Chapter 1 Introduction I. I The concept of cohesion 1.1.1 Text If a speaker of English hears or reads a passage of the language which is more than one sentence in lengt~ he can normally decide without diffi- culty whether it forms a unified whole or is just a collection of unrdated sentences. This book is about what makes the difference between the two. The word TP.XT is. used in linguistics to refer to any passage. spoken o:r written, of' whatever length, that does form <~ unified. whole. We know, as a general rule. whether any specimen of our own language constitutes a TEXT or not. This does not mean there can never be any uncertainty. The distinction between a text and a collection of unrelated sentences is in the last resort a matter of degree, and there may always be instances about which we are uncertain- a point that is probably familiar to most teachers from reading their students' compositions. But this does. not invalidate the general observation that we at:e sensitive to the distinction between what is text and what is not. This suggests that there are objective factors involved - the~:e must be cemin features which are characteristic o£ texts and not found otherwise; and so there are. We shall attempt to identify these~ in order to establish what are the properties of teXtS in English. and what it is that distinguishes a text from a disconnected sequence of sentences. As always in linguistic description, we shall be discussing things that the native speaker of the language • kno·ws • already - but without knowing that he knows them. A text may be spoken or wri~ prose or verse, dialogue or mon~ logue. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play. from a momentary cry for help to an alklay discussion on a committee. A text is a unit o!Ianguage in use. It is not a gr.unmatical unit~ like a clause or a sentence; and it is not de.6ned by its size. A text is sometimes
2 INTRODUCTION envisaged to be- some kind of super-sentence~ a grammatical unit that is larger than a sentence but is related to a sentence in the same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a clause to a group and so on: by CON- STHUBNCY, the composition of larger units out: of smaller ones. But this is misleading. A text i.s not someth-ing that is like a sentence, only bigger; it is something that differs from a sentence in kind. A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIc unit: a unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is related to a clause or sentence not by size but by REALJ ZATION, the coding of one symbolic system in another. A text does not CONSIST OF sentences; it is REALIZED BY, or encoded in. sentences. If we understand it in this way. we shall not expect to find the same kind of STRUCTURAL integration among the parts of a text as we find among the parts of a sentence or clause. The unity of a text is a unity of a different kuul. 1.1.2 Texture The concept of TEXTURE is entirely appropriate to express the property of 'being a text'. A text has texture~ and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a text. It derives this texture from the fact that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment. What we are investigating in this book are the resources that Enghsh has for creating texture. lf a passage of English containing more than one sen- tence is perceived as a text, there will be certain linguistic features present in that passage which can be identified as comributing to its total unity and giving it texture. Let us start with a simple and trivial example. Suppose we find the fol- lowing instructions in the cookery book: [I: I J Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a .fireproof dish. It is dear that them in the second sentence refers back to (is ANAPHOlHC to} the six cocking apples in the first sentence. This ANAPHORIC function of them gives cohesion to the two sentences, so that we interpret them as a whole; the two sentences together constitute a text. Or rather, they form part of the same text; there may be more of it to follow. The texture is provided by the cohesive RELATION that exists between them and six cooking apples. It is important to make this point. because we shall he constantly focusing attention on the items, s.uch as them. which typically refer back to something that has gone before; but the cohesion is effected not by the presence of the referring item alone but by the presence
I.I THE CONCEPT OF COHESION 3 of both the referring item and the item that it refers to. In other words, it is not enough that there should be a presupposition; the presupposition must also be satisfied. This accounts for the humorous effect produced by the radio comedian who began his act with the sentence [1 :a] So we pwhed him under the other one. This sentence is loaded with presuppositions. located in the words so, him, other and oru:. and. since it was the opening sentence, none of them could be resolved. What is the MEANING of the cohesive relation between them and six cooking apples? The meaning is that they refer to the same thing. The two items are identical in reference, or COR.EFERENTIAL. The cohesive agency in this instance, that which provides the texture. is the coreferentiality of them and six cooking apples. The signal, or the expression, of this coreferen- ciality is the presence of the potentially anaphoric item them in the second sentence together with a potential target item six cooking apples in the first. Identity of reference is not the only meaning relation that contributes to texture; there are others besides. Nor is the use of a pronoun the only way of expressing identity of reference. We cou1d have had: [I; 3] Wash and oore six cooking apples. Put the apples into .a fireproof dish. Here the item functioning cohesively is the apples, which works by repeti- tion of the word. apples accompanied by the as an anaphoric signaL One of the functions of the definite article is to signal identity of reference-with romething that has gone before. (Since this has sometimes been said to be its only :firuction, we should perhaps point out that it has others as well. which are not cohesive at all; for example none of the instances in (a) or (b) has an an.aphoric sense: [I :4) a. None but the brave deserve the fair. b. The pain in my bead cannot stifle the pain in my heart. For the meaning of the. see 2.4-2. below.) :1.1.3 Ties We need .a term to refer to a single instance of cohesion, a term for one occurrence of a pair of cohesively related items. This we shall call a TlB. The .rektion between them and six cooking appks in example [I: I J constitutes a tie. We can characterize any segment of a text in terms of the number and
4 INTRODVCTION kinds of ties which it displays. In I I :I] there is just one tie, of the particular kind which we shall he calling REFBRENCE(Chapter 2). In [1:3). there are actUally two ties, of which one is of the 'reference~ kind, and consists in the anaphoric relation of the to six cooking apples. while the other is of a different kind and consists in the REPETITION of the word apples, a repeti- tion which would still have a cohesive effect even if the two were not referring to the same apples. This latter type of cohesion is discussed in