TEXTURE

TEXT COHERENCE

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Coherence
Coherence- the capacity of a text to make sense Cohesion the surface feature of a texts, independednt of the reader Coherence- results from the interaction between the reader and the text Coherence and cohesion do not funciton independently- writers use cohesive devices intentionally to make their text easier to follow, ie more coherent.
Coherence is usually approached from two perspectives: The micro-level, when the readers have certain expectations of how the proposition(ie meaning) of a sentence is likely to be developed in the sentence or sentences that follow. At the macro-level coherence is enhanced if: The text is organised in away that answers the readers likely questions The text is organised in a way that s familiar to the reader The reader can easily discern what the text s about

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Micro-level coherence. LOGICAL RELATIONS

Micro-level coherence refer to sentence-by-sentence analysis
LOGICAL RELATIONS- indicate how whole texts(even extermely short ones) cohere because of the kinds of expectations that are both set up and satisfied by their component parts. This happens both: at the level of the whole text and at local level, ie from sentence to sentence, such that at any time in a text, any one sentence both reflects what has been said or aniticipates what s going to come. The sentence represents the text at that point. Ex The genes carry all the information needed to make a new plant or animal.

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Micro-level coherence. Logical relations

Ex Each part s called a gene. The genes carry all the information needed to make a new plant or animal. They decide its sex and also what characteristics it inherits.
This is possible because of: The cohesive clues, such as the def art the that goes with genes The information that is distributed in a predictible way

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THEME-RHEME/TOPIC and COMMENT In English sentences have a simple two-way division between what the sentence is about(its Topic) and what the writer or speaker wants to tell you about that topic(the Comment) The topic is often associated with what is already known, or given. Given in formation is retrievable because it has been explicitely mentioned at some point in the text, or is inferable, or context, or because it is shared knowledge Given information usually precedes new information in the sentence. New information is placed in the comment position The topic= the launch pad of the message topic=theme Comment= rheme

The tendency to place new information at the end is called end weight
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Sample text
GENETICS The science of genetics explains why living things look and behave as they do. Advanced animals have two sexes, male and female. Each individual produces sex cells. If a male and a female cell join, the female cell grows into a new individual. Each parent passes on certain characteristrics to its offspring. The process is called heredity.
Heredity works in an amazing way. Inside every cell are tiny chromosomes, largely made of a chemical called DNA. Different parts of each chromozome carry different coded messages. Each part is called a gene. The genes carry all information needed to make a new palnt or animal. They decide its sex and also what characteristics it inherits. Some inhereted characteristics are stronger that others. They are dominant. Weaker ones are recessive. Genes for brown eyes, for example, dominate over the weaker genes for blue eyes.

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John Sinclair(Trust the text, 2004: 15): The text at any particular time carries with it everything that a competent reader needs in order to understand the current state of the text

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Reader expectations
The readers approach a text assuming it will make sense, until proven otherwise Some texts will not make sense without some difficulty Some texts will make sense as the text approaches the end, as the writer, purposefully tests the readers faith in the coherence of the text.

There are cases of accidental juxtaposition(when the sentences that are juxtaposed do not make sense) e.g. OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH THE TROOPS TRY OUR FRESH TENDER HOME COOKED TURTLE

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Rogue sentences
Tortoise and turtle (1) Unlike other reptiles, tortoises and turtles have hard shells to protect their bodies. Tortoises are land animals. (2) They live in warm countries and eat plant food. (3) A tortoise cannot run away from an enemy. (4) Instead, it tucks its head and legs into its shell. (5) Some tortoises can live to be much more than hundred years old- older than other animals. (6) Turtles live in the sea. (7) Some seaweeds can be eaten. (8) They have flatter shelles than torotises abd use their legs as paddles for swimmoing. (9) On land they are very clumsy.

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Sentence insertion
H. Widdowson-Teaching Language as Communication
(1)The aims of a language teaching course are very often defined with reference to the four language skills understanding speech, speaking, reading, and writing.(2) These aims, therefore, relate to the kind of activity which the learners are to perform. (3) But how can we characterize this activity? (4) What s it that learners are expected to understand, speak, read and write? (5) The obvious answer s: the language they are learning. (6) we might mean a selection of lexical items recorded in a dictionary combined with szntactic structures recorded in garmmar. (7) In this view, the teaching of a language involves developing the ability to produce correct sentences. (8) Many teachers would subscribe to this view and it has been productive of a good deal of impressive language teaching material. (9) We may readily acknowledge that the ability to produce sentences s a crucial one in the learning of a language. (10) It s improtant to recognize, however, that it s not only ability that learners need to acquire. (11) Someone knowing the a langauge knows more than how to understand, speak, read and write sentences. (12) He also knows how sentences are used to communicative effect.

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A: In some respects, however, it s unsatisfactory. B: but what exactly do we mean by this?

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Passive constructions

Passives allow for the possibility of replacing the object of a verb in the main slot(normally the domain of the grammatical subject- and at the same time placing new information in the rheme slot. E.g. Brutus stabbed Caesar to death. Caesar was stabbed to death by Brutus. Using the active voice alone it would be diffciult to maintain topic consistency over extended stretches of text. Napoleon regained power in 1815. He ruled for a hundred days. But Wellington defeated him at the battle of Waterloo. Napoleon surrendered to the Brtitish and they exiled him to St helena, where he died in 1821. Napoleon regained power in 1815. He ruled for a hundred days. But he was defeated by Wellington at the battle of Waterloo. He surrendered to the Brtitish and he was exiled to St helena, where he died in 1821.
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Cleft sentences

Cleft sentences are used, like the passive, to alter the normal order of sentence elements, in order to place more emphasis on new information. eg Robin paid. It was Robin who paid. The cleft sentence or construction adds extra emphasis in order to contradict, correct an earlier statement or inference

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The TEXTUALISATION PROCESS Textualisation exercise: turn into a coherent text the senteneces The process involves: Transforming active constructions into passive ones in order to achieve end-weight Re-arranging the order of elements in the senteneces Combining sentences using relative pronouns or linkers Using referring pronouns(it) Changing verb forms in order to re-position events relative to other events

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Macro-level coherence
At macro-structure level the relationships are expressed through: topics key words lexical chains internal patterning lexical patterns key sentences schemas scripts

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Topics

At the macro-structure level the topics are topics of the text, and as such they are the topics of several sentences that occur in the text. The topics are at a large extent carried by words that appear in the headline or titles or in the recurring key words, which, most of the time, are nouns.

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Macro-level coherence: key words

Key words= words that occur with a frequency that is significant when compared to the normal frequency of these same words, as determined by corpus data. The key words prominance is not accidental, but due to the fact that the word is intimately related to what the particular text is about. eg. Heredity, genes, characteristics, weaker, cell, female, sex, male, cary, eyes, each, individual
The topic of a text is largely carried by its words, (Michael Hoey, 1991, Patterns of Lexis in Texts, OUP) These words tend to be nouns

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Lexical chains

Lexical chains are strings of related lexical items that run through texts. They can retrieve graphically entire texts. However, words and word chains alone do not render a text coherent. They can create lexical cohesion, but that does not necessarily mean coherence.

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Internal patterning
Ex (1) A draft version of the honey bee genome has been made available to the public- a move that should benefit bees and humans alike. (2) The honey bee (Apis mellifera) is multi-talented. (3) It produces honey, pollinates crops and is used by researchers to study human genetics, ageing, disease and social behaviour. (11) The genoms publication is good news for beekeepers and victims of bee stings alike. (23) This is the first time that the amassed sequence data have been made publicly available.
The internal patterning of a text is realised locally in the way words- or their synonyms or derivatives are carried over from one sentence to the next.

The carrying over occurs over longer stretches of text, over entire texts.

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Words from the first sentence still pop up in later sentences: (1)A draft version of the honey bee genome has been made available to the public- a move that should benefit bees and human alike (11) the genomes publication is good news for bee keepers and victims of bee stings alike. nominalization: the geneomes publication should benefit becomes is good news: nominalization public- publication: derivation benefit- good news: synonymy In the last sentence: (1)A draft version of the honey bee genome has been made available to the public- a move that should benefit bees and human alike (23) This is the first time that the amassed sequence data have been made publicly available.
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Michael Hoey (1991, Patterns of Lexis in Texts, OUP) demonstrates how patterns can extent over the whole length of a book. He argues that it is the cohesion induced by these recurring patterns that accounts for the sense we make of a texts coherence. This view leads Hoey to question the whole cohesion-coherence dichotomy

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Key sentences

Key sentences are sentences that begin the text, come near the beginning, and which reflect the content of the headline, title and subtitle. Other key sentences are sentences that repeat or paraphrase at least two, maybe three elements of that key sentences, admits Thornbury (2005, pg 55).

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The text makes sense only if it corresponds to the mental representations of the world outside that the reader is familiar with. Thus, particular texts activate the mental scheme or representation that the reader has about the topic or subject matter. A schema is the way knowledge is represented mentally and varies from person to person according to the breadth and depth of personal cognitive potential. Scripts, on the other hand, represent the ways in which we expect things to happen (Thornbury, 2005, pg 55). While schemas have the form of a diagramme, scripts are more likely to have the form of a list of events, or a sequence of events or actions etc.

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Thornbury gives a conclusive example for scripts: the sequence of events involved in catching a bus. This would necessarily contain: wait at the stop board bus sit down pay the ticket to the conductor when he approaches.

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Scripts
Scripts are culture-determined, but there are macro-scripts that follow the same course. For example, the macro-script for descriptions would normally be organized according to the following parameters (Thornbury, 2005): from general to particular from whole to part from including to included from large to small from nearer to further, from back to front, or outer to inner from possessor to possessed from now to then

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Other types of macro-scripts are: biographies, narratives, processes, news stories etc.
The script of a biography or personal profile follows usually the chronological sequence of life events. For example, Mary Stephens (1992, pg 90) uses the following script suggestions: Brief summary childhood/teenage major event in life family life development of career conclusion

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The script of narratives or processes and that of encyclopedia entries is similar, in that they follow the sequence of the basic events, happenings or ideas.
The news story or the newspaper article exhibits the following macro-script: outcome of events/condensed summary expansion comments from spokesman/witnesses etc reference to future developments

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1. Atkinson, D. (1999) Scientific Discourse in Sociohistorical Context, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. 2. Bakhtin, M.M. (1986) Speech genres and other late essays, Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. 3. Bhatia, V.K. (1993) Analysing genres, Longman. 4. Eggins, S., (1996), An Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics, Pinter. 5. Crombie, W., (1985), Discourse and Language Learning, OUP. 6. Fowler, R. (1981) Literature as Social Discourse: The Practice of Linguistic Criticism, London: Batsford Academic. Guy Cook. (1900) Theories of discourse, OUP 8. Hoey, M., 1991, Patterns of Lexis in Text, OUP. 9. Hoey, M., 2001, Textual Interaction, London, Routledge.

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10. Jaworsky A., Coupland, N., (1999) The discourse Reader, Routledge, London. 11. Nord, C., (1991), Text Analysis in Translation, Rodopi. 12. Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, 1998. 13. Santos, T., (2001) The Place of Politics in Second Language Writing, in Tony Silva and Paul Kei Matsuda (Eds.) On Second Language Writing, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers, London. 14. Swales, J.M., (1981), Aspects of article introductions, Birmingham, UK: The university of Aston, language Studies Unit. 15. Swales, J.M., (1990), Genre analysis : English in academic and research settings, Cambridge, England : CUP. 16. Thornbury, S., 2005, Beyond the Sentence, Macmillan Books for Teachers.

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