Cohesion (linguistics)

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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; grammatical, referring to the structural content, and lexical, referring to the language content of the piece and a cohesive text is created through many different ways.

Cohesion can be achieved through the use of the following devices:

Reference:
1. Anaphoric reference
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” for the pronoun, “he” or “two attractive girls” for “they.” Another, more basic, example can be found in written texts such as 'as stared previously' or 'the afore mentioned.'

2. Cataphoric reference
Cataphoric reference is less common in speech but can be used for dramatic effect in writing. It occurs when the reader 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 *insert name*" Cataphoric references can also be found in written text, for example 'see page 10.'

3. Exophoric reference
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 refer to them by a generic word such as “everyone.” Because the pronoun “exo” literally translates as “outside,” the persons or events referred to in this manner will never be identified by the writer.

Ellipsis
Ellipsis is another cohesive device which can improve the readers understanding of a piece of writing. It happens when, after a more specific mention, words are missed out when the phrase needs to be repeated.

Substitution
Substitution is very similar to ellipsis in the effect it has on the text, and occurs when instead of leaving a word or phrase out, as in ellipsis, it is substituted for another, more general word. For example, "Which ice-cream would you like?" - "I would like the pink one" where "one" is used instead of repeating "ice-cream."

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).

Lexical cohesion
Lexical cohesion is basically created by repetition (reiteration) of the same lexem, or general (aka shell) nouns, or other lexems 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 how and how intense sentences are linked helps to identify the central information in texts by means of a possible summary. This allows judgements on what the text is about.

Sources

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L Murias, 15-02-07.