Cohesion (linguistics)
The cohesion or text cohesion is a term from the text linguistics and signifies the formal cohesion of a spoken or written text, which is mediated by external markings, for. B. through the use of certain tense forms , pronouns or deictics . Text cohesion is thus differentiated from text coherence, which relates to the context of the content. Often, however, coherence is also understood in a broader sense as a generic term for cohesion and coherence (in the narrower sense: semantic connections between sentences). One of the most prominent researchers in this field of text linguistics is the English scholar and linguist Wolfram Bublitz .
According to Halliday / Hasan, cohesion is a text-constitutive (text-forming) semantic relation. It ensures that sentences are syntactically related or viewed as related, as opposed to a (grammatically or interactively) disconnected sequence of sentences or words.
Various cohesive agents
There are various means of cohesion that allow us to recognize a text as coherent, e.g. B .:
- Connective
- Conjunctions and pronominal adverbs connect sentences or other text elements with one another as connectors . They are thus cohesion agent par excellence (conjunction: "I know that I know nothing." Pronominal adverb "Today is Friday. In addition , I am pleased.").
- Recurrence
- The resumption of an already introduced lexeme in the further course of the text ("Tomorrow Santa Claus is coming . I'm afraid of Santa Claus .").
- Partial recurrence
- The revisiting of a word element (more precisely, a lexical morpheme ), which mostly by derivation ( derivation ) or composition ( Composition ) happens (in this article, for example, "connection", "connected", "disconnected.").
- Pro forms
- Using pronouns , adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns, reference is made to a reference element of the linguistic context ( " My father is in prison. He is very lonely.").
- Text deixis
- Text deixis is the linguistic reference to knowledge introduced in the text. Prototype example: A certain article refers to a reference element already introduced into the text by an indefinite article. ("If a man comes to the doctor with a frog on his head. Says the frog: Doctor, I think I've been bothered!").
- Prior knowledge deixis
- The deixis of prior knowledge is a reference to text-external world knowledge, which is required for understanding the text. Prototype example: A certain article implies that what is referred to by it should already be known to the reader due to his or her knowledge of the world (“ The Pope orders a beer”).
- Situation deixis
- The situation deixis creates a reference to the concrete situation in which the text is embedded (pro-forms, certain articles), ("We will meet here tomorrow .")
- substitution
- Words are used that refer to the same reference object, e.g. B. Synonyms , metaphors or generic and subordinate terms ( hyperonyms and hyponyms ). (" Mohammed VI is losing popularity. The young king has disappointed many expectations.").
- Tense
- The use of tense serves as an indication of the sequencing (chronological order) of the events ("When the hurricane reached the mainland , everything had already been evacuated.").
- ellipse
- The text reference is created by a space ("I want to go home." "I _ also _.").
- Explicit text linkage / metacommunication
- The text refers explicitly to the preceding or following text passages, so it speaks about itself (“see above”, “below”, “as mentioned”).
See also
literature
- Klaus Brinker : Linguistic Text Analysis. 5th revised and supplemented edition. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-503-04995-9 . On cohesion: p. 18, note 18.
- Helmut Glück (Ed.): Metzler Lexicon Language. 4th, updated and revised edition. JB Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-476-02335-3 , article: Cohesion .
- Michael AK Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan: Cohesion in English. Longman, London 1976. ISBN 0-582-55041-6 .
- Heinz Vater: Introduction to text linguistics. Structure, topic and reference in texts . Fink, Munich 1992. ISBN 3-7705-2756-9 . Regarding cohesion in many places, see index.
