COHESION

By :
Lisa Irwit Santi 202204002
Dinar Yustitia W 202204007
• The cohesion is an important contribution in making a
text coherent. In line with this, Halliday and Hasan
argue that an important contribution to coherence
comes from cohesion. Moreover, Halliday and Hasan
divided cohesion into two types,
Grammatical
Lexical cohesion
• Amy went to the party. She sat with Sara.

The interpretation of the item she depends on the lexical item

Amy.
Therefore the text is considered cohesive because we cannot
understand the meaning of she unless Amy exists in the text.
 1. The concept of Cohesion
• Cohesion is the semantic relation between one element and
another in a text (Halliday and Hasan: 1976). A text is
cohesive when the elements are tied together and considered
meaningful to the reader. Cohesion occurs when the
interpretation of one item depends on the other, ex one item
presupposes to the other. (Halliday and Hasan: 1976)
 2. Grammatical Cohesion
(Halliday and Hasan: 1976), Tannen and Hamilton (2001).
Cohesiveness can be found in these cohesive resources :
• Reference
• Substitution
• Illipsis
• Conjunction
 • Reference
Reference can be identified as the situation in which one element
cannot be semantically interpreted unless it is referred to another
element in the text :

- Pronouns Referring devices –

- Articles to items in linguistic
- Demonstratives or situational texts
- Comparatives
 Now, Let’s study these further
In a party, attended Although, he was a Ringo Star was the famous
by The Beatles and drummer, yet, Ringo drummer of the Beatles in
their close and not- Star was able to write the 60s. He had one song in
so-close friends War and Peace. every Beatles’ album
“That man over there
wrote War and
Peace”
 
 Definition of reference in discourse

Although, he was a drummer, yet, Ringo Star was able to

write War and Peace.
• Reference is the process by which speakers use the expression
Ringo Star and He to refer to the same person in the
discourse.
• Ringo Star and He are referring expressions or Co-
Referential
• Ringo Star is the Referent.
• Although, he was a drummer, yet, Ringo Star was able to
write War and Peace.
If the antecedent or referent occurs Later in the discourse, it is
called Cataphoric Reference
• Ringo Star was the famous drummer of the Beatles in the 60s.
He had one song in every Beatles’ album
If the referent is mentioned Earlier in the discourse, it is called
Anaphoric Reference.
• That man over there wrote War and Peace.
If the antecedent or referent is outside of the discourse, it is called
Exophoric Reference, which does not need extra linguistic
environment to understand the context.
 • Substitution

Substitution occurs when an item is replaced by another

item in the text to avoid repetition.
The difference between substitution and reference is that
substitution lies in the relation between words, whereas
reference between meaning.
Nominal Elements of this This car is old. I will
Substituting a noun type are one, ones buy a new one
or a nominal group and same
with another noun

Verbal The verb element I challenge you to

Involves substituting used to replace item win the game before
a verb or a verbal in this type is do. For I do
group with another example, Here do is
verb the substitution for
win the game.

Clausal So substitutes the A: Do you think the

Substituting clauses clause going to be teacher is going to be
by so or not absent absent tomorrow?
B: No, I don’t think
so
 • Ellipsis
Ellipsis is the process of omitting an unnecessary item,
which has been mentioned earlier in a text and replacing it
with nothing.
It is similar to substitution because “Ellipsis is simply
substitution by zero” (Halliday and Hasan: 1976).
Normally it is considered as an anaphoric relation because
the omission takes place within a text.
When ellipsis occurs, what is omitted , can still be
understood.
Nominal – Noun is omitted My brothers like sports. In
fact, both (O) love football.
(O: My brothers)

Verbal – omission of the A : Have you been studying?

verb. In the following B : Yes, I have (O). (O: been
example, the verb been studying)
studying is left out in B.

Clausal – occurs when the A : Who is writing on the

clause is omitted. Ex : The board?
clause writing on the board B : Alice is (O). (O writing on
is excluded in B. the board ).
Conjunction
Conjunction words are linking devices between sentences or clauses in a
text. Unlike the other grammatical devices, conjunction express the
“logical semantic” relation between sentences rather than between
words and structures (Halliday and Hasan: 1976).
In other words, they structure the text in a certain logical order that is
meaningful to the reader or listener.
• Causal : so, thus, therefore, because.
• Additive : and, furthermore, in addition
• Temporal : finally, then, at the same time
• Adversative : but, in contrast, whereas
LEXICAL COHESION involves the choice of
vocabulary. It is concerned with the relationship that
exists between lexical items in a text such as words
and phrases.

Lexical Cohesion includes two types :

Reiteration
Collocation
Reiteration

Reiteration (Halliday and Hasan: 1976)

define reiteration as two items that share in
the same referent and could either be
repeated or have similar meaning in a text.
The items of reiteration are :
• Repetition
• Synonyny
• Antonymy
• Superordination (Hyponymy and
Meronymy)
 Repetition is the restatement of Anna ate the apple. The apple
the same lexical item was fresh.

Synonymy is used to refer to Attractive and beautiful

items of similar meaning
Antonymy is the relation Hot and cold
between items of opposite
meaning.

Hyponymy refers to items of Vehicle is the co-hyponym of car

‘general specific’ or an example
of relationship (Paltridge ,
2012: 119)

Meronymy is a ‘whole part’ Cover and page (co-meronymy of

relationship between items. the item – book)
 COLLOCATION
COLLOCATION is a combination of vocabulary items that co –
occur together. It includes combination of
• adjectives and nouns such as fast food.
• Verbs and nouns such as ‘run out of money’
• And other items such as” men” and “women”
(Paltridge , 2012)
 The value of cohesion as applied in
discourse structure :
• A text is cohesive when the stretches of language are hung
together with ties (Hasan: 1968)
• According to (Halliday and Hasan: 1976); this ties could be
grammatical or lexical. Therefore if the text make sense to
the reader, than it is clear that the writer accomplished the use
of cohesive devices.