Coherence

2. Coherence concerns the ways in which the components of the textual world, i.e. the configuration of concepts and relations which underlie the surface text are mutually accessible and relevant. ... cohesion = connectivity of the surface coherence = connectivity of underlying content

coherence A text “makes sense” because there is a continuity of senses among the knowledge activated by the expressions of the text (cf. Hörmann 1976). A “senseless” or “nonsensical” text is one in which text receivers can discover no such continuity, usually because there is a serious mismatch between the configuration of concepts and relations expressed and the receivers prior knowledge of the world. We would define this continuity of senses as the foundation of coherence, being the mutual access and relevance within a configuration of concepts and relations

The surface expressions are taken as cues to activate concepts the concepts are treated as steps in the construction of a continuity of sense Attention would be directed particularly toward the discovery of control centres, i.e. points from which accessing and processing can be strategically done (e.g. conceptual entities; situations…)

Coherence= mutual dependency of concepts below the surface Wembley loses its auditor weeks before bribery trial (UK) -- Ernst & Young, the accountancy firm, resigned as auditor to Wembley yesterday, barely a month before the dog track owner and gambling group faces a bribery trial in the United States. The sudden departure of E&Y, the firm’s auditor since 1999, was included in a statement that announced a permanent replacement for chief executive Nigel Potter, who has stepped aside to defend the charges in the US. The Guardian, 7/12/2004 (Courtesy of Giuliana Garzone) No indicators of cohesion tell us that Nigel Potter is the CEO of Wembley; we can infer it through coherence

Wembley loses its auditor weeks before bribery trial (UK) -- Ernst & Young, the accountancy firm, resigned as auditor to Wembley yesterday, barely a month before the dog track owner and gambling group faces a bribery trial in the United States. The sudden departure of E&Y, the firm’s auditor since 1999, was included in a statement that announced a permanent replacement for chief executive Nigel Potter, who has stepped aside to defend the charges in the US. Bribery trial: who’s alleged of bribery? Auditor: companies have auditors. Who’s the company and who’s the auditor? Chief executive Nigel Potter: whose company? No indicators of cohesion tell us that Nigel Potter is the CEO of Wembley; we can infer it through coherence

Key Bribery trial: who’s alleged of bribery? Wembley Auditor: companies have auditors. Who’s the company and who’s the auditor? Wembley – Ernst and Young Chief executive Nigel Potter: whose company? Wembley (the one that has to defend itself against the bribery accusation) That Nigel Potter is Chief executive of Ernst and Young is not made explicit on the surface of the text, but is inferred on the basis of relations among concepts (the CEO is the one to be held accountable for the company’s misconduct)

How is the comment in bold ‘accessible and relevant’ to the rest of the text? Safestay Holland Park, London Safestay has a reputation for stylish affordable hostels inside intersting buildings, but this new one really raises the bar. Within easy reach of attractions such as Portobello Market, this is a Jacobean mansion dating back to 1605 and has courtyard garden, stone mullions, leaded lights and a squat 1950s annexe – ok, you can’t have everything. But Safestay has even turned that to its advantage: the somewhat unattractive addition is a modernistic home to a lounge, cefè and pool room.

…and here? From The Haughmond hotel: review […] Mell tells us that Martin, her husband, is a self-taught chef, which is astonishing considering the standard of the food, but it also makes sense. There are plenty of skilful touches – purees, crisps and “textures” of this and that – but nothing is on the plate just to show-off, as at so many posh restaurants.

Coherence presides over paragraph (and text) development Paragraph unity involves coherence – how ideas fit together Relevance Effective order and flow – how sentences link up [roughly corresponding to cohesion] (The Good Oxford Guide to Writing)

Text composition (Werlich, a text grammar of English) Thematic text base (or introduction): a text initial unit which both structurally and semantically permits expansion into a text Starting from the Thematic text base the encoder produces coherent and completed sequences (i.e. texts) through a process of thematic expansion. The sequences are made coherent semantically (through content words, i.e. lexical cohesion) and syntactically

How does the EU work? (Thematic) text base In the European Union, like in nation states, power is divided into three branches/estates: legislative, executive and judiciary. Thematic expansion The legislative power is shared by two legislative chambers: the Council of the European Union, which represents the member states, and is the EU’s main decision-taking body; and the European Parliament, represents the people, shares legislative and budgetary power with the Council of the European Union. The executive power is excercised by the European Commission, which is the main executive body, and represents the common interest of the EU. It has the right to propose legislation and ensures that EU policies are properly implemented. One of the 27 members is the Commission President (currently Barroso). The judiciary power is held by the European Court of Justice… Lexical cohesion: repetition Syntactic parallelism The Council of the European Union in treaties is called only “Council” First Barroso Commission: 2004-2009 Second Barroso Commission: 2010-2014

Each text type has prototypical thematic text bases, which in their turn allow specific thematic expansions e.g. Narrative thematic text base: The EU as we know it today has evolved through several historic steps. How do you expect this text base will be expanded? Temporal text structuring

Expository text type Exposition is the type of textual communication which the encoder chooses for presenting either constitutive elements which can be synthesized into a composite concept, or those constituent elements into which concepts can be analysed

Another example The blood vessels are part of the cardiovascular system and function to transport blood throughout the body. Soil is a three phase system comprised of various combinations of naturally-derived solids including rocks and minerals, organic matter, ice, […], liquids […] and gases.

Expository text structure Introduction: Topic-giving introduction The treaty of Lisbon amends the current Eu And Ec treaties, providing the Union with the legal framework and tools necessary to meet future challenges Listing introduction The constitutive elements of the state are territory, people and …. Numerical introduction In the European Union power is divided into three branches/estates: legislative, executive and judiciary.

‘Flow’: introduction Topic-giving introduction (Werlich) The treaty of Lisbon amends the current Eu And Ec treaties, providing the Union with the legal framework and tools necessary to meet future challenges Masterplan (Oxford guide) There are three kinds of book owners . The first…. The second…

Flow: linking successive elements Coherence in texts depends on various kinds of recurrence of linguistics elements in successive text units. The linguistic recurrences which create coherence are called sequence forms (Werlich 1983: 157) e.g. The description is given in three stages. The first … . The second…, and the third… Sequence forms can be topical (content words) or functional (grammar words: articles, pronouns, adverbs…) Repeating keywords, conjunctive adverbs, syntactic parallelism Structure is given to texts through the use of sequence forms

Identical sequence forms Topical sequence forms create coherence relying on mechanism of lexical cohesion: Identical sequence forms repetition / partial repetition of the same word (i.e. same meaning, same form) Equivalent sequence forms different form, same meaning e.g. river / voluminous flow of fresh water Synonyms/antonyms sequence forms Hyperonym /hyponym Use of words that are more/less general in relation to a subsequent word ( river / water, legislation / treaty) Equivalence: an old man was fishing from a boat near the middle of a river in Africa. There was also a boy on the boat who kept looking into the voluminous flow of fresh water

EAP: nouns abstract concepts, events, actions are often expressed by noun phrases in EAP for the sake of conciseness Many people behave in altruistic ways (clause) People’s altruistic behaviour

It is very important for people to be able to understand altruistic behaviour. This is because the non-profit sectors in many economies are becoming increasingly influential A key reason for the importance of understanding altruistic behaviour is the increasing influence of the non-profit sector in many economies

Sentence transformation In discourse analysis, researchers are generally interested in news language for the value-laden representations of reality offered by any given news outlet as an effect of its political and ideological stance. ____________________________________news language is often oriented to the value-laden representations of reality offered by any given news outlet as an effect of its political and ideological stance. INTEREST

Discourse analysts’ interest for news language is often oriented to the value-laden representations of reality offered by any given news outlet as an effect of its political and ideological stance.

Noun phrases

EAP: contextualizing language Focus: Extent, amount, addition, restriction, definition At one point it was the largest corporation ever in the USA, in terms of its revenues as a percentage of GDP Additionally, a sample of very large fleet operators was interviewed Only when these are satisfied are we able to worry about the next level

EAP: contextualizing language Perspective Prepositional phrases Shifting ideas of fortune are also traced in relation to different historical periods. With the ever expanding movement of individuals to all corners of the globe for the purposes of business, entertainment, education… Adverbs Much of the remaining vegetation is highly fragmented, disturbed or ecologically compromised

EAP: contextualizing language Non finite clauses The size of a focus group can vary depending on the research topic and the social context of the participant. Finite clauses There is no doubt that being bon in the UK in the 1980s meant that you were more likely to win a cycling gold medal than if you had the same genes , but were born in Marocco.

EAP: contextualizing language Multiple adverbials in a sentence A sentence can contain several adverbials, particularly when providing contextualization early in the text In fact, from a policy point of view and at least in the short run, promoting immigration by workers and students in order to acquire higher levels of education and skills may very well be a cost-efficient way to improve the quality of domestic human capital, as opposed to establishing, say, universities or resource institutes in the country.

In fact (stance), from a policy point of view (perspective) and at least in the short run (time), promoting immigration by workers and students in order to acquire higher levels of education and skills (purpose) may very well (possibility) be a cost-efficient way to improve the quality of domestic human capital, as opposed to establishing, say, universities or resource institutes in the country. (contrast)

Given/new English tends to start a sentence with known information and introduce new information at the end This paper contributes to the the debate on the determinants of child quality using a unique dataset from 1930s Britain. Another tendency in English is to put longer structures at the end of the sentence. Often these longer structures express new information. For our analysis of burden disease, we calculated popuation attributable fractions (PAFs) associated with physical inactivity using conservative assumptions for each of the major non-communicable diseases.

Given/new In general it is advantageous to stress the blocks to the maximum electric field that can be tolerated… Which version enhances coherence most? a)…These blocks are painted with silver paste (passive) b) …We painted these blocks with silver paint (active)

The authors found that farmers’ markets encourage the production of greater diversity of food products, which would be needed for a more localized food system. This greater diversity attracts… The official crime statistics no longer contain only offences recorded by the police. Since 2002, the main annual statistical publication (renamed Crime in England and Wales) has also included large amounts of data from the British Crime Survey. This decision was

Given/new Which is more natural in English? a) Direct power measurement of single microwave pulses involving levels of hundredsof megawatt is difficult b) It is difficult to perform direct power measurement of single microwave pulses involving levels of hundredsof megawatt

What is the problem with information structure in this sentence (cfr the context in your handout)? Massive waves of migration towards cities accounts for the disproportioned distribution of the population worldwide.

The first baseman wears a special leather glove that is designed for easy scooping and long range catching, while the catcher wears a large glove that is heavily padded to protect him from fast pitches The first baseman’s glove is designed for easy scooping and long-ranged catching, while the catcher’s is large and heavily padded to protect im from fast pitches.

‘Generic language’ Chunks that connect the main topic of the text to related ideas Humour is associated with creativity at work. The analysis provides evidence that humour not only contributes to the construction of effective workplace relationships (the creative use of relational humour), but may also stimulate intellectual activity of direct relevance to the achievement of workplace objectives (the use of humour to foster workplace creativity). The analysis suggests that the first category is pervasive, whilst humour associated with workplace creativity is less frequent and tends to characterize some communities of practice more that others.

Generic language It connects the main topic of the text to related ideas X is associated with The analysis provides evidence that /suggests that the first category X not only contributes to + NOUN or VERB -ing….but may also NOUN of direct relevance to The use of NOUN to Tends to Do the same with excerpts from your bibliography.

Coherence presides over text development (expository) paragraph development Methods of paragraph development fall into three loose groups: Those that stay strictly within the topic (e.g offering examples / repeating it) Techniques introducing another theme for comparison or contrast Techniques exploring the ramifications of the topic more fully (defining/establisging cause-effect relations)

Paragraph development patterns Illustration/restatement Comparison/contrast Cause / effect (Oxford guide)

Not the only possible classification According to Werlich, possible structures for thematic expansion are: general-to-particular text structuring cause-effect text structuring listing text structuring additive listing Another characteristic is structural listing The constitutive elements of the state are territory, people and… Territory is delimited by…. People refers to…

Illustration As far as the home is concerned, the biggest change in what P.G. Wodenhouse called «browsing and sluicing» is… the odd form our food is in nowadays when we buy it. (topic giving introduction) Sequence forms: Coffee / Fish / Soup / Potatoes [theme: hyponym of food] Comes as /arrives as + SHAPE [rheme: syntactic parallelism]

Explicit forms to introduce examples For instance As a case in point An example to the point is Say Thus Consider …

Restatement It is difficult for one accustomed to the law and order of the present day to understand the dangers which threatened the Jakobean traveller. The seas swarmed with pirates… There were pirates in the Atlantic, to intercept… There were Pirates in the West Indies, roving for… There were pirates in the Orkneys, preying upon BUT there were more pirates in the Mediterranean… THERE WERE + VERBAL PHRASE [NON FINITE] Pattern variation signals climatic significance