Grammatical Cohesion

Grammatical Cohesion

Cohesion refers to the linguistic ties that bind a text together, creating connections between sentences and across paragraphs so that the text reads as a unified whole rather than a collection of unrelated sentences. The concept of cohesion was systematically described by M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan in their seminal work Cohesion in English (1976). They identified five main types of cohesive tie: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Understanding cohesion is essential for discourse-level analysis at A-Level.

Reference

Reference is a cohesive device in which one element in a text points to another for its interpretation. Rather than repeating the same noun phrase, writers and speakers use pronouns, determiners, and other reference items to point back (or forward) to entities already mentioned or present in the context.

Types of Reference

• Anaphoric reference — a reference item points back to something mentioned earlier in the text. This is the most common type of reference:
  • Sarah arrived late. She had missed the bus. (she refers back to Sarah)
  • The government published its report. The document was 300 pages long. (the document refers back to report)
  • They discussed the proposal at length. This took most of the afternoon. (this refers back to the whole process of discussion)
• Cataphoric reference — a reference item points forward to something mentioned later in the text. This is less common but creates suspense and anticipation:
  • This is what I think: we should start again. (this points forward to the following clause)
  • He was the greatest leader the country had ever known. Winston Churchill transformed Britain. (he points forward to Churchill)
  • I\'ll tell you something: it\'s not going to work.
• Exophoric reference — a reference item points to something outside the text, in the shared physical or cultural context of the participants:
  • Look at that! (pointing to something visible in the environment)
  • They should do something about it. (referring to the government, authorities, or other contextually understood group)
  • It\'s raining. (the it does not refer to anything specific — it is a dummy subject)

Key Definition: Anaphoric reference points backwards to a previously mentioned entity; cataphoric reference points forwards to an entity that will be mentioned; exophoric reference points outwards to the situational context. These terms allow you to analyse how texts create and maintain chains of reference that hold the text together.

Referential Chains

A referential chain is the sequence of reference items that all point to the same entity throughout a text. Tracking referential chains can reveal how a text is organised and how different entities are treated. For example, a news article might refer to the same person as the Prime Minister, she, the PM, the leader, Mrs Smith — each choice carries different connotations and levels of formality.

Substitution

Substitution is a cohesive device in which one element is replaced by a substitute word to avoid repetition. Unlike reference (which is a semantic relationship), substitution is a grammatical relationship — the substitute word takes the place of another word or phrase at the surface level:

• Nominal substitution (using one/ones): I\'d like the blue shirt, not the red one. (one substitutes for shirt)
• Verbal substitution (using do): She runs faster than I do. (do substitutes for run)
• Clausal substitution (using so or not): Will it rain? I think so. (so substitutes for it will rain); I hope not.

Ellipsis