UNIT 7: COHESION & COHERENCE

I. Theoretical Considerations

Introduction

You have so far learnt a wide range of texts that can be identified prior to translation. In order to
produce a good version of translation, a translator is expected to have good knowledge of text
analysis. In this unit, students are provided with insights into cohesion and coherence to produce
a good translated version of a certain text as well as to ensure the consistency and accuracy of the
original text.

What is cohesion? (Baker, 2018, pp. 194-216)

Cohesion is the network 1 of lexical, grammatical and other relations that provide links between
various parts of a text. These relations or ties organize and, to some extent, create a text, for
instance by requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by reference to other words
and expressions in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs. Cohesion is a surface relation; it
connects together the actual words and expressions that we can see or hear.

Halliday and Hasan identify five main cohesive devices in English: reference, substitution,
ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion .

Reference is ‘a device that allows the reader or hearer to trace participants, entities, events and
so on in a text’ (Baker, 2018, p. 195). Let’s examine the following example in the box:

Hercule Poirot sat on the white sand and looked out across the sparkling blue water. He
was carefully dressed in a dandified fashion in white flannels and a large panama hat
protected his head. He belonged to the old-fashioned generation which believed in covering
itself carefully from the sun. Miss Pamela Lyall, who sat beside him and talked carelessly,
represented the modern school of thought in that she was wearing the barest minimum of
clothing on her sun-browned person.

In this example, Hercule Poirot and Miss Pamela Lyall are referred to by the use of personal
pronouns.

Substitution and ellipsis are grammatical rather than semantic relationships.

In substitution, an item (or items) is replaced by another item (or items):

You think Joan already knows? – I think everybody does . ( Does replaces knows )
 My axe is too blunt. I must get a sharper one . ( One replaces axe ).

Ellipsis involves the omission of an item. In other words, in ellipsis, an item is replaced by
nothing.

Joan brought some carnations, and Catherine some sweet peas. (ellipted item: brought in
second clause)
Here are thirteen cards. Take any. Now give me any three. (ellipted items: card after any in
second clause and cards after any three in third clause)

Conjunction and lexical cohesion

Conjunction involves the use of formal markers to relate sentences, clauses and paragraphs to
each other. Conjunction signals the way the writer or speaker wants the reader or hearer to relate
what is about to be said to what has been said before.

(a) additive and, or, also, in addition, furthermore,

besides, similarly, likewise, by contrast, for
instance

(b) adversative but, yet, however, instead, on the other hand,

nevertheless, at any rate, as a matter of fact

(c) causal so, consequently, it follows, for, because,

under the circumstances, for this reason

(d) temporal then, next, after that, on another occasion, in

conclusion, an hour later, finally, at last

(e) continuatives (miscellaneous)

now, of course, well, anyway, surely, after all

Lexical cohesion refers to the role played by the selection of vocabulary in organizing relations
within a text. Lexical cohesion can be divided into two main categories: reiteration and
collocation.

Reiteration , as the name suggests, involves repetition of lexical items. Example of reiteration
can be seen in the box:

There’s a boy climbing that tree.

(a) The boy is going to fall if he doesn’t take care. (repetition).
(b) The lad’s going to fall if he doesn’t take care. (synonym).
 (c) The child’s going to fall if he doesn’t take care. (superordinate).
(d) The idiot’s going to fall if he doesn’t take care. (general word).

Collocation covers any instance which involves a pair of lexical items that are associated with
each other in the language in some way. Example of collocation is as follows:

Various kinds of oppositeness of meaning: e.g., boy/girl ; love/hate ; order/obey.

Associations between pairs of words from the same ordered series:
e.g., Tuesday/Thursday ; August/December ; dollar/cent .
Associations between pairs of words from unordered lexical sets:
e.g., part-whole relations: car/brake ; body/arm ; bicycle/wheel ;
part-part relations: mouth/chin ; verse/chorus ;
co-hyponymy: red/green (colour); chair/table (furniture).
Associations based on a history of co-occurrence (collocation proper – see
Chapter 3 ): e.g., rain , pouring , torrential , wet ; hair , comb , curl , wave ; etc.

What is coherence? (Baker, 2018, p. 236)

Coherence is a network of relations that organize and create a text; cohesion is the network of
surface relations which link words and expressions to other words and expressions in a text, and
coherence is the network of conceptual relations which underlie the surface text. Both concern
the way stretches of language are connected to each other. In the case of cohesion, stretches of
language are connected to each other by virtue of lexical and grammatical dependencies. In the
case of coherence, they are connected by virtue of conceptual or meaning dependencies as
perceived by language users.

Coherence vs cohesion (Coulthard, 2002, p. 174)

The coherence of the text is not guaranteed by the presence of these cohesive ties:

I bought a Ford. A car in which President Wilson rode down the Champs Elysées was
black. Black English has been widely discussed. The discussions between the presidents
ended last week. A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats have four legs.
The cat is on the mat. Mat has three letters.
(Brown and Yule 1983:197)

The following is a very well known example of a text where there are no explicit cohesive ties
but which is coherent (Coulthard, 2002, p. 174):

A: The phone is ringing.

B: I’m in the bath.
(Widdowson 1978b)