Cohesion and coherence
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Coherence
Coherence is 'the relevance of one utterance to another' (Cutting 2000: 221). That means a text can be linguistically cohesive but incoherent, as the example illustrates:
My father bought a Lincoln convertible. The car driven by the police was red. That color doesn't suit her. She consists of three letters. However, a letter isn't as fast as a telephone call. (Yule 1996: 141)
You can find almost all kinds of cohesive links in the text, but it does not make sense at all! Or, a text may seem to bear no cohesive ties but coherent in understanding, as the following discourse shows:
Her: That's the telephone
Him: I'm in the bath
Her: O.K. (Yule 1996: 142)
One of the most-frequently used teaching methods is to choose a cohesive and coherent text and put all the sentences in a random order. Teachers then ask students to rearrange all the sentences and get a text that 'make sense' for them.
Here is a 'sense making' text:
My father once bought a Lincoln convertible. He did it by saving every penny he could. That car would be worth a fortune nowadays. However, he sold it to help pay for my college education. Sometimes I think I'd rather have the convertible. (Yule 1996: 140)
However, students may only receive a fragment of sentences as:
He did it by saving every penny he could.
However, he sold it to help pay for my college education.
My father once bought a Lincoln convertible.
Sometimes I think I'd rather have the convertible.
The car would be worth a fortune nowadays.
After their own rearrangements, students can compare their text with the sample one. Through this kind of practice, students can have a more penetrating understanding of what a cohesive and coherent text should be like.
Usually, we consider coherence to be 'the end product' (Cutting 2000: 214) and our ultimate aim of teaching students about all these notions is not to expect them to remember all these terminologies, rather, it is to guide them appreciate cohesive and coherent input and to help them speak and write cohesively and coherently.
REFERENCES
Cutting, J. (2000) Linguistics for Teachers LFTM02. Sunderland: University of Sunderland.
Halliday, M. and Hasan, R. (1976) Cohesion in English. Harlow, Essex: Longman Group Limited.
McCarthy, M. (1991) Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Yule, G. (1996) The Study of Language Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
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