Discourse Grammar Essentials: Cohesion, Reference, and Text Structure
Central Idea of Discourse Grammar
In “Discourse Grammar,” Paltridge highlights the idea that grammar discussions are no longer limited to sentences but extend to include discourse as well. This concept, expounded by Hughes and McCarthy (1998), emphasizes a strong connection among form, function, and context. In the initial phase of the development of discourse analysis, it was thought to be the analysis of language just beyond the sentence. However, with the passage of time, discussions moved from sentence-based perspectives to a discourse-based grammar perspective. This section highlights aspects of grammar that aid in the discourse analysis of a text.
Grammar from a Discourse Perspective
Different linguistic items such as ‘it’, ‘this’, and ‘that’ show different interpretations from a discourse analysis point of view. For example, the use of the word ‘it’ would mean a reference to a non-living thing already mentioned in a discourse. This grammatical term will be very different and would mean something else compared to the use of the word ‘he’.
Grammar & Discourse: A Contextual View
Hilles (2005) describes the process of examining grammar and discourse from a contextual perspective. The first stage in this process is to make a decision as to what aspect of language to investigate; the next stage involves looking at as many reference grammar sources as possible; and the final stage is to test the hypotheses formed by native speakers to see if they would make the same choices that the research suggests they would make.
Comparing Discourse & Sentence-Based Grammars
Hughes and McCarthy (1998) make a helpful comparison between discourse and sentence-based grammars. A discourse-based grammar makes a strong connection between form, function, and context, and also emphasizes appropriateness.
Cataphoric Reference
Cataphoric reference is the reference to something that is mentioned later in the discourse. It points forward to an item. For example, in the sentence “I said this many times before and let me repeat it again today,” the meaning of ‘this’ and ‘it’ is not specified and will be revealed later in the discourse. This type of reference, where the meaning is yet to be revealed, is called cataphoric reference.
Exophoric Reference
This type of reference refers to things outside the text itself. David Crystal’s Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics defines it as “A term used by some linguists to refer to the process of a linguistic unit referring directly to the EXTRALINGUISTIC SITUATION accompanying an utterance.”
Homophoric Reference
Homophoric reference occurs when the identity of the item can be retrieved through general cultural knowledge, rather than from the specific context of the text.
Comparative & Bridging Reference
Comparative reference: The identity of the presumed item is retrieved not because it has already been mentioned (or will be mentioned) in the text.
Lexical Cohesion
It refers to the relationship in meaning between lexical items within a text, specifically focusing on content words and their interconnections.
Repetition
Repetition refers to words that are repeated in a text. This includes words inflected for tense or number and words derived.
Synonymy
Synonymy refers to words that are similar in meaning, such as “date” and “go out.”
Antonymy
Antonymy describes opposite or contrastive meanings, such as “shy” and “forward.”
Hyponymy & Meronymy
A word with a particular meaning that is included in the meaning of a more general word. For example, “dog” and “cat” are the hyponyms of “animal.” Meronymy describes lexical items in a ‘whole-to-part’ relationship with each other.
Collocation
Collocation is the association between vocabulary items that tend to co-occur, such as combinations of adjectives and nouns as in ‘table and chair’, ‘hair dye’, ‘real estate agent’, or ‘the right direction’.
Conjunction
Conjunction refers to words such as ‘and’ or ‘however’ that join phrases, clauses, or sections of a text, expressing a logical semantic relationship between them.
Substitution & Ellipsis
A substitute form is used in place of another language item, phrase, or group. For example, “Try reading this book. That one’s not very good.” Here, ‘one’s’ substitutes for ‘book’. In ellipsis, an essential element is omitted from the text but can be recovered by referring to a preceding element.
Theme & Rheme
Theme is the starting point of a clause; that is, what the clause is ‘about’. The rest of the clause is the rheme. Genre is a term in widespread use to indicate an approach to communication which emphasizes social function and purpose.
Thematic Progression
The notions of theme and rheme are also employed in the examination of thematic progression, or the method of text development.
Constant Theme
One pattern of thematic progression is theme reiteration, also known as constant theme.
Linear Theme
Another common pattern of thematic progression occurs when the subject matter in the rheme of one clause is taken up as the theme of a following clause.
Split Rheme
Texts may also include other kinds of progression, such as multiple-theme or ‘split rheme’ patterns. In multiple-theme / split rheme progression, a rheme may include several different pieces of information, each of which may be taken up as the theme in subsequent clauses.
Focusing on Cohesion in Student Texts
The work of Halliday and Hasan (1976) influenced scholars and researchers by the early 1980s. The two terms were distinguished then; before their work, both words were used interchangeably. Cohesion is now understood to be a textual quality, attained through the use of grammatical and lexical elements that enable readers to perceive semantic relationships within and between sentences. Coherence refers to the overall consistency of a discourse—its purpose, voice, content, style, form, and so on—and is in part determined by readers’ perceptions of texts, dependent not only on linguistic and contextual information but also on readers’ abilities to draw upon other kinds of knowledge, such as cultural and intertextual knowledge.