: No.
A: What about the spiders?
B: They’re not wearing gloves either.
B perceives that sentence 1 and sentence 4 are coherent in at
least 2 ways:
 What about the spiders? You might get bitten if you don’t wear
gloves.
 What about the spiders, are they wearing gloves? 8
Coherence

A: What time is it?

B: The postman’s been here already.

• No cohesive ties.
• However, most people will assume that this example is
textual and has the pragmatic relationship between the two
utterances.

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Coherence

Problems of the Coherence Relations:

• The identification of a specific coherence relation from a
given set is not a straightforward task, even for people, it
may be fuzzy. Ex:
1. John bought a raincoat.
2. He went shopping yesterday on Queen Street and
it rained.
• The coherence relation here could be elaboration (on the
buying), or explanation (of when, how, or why), or cause
(he bought the raincoat because it was raining out).
• Despite the importance of the coherence relations, it is not
automatically coded.
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Coherence
• As Widdowson (1978) argues,
– Cohesion is not sufficient for the
establishment of coherence.
– We are able to recognize a text as coherent
by creating a context and then identifying the
functions that each utterance fulfils within
that context.

Coherence is achieved through perception of the

functions being performed by each utterance.
(Widdowson, 1978, as cited in Nunan, 1993, p. 61) 11
Coherence
• Therefore, we can recognize the text (about the telephone
call) as coherent by creating a context and then identifying
the functions that each utterance fulfils within that context.
• Within a domestic situational context, the following
functions are assigned to each utterance:
UTTERANCE FUNCTION

A: That’s the telephone. REQUEST

B: I’m in the bath. EXCUSE

A: OK. ACCEPTANCE OF
EXCUSES

(Widdowson, 1978, as cited in Nunan, 1993, p. 61) 12

Activity 1. Ordering

Below is a text from a children’s encyclopedia with

sentences re-arranged. Please put the sentences in
their correct order. What linguistic (and non-linguistic)
clues did you use to do the task?
1. a) Two years later his father took him to a play at
concerts in the great cities of Europe.
b) Mozart wrote church music, opera and nearly 50
symphonies.
c) The Austrian composer Mozart was a musical genius.
d) He worked hard but earned little money and died very
poor at the age of 35.
e) He began writing music at the age of five.

(Widdowson, 1978, as cited in Nunan, 1993, p. 61) 13

Activity 2. Is the following extract
coherent? Why/Why not?

2.
The Austrian composer Mozart was a musical
genius. He has got a swimming pool. It actually
tingles on your skin to tell you it’s working. Water
would then come out of fountains such as the one
shown here. And that is why dogs still chase
rabbits.

(Thornbury, 2005) 15
Coherence

This leads us to

SPEECH ACTS


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Speech acts

• Speech act was first coined by Austin (1962): “How to

do things with words” show that we use language to
accomplish actions, and not just to make true or false
statements. His analysis identified particular verbs and
sentences which we use to perform acts with social
and interactional consequences.
• Developed by Searle (1969)

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Speech act

Each speech act consists of 3 components:

• Locutionary act/ force (the actual words which the
speaker is saying;
• Illocutionary act/ force (the intention of the speaker);

• Perlocutionary act/ force (the effect of the utterance on

the hearer/speaker/ their effects on the hearer).

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Example
• I’m freezing.

• Locutionary force: cold, (speaker)

• Illocutionary force: close the window

• Perlocutionary force: closed (window)

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Example
• A: There’s no answer at the front door. Shall I try the
back?
• B: I shouldn’t if I were you. There’s a big dog in the back
garden.

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• WAITER: Another drink, sir?

WALTER: No, thank you.

SUE: Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?

WALTER: No - please have a seat.

SUE: That's better - my feet are killing me!

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• WALTER: Have you been here long?

SUE: No, but I just flew in this morning, and I haven't had
a chance to sit down since then.

WALTER: Oh, where have you come from?

SUE: From Manila.

WALTER: Is this your first visit to Australia?

SUE: No, I have been once before, but it was a long time
ago.

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Group work discussion 1
• Groups of FOUR
• You are going to give an example to illustrate the speech
act and the differences between locutionary act,
illocutionary act and perlocutionary act.

• Your examples may come from the conversations in the

textbooks or from your own experiences.

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