2.

Text and Context

1. Introduction
Text: linguistic realization of propositional meanings as connected passage that
is situationally relevant.
Characteristics:
essentially a semantic unit as a form of interaction;
cohesive and coherent: not random but connected;
spoken or written: mode of linguistic realization;
of any length
creates and/or created by context (situationally relevant)
Context: verbal & non-verbal environment of speech, including 3 types:
a. linguistic context (co-text): (McCarthy: 64);
b. context of situation: non-verbal immediate environment of speech (Halliday;
Hymes)
c. context of culture: general, non-verbal permanent environment of speech
including background cultural knowledge (Hymes: -N- )
Appropriate interpretation of text depends on co-text and context.
(1) He doesn't know what that is.
(2) Four hearts.
(3) Did you shut the door?
(4) Japanese marriage proposal: silence as acquiescence
(5) a. He put on his pajamas, got into bed, turned off the light and went to sleep.
b. He put on his pajamas, got into bed, went to sleep and turned off the light.

Summary:
relationship among text, co-text and context can be represented as in Fig.1;
context may be viewed as text, as situation, and/or as knowledge (cognitive,
sociocultural);
different approaches emphasize different aspects of context. (cf. Halliday &
Hymes)
we can make predictions or inferences from text to context and from context to
text:
In-class exercise:
Make inferences about the context of situation for each of the following. Tell how you
arrived at your inferences (through field, tenor, mode, content, cultural knowledge,
particular structures, forms of the sentences, and/or lexical relationships)?
1. Once upon a time... (... and they lived happily ever after)
2. This is to certify that....
3. Four hearts.
4. Just a trim, is it?
5. Post strike threat vaverted
6. Hands up all those who've finished.
7. Add the eggs one at a time beating well in between....

8. From here, a short walk takes you to the subway station....

9. Move battery holding down bolts, or hook bolts at both ends of battery....
Table 1. Sample analysis
#
FIELD

TENOR

Channel

MODE
Register

Genr

e
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

2. Textuality: Cohesion and Coherence

(6) a. John wants to visit his girlfriend. Mr. Smith lives in a small village nearby. The
vacuum cleaner didn't work.
The barber down the street couldn't help. The last paper had been sold. It is
going to be a long dull talk.
b. John wants to visit his girlfriend. Mary lives in a small village nearby. The car
wouldn't start.
The garage down the street couldn't help. The last bus had already left. It is
going to be a long hot walk.

 coherence connection through non-textual pragmatic

knowledge: concepts & relationships must be relevant to each
other (e.g. car-garage);
cohesion: lexicogrammatical connection through dependency of one textual
element on another:
(7) The store no longer sold porcelain figurines. It used to, but they didn't sell very
well...
(8)

A: I have a 6-year old kid.

B: That's all right.
A: I also have a dog.
B: I'm sorry.
Relationship between cohesion and coherence:

(9) 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.
(10) A: Can you go to Vancouver tomorrow?
B: The Air Canada pilots are on strike.
(11) A: Can you go to Vancouver tomorrow?
B: Yes, I can.
o most texts are both coherent and cohesive (11); however,
o coherence does not have to be accompanied by cohesion (10);
o cohesion does not necessarily cause or creates coherence (9);
o cohesion is the means whereby to highlight the presence of
coherence.
Characteristics of cohesion (Halliday)
Cohesion is part of the text-forming component in the linguistic system. It is
the means whereby structurally unrelated elements are linked together,
through the dependence of one on the other for its interpretation. That is,
o not a structural relation: not necessarily S-bound

o semantic concept which refers to relations of meaning within a text, i.e.

text-bound;
o relational: one item is interpreted by reference to another
(12) a. They said so.
b. A: Did John and Tom finish their project?
B: They said so.
o expressed partly through grammar (reference, substitution, ellipsis,
conjunction) and partly through vocabulary (reiteration, collocation)

Tie: a set of cohesively related items, which enable us to give a systematic

account of patterns of texture. (e.g. John and Tom - they: above)

3. Types of cohesion
A. Grammatical Cohesion
(i) Reference
reference refers to the dependent relationship between the referring and the
referred in a text;
the referred item is usually a full NP, a sentence, or a passage;
the referring item can be pronouns; demonstratives; the article the, and such.
(13) The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed
sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to
carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle
proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher's effects.
Reference:
o within text

>

anaphoric (backward pointing)

cataphoric (forward pointing)

o outside text > exophoric (outward pointing)

 Anaphoric reference: backward pointing within text; expressed in several ways:

o personal pronouns: referring back to an earlier NP (e.g. (13))
o it, this, that: referring to a NP or a situation expressed by a S or a series
of Ss:
(14) It rained day and night for two weeks. The basement flooded and everything was
under water. It spoilt all our calculations.
(15) a. And the living room was a very small room with two windows that wouldn't
open and things like that. And it/?that looked nice. It/?That had a beautiful brick
wall.
b. You entered into a tiny little hallway and the kitchen was off that.
(16) a. ?Introduction: It traces the developments in dialectology in recent years...
b. Introduction: This traces...
Table 2: Comparison between it, that, and this as referring items
Referential
Discourse
Item
Function
it

to established topic

that

to refer across
different topics

this

to refer to new
topic

Grammatical choices are pragmatically determined.

Cataphoric reference: forward pointing within text; reference to oncoming
item in text
(17) This is how to get the best results. You let the berries dry in the sun, till all the
moisture has gone out of them. Then you gather them up and chop them very fine.
(18) Dear Abby: There's this guy I've been going with for near three years. Well, the
problem is that he hits me. He started last year. He has done it only four or five times,

but each time it was worse than before. Every time he hits me it was
because he thought I was flirting (I wasn't). Last time he accused me of coming on to
a friend of his. First he called me a lot of dirty names, then he punched my face so bad
it left me with a black eye and black-and-blue bruises over half of my face. It was
very noticeable, so I told my folks that the car I was riding in stopped suddenly and
my face hit the windshield.
Abby, he's 19 and I'm 17, and already I feel like an old married lady who lets her
husband push her around. I haven't spoken to him since this happened. He keeps
bugging me to give him one more chance. I think I've given him enough chances.
Should I keep avoiding him or what?
- Black and Blue (19) A guy I haven't seen in years has just called me and ...
Exophoric reference: outward pointing
o referent in immediate context of situation (e.g. setting):
(18) Can you show me that?
o referent as part of a shared world, such as social institutions (i.e. context
of culture):
(19) a. The government are to blame for unemployment.
b. The sun came out.
c. She went into a restaurant and asked the waiter for the menu.
(ii) Substituion: use of pro-forms
(20) a. one(s): She likes red ribbons, but her sister likes green ones.
b. do: A: Did John take the letter?
B: He might have done.
c. so/not: Do you need help? If so, I'll stay; if not, I'll go.
d. same: They went to the cafeteria, and I did the same.
Table 2: Comparison between reference and substitution
Reference

Substitution

definite
Pronouns
coreferential
Proverbals

indefinite
not
coreferential

(iii) Ellipsis: omission of elements which are retrievable from context

(21) If you take the green tie, I'll take the blue _.
(22) a. A: Will anyone be waiting?
B: John will _, I think.
b. A: Have you considered my proposal?
B: No, but I will _.
(23) He said he would consider my proposal as soon as he could _ but he hasn't _.
(iv) Conjunction: signals relationship between discourse segments (and, but, or,
though, then, because...)
(24) a. She's honest. And she's reliable.
b. I've lived here ten years and I've never heard of him.
c. He stayed in the snow for a hour and caught a cold.
d. They came in and sat down.
Other examples:

apposition: or, in other words;

clarification: or rather;
variation: alternatively;
spatio-temporal: there/previously;
causal-conditional: consequently/in that case

B. Lexical cohesion
(i) Reiteration: repetition of a lexical item in various forms
repetition: same word(s)

(25) There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself;
and, when she had looked under it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and
see what was on the top of it... She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the
edge of the mushroom...{}
synonym:
(26) Accordingly... I took leave, and turned to the ascent of the peak. The climb is
perfectly easy...
superordinate: as summation of hyponyms
(27) There was a fine old rocking-chair that his father used to sit in, a desk where he
wrote letters, a nest of small tables and a dark, imposing bookcase. Now all
this furniture was to be sold, and with it his own past.
general word:
(28) Can you tell me where to stay in Vancouver? I've never been to the place before.
Other examples: Human: people, person, man, woman, child, boy, girl
Non-human animate: creature
Inanimate concrete count: thing, object
Inanimate concrete mass: stuff
Inanimate abstract: business, affair, matter
Action: move
Place: place
Fact: question, idea
(29) There's a boy climbing that elm.
a. The boy's going to fall if he doesn't take care.
b. The lad's going to fall if he doesn't take care.
c. The child's going to fall if he doesn't take care.
d. The idiot's going to fall if he doesn't take care.
e. That elm isn't very safe.
f. That tree isn't very safe.
g. That old thing isn't very safe.
(ii) Collocation: association of lexical items that regularly co-occur due to some
recognizable lexico-semantic relation, such as

 synonym & superordinate e.g. co-hyponyms: red: green

opposites
o complementarities: boy: girl; stand up: sit down
o antonyms: like: hate; large: small
o converses: order: obey; buy: sell

same order series e.g. Monday, Tue., Wed.; north, south

part-whole
o part-to-whole: brake: car; lid: box
o part-to-part: mouth: chin; verse: chorus
General principle: Lexical cohesion is created if items which tend to appear in
the same lexical environment (i.e. sharing similar patterns of collocation) occur
in adjacent sentences.

4. Cohesion and coherence analysis in applied

linguistics(30)"... I had stroke... blood pressure... low pressure... period... Ah...
pass out... Uh... Rosa and I, and... friends... of mine... uh... uh... shore... uh drink, talk,
pass out..."
"...Hahnemann Hospital... uh, uh I... uh uh wife, Rosa... uh...
take... uh... love... ladies... uh Ocean uh Hospital and transfer
Hahnemann Hospital ambulance... uh... half'n hour... uh... uh
it's... uh... motion, motion... uh... bad... patient... I uh... flat on
the back... um... it's... uh... shaved, shaved... nurse, shaved
me... uh... shaved me, nurse... [sigh]... wheel chair... uh...
Hahnemann Hospital... a week, a week... uh... then uh...
strength... uh... mood... uh... up... uh... legs and arms, left side
uh... weak... and... Moss Hospital... two week... no, two
months..."

Conclusion:

 Lexical cohesion is more basic than grammatical cohesion;

However, without grammatical cohesion, even coherent discourse becomes
laborious, clumsy, and faltered;
Possible project: analyze cohesion & coherence of child language, second
language, aphasics, or pidgin

References
Givon, T. 1995. "Coherence in text vs. coherence in mind". In M.A. Gernsbacher & T.
Givon (eds.)
Coherence in Spntaneous Text, 59-115. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. {P 302.2 C6
1995}
Halliday, M. 1989. Chap 1-3.
Halliday & Hasan 1976.
McCarthy, 1991. Chap. 2-3.
Salkie, R. 1995. Text and Discourse Analysis, chap 1. London: Routledge. {P 302 S25
1995}
Van Dijk, T. 1977. Text and Context: Explorations in the semantics and pragmatics of
discourse. chap 4: 98-99. London: Longman. {P 302 D5 1980}

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