Cohesion, coherence, and prominence

A discourse does not consist of randomly inserted sentences. Instead, a discourse comprises sentences that are unified and connected through various grammatical and lexical devices employed by the author. This connectedness is called cohesion.202 This cohesion enables an audience to interpret different elements of a text and form “a single overall mental representation.”203

This outcome is called coherence. In summary, cohesion (the connectedness of sentences through linguistic devices

200

Kibrik argues that discourse structure can be further categorised into global structure and local structure. Global structure is “the segmentation of discourse into its immediate constituents or large chunks, such as paragraphs in an article.” Local structure is “the structure consisting of minimal units.” Andrej A. Kibrik, Reference in Discourse (Oxford Studies in Typology and Linguistic Theory; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 14.

201

Westfall, Discourse, 28.

202 _{Schiffrin, Tanner, and Hamilton, Handbook, 718. Both Beaugrande and Renkema also use}

the term “cohesion.” Jan Renkema, Discourse Studies: An Introductory Textbook (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 1993), 35; Beaugrande, Linguistics, 48, 194. However, other linguists use other terms. For example, Reed uses the term “cohesiveness.” Reed, Discourse, 89.

203 _{Robert A. Dooley and Stephen H. Levinsohn, Analysing Discourse: A Manual of Basic}

employed by the author) leads to coherence (an overall mental representation formed by the reader).

Within a discourse, a sentence does not stand alone and is closely related to neighbouring and distant sentences. All sentences in a discourse, except the first one, are “forcibly constrained by” the preceding text.204

In other words, there is a cohesion that is crucial to the correct interpretation of a discourse. Some of the grammatical and lexical devices employed to achieve cohesion, include synonyms, parallels, inclusion, and chiasm. These contribute to the coherence of a discourse,205 which is arguably “of central importance to discourse analysis.”206

One of the most important devices to achieve cohesion, and thus coherence, is prominence. Due to human limitations in processing information, it is easier for an audience to perceive something that stands out from its background. Prominence is the usage of linguistic devices to highlight and emphasise a point. One basic form of prominence is thematic repetition (thematic prominence), whereby the same theme is repeated.207 A related form of prominence is lexical cohesion (lexical prominence),

204 _{Brown and Yule call these related sentences “co-texts.” Gillian Brown and George Yule,}

Discourse Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 46.

205 _{There are at least three levels of coherence within a discourse: referential, situational, and}

structural. Referential coherence refers to the “sameness” of a particular textual element. Situational coherence refers to a consistent emotive tone in a semantic unit, characterised by the choice of words. For example, an author cannot be concurrently angry and happy, even though the successive units can display a change of tone. Structural coherence refers to the compatibility and correlation of different parts in a semantic unit, so that the reader can make sense of the text. John Beekman, John Callow and Michael Kopsesec, The Semantic Structure of Written Communication (Dallas: SIL, 1981), 21.

206 _{Deborah Schiffrin, Discourse Marker (Studies in Interactional Sociolinguistics 5;}

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 21.

207 _{Wilbur Pickering, A Framework for Discourse Analysis (SIL Publications in Linguistics 64;}

Dallas: SIL, 1980), 40. A similar concept is redundancy, which is the use of multiple means to convey a point in a text. Pickering cites Halliday and argues that all forms of grammatical agreement lead to redundancy, which contributes to the linear cohesion of a text. Human limitation is believed to be the reason behind repetition. Humans can only process a limited amount of information in a linear sequence and repetition helps humans grasp the meaning of a lengthy text. Pickering, Discourse Analysis, 29–30.

whereby the same word or words conveying the same theme are repeated.208 The study of repetition at the textual level is well established in semantic study.

In summary, the usage of cohesive linguistic devices by an author (cohesion) leads to a coherent message, and one of the key devices to achieve this is prominence (thematic or lexical repetition).

To illustrate these concepts, John 15:5 is examined: 

. This passage is closely connected to preceding text. First, the expression  occurs 20 times before 15:5,209 which illustrates prominence. The author highlights  through lexical repetition (lexical cohesion). Second, the personal pronouns  and  are related, given the implicit relationship between Jesus and his disciples portrayed in a previous context. Third,  and

 are compatible since they belong to a similar semantic domain.210 These three linguistic devices enable cohesion, which allows the audience to form a mental representation and perceive a coherent meaning.

Imagine this passage had been written as follows: 

 (prisoners). The loss of cohesion would lead to the loss of coherence. First, the audience would not see the clear connection between  and previous

occurrences of . Second, the audience would not identify or locate the personal pronoun . Third, the audience would not recognise  and

208 _{Halliday, Discourse, 8. Halliday argues that when similar lexical items, with two or more}

occurrences, appear in close proximity in a discourse, these items possibly belong to the same lexical set. Halliday’s argument is a direct attack on the diachronic approach in semantic study, as he clearly points out that any lexical item is defined by its environment. Therefore, analysing a de-contextualized word by purely consulting a dictionary or grammar book will fail to rightly grasp its intended meaning. Halliday, Discourse, 29.

209 _{See John 4:26; 6:20, 35, 41, 48, 51; 8:12, 18, 24, 28; 9:9; 10:7, 9, 11, 14; 11:25; 13:19; 14:6;}

15:1.

210 _{The use of pronouns (a referential device) and compatible words facilitate a coherent}

 as compatible words. As a result, the audience would be unable to make sense of the text.211