COHESION AND

COHERENCE
ORDER AND SENSE-WHAT YOU NEED TO USE
IN YOUR ESSAYS!
COHESION
The techniques and devices used to connect different parts
of a text. They help the sentences of a text hang together so
that the reader is able to ‘track’ the meaning.
It is possible to invent a sequence of sentences that are
highly cohesive but incoherent.
EG ‘A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats
have four legs. The cat is on the mat. Mat has three letters.
GRAMMATICAL COHESION
Reference (anaphoric and cataphoric)
Deictics (deixis)
Ellipsis
Conjunction
Information flow (clefting, front focus and end focus)
REFERENCE
Anaphoric-when a word refers back to something that has
already been mentioned, this is an anaphoric reference.
EG ‘My great-grandfather was an Irishman. He (pron.)
was born in Dublin in 1875.’
Cataphoric- when a word refers to something that hasn’t
been mentioned yet.
EG ‘He gave the following reasons for his decision’
DEICTICS
Deixis/deictic expressions- terms which refer to the personal,
temporal or locational characteristics of a situation, and
whose meaning only makes sense in that context or
situation.
EG ‘here’ and ‘there’ and ‘this’ and ‘that’ only make
sense when taken in context.
Language is used to ‘point’ to the aspects of an event.
DEICTICS
‘When language is spoken, it occurs in a specific location, at
a specific time, is produced by a specific person and is
(usually) addressed to some specific other person or
persons. Only written language can ever be free of this kind
of anchoring in the extra linguistic situation. A sequence on a
slip of paper can move through space and time, ‘speaker’-
less, and address-less. All natural, spoken language have
devices that link the utterance with its spatio-temporal and
personal context. This link is called ‘deixis’.
Christine Tanz
ELLIPSIS
Ellipsis occurs when elements are omitted from a sentence.
This becomes a cohesive device if an earlier part of the text
enables us to supply the missing elements.
EG ‘Beer cans littered the floor, the television had been
kicked in and graffiti covered the walls. A bit of a
mess.’

‘Where did you see the car. In the street.’

These words are also called connectives. They link together
parts of a text and indicate relationship between them. For
example if a sentence begins with ‘But’, what follows will in
some way contrast with, or qualify, what has gone before.
EG The Prime Minister promised that the economy
would soon recover. But it has not done so.

CONJUNCTIONS AND ADVERBIALS

INFORMATION FLOW
Clefting
Front focus
End focus
FRONT FOCUS
Front focus- bringing information which would normally appear
later to the front position in a sentence, to give it extra
prominence.
EG Always in motion, the future is.
Happiness was what she sought.
When we get home, let’s watch a video.

What effect does this have when we read the sentence below:
On September 2, the 35th anniversary of the beginning of his
police career, Commissioner Keelty will leave his post, with two
years still to run on his contract.
END FOCUS
End Focus-prominence to the final part of the sentence and can
enable suspense to build. Not as much prominence as in front
focus, but more than if the information was embedded in the
middle of a sentence.
EG A very short run I can handle.
I believe he lost respect from his peers following his dissent of
Gillard.
Think of this as given and new information-audience will focus on
the this new information if this is situated at the end of the
sentence.
FRONT OR END
FOCUS?
1) Everybody in this room speaks two languages.
Two languages are spoken by everybody in this room.
2) John gave the books to my brother.
John gave my brother the books.
3) John smeared paint on the wall.
John smeared the wall with paint.
CLEFTING
Clefting means to cleave or to divide. It divides a single clause
into two clauses, each with it’s own verb.
It is used as a way to shift the focus of interest, and of getting
our attention by delaying mention of what is of special interest.
EG ‘Jenny ate the ice-cream’ becomes ‘It was Jenny who
ate the ice-cream.’

How do we change the sentence below?

‘Uncle Vernon had answered the call’
CLEFTING
How do we ‘decleave’ these sentences?
‘It is Ann that owns the cottage’
‘My father was born in India’

How do we cleft these sentences?

‘I enjoyed the last dance.’
‘The traffic is noisiest in London.’
Repetition
Collocation
Synonymy
Antonymy
Hyponymy
Substitution

LEXICAL/SEMANTIC COHESION
REPETITION AND
SYNONYMS
This involves the repetition of a single word. This has a
cohesive effect because it forms a link between different
sentences.
Example- ‘I have no great news to announce. I know it is
news you have all been longing to hear.
Sometimes the word itself is not repeated. Instead a
synonym is used. Example- ‘He rapidly gathered up the
pieces of the vase and hid them under the sofa. He acted
quickly because he did not want to be caught. The choice of
synonym used might depend on the level of formality.
COLLOCATION
This refers to the tendency for certain words to occur
together. It can be short expressions or longer stretches of
text. Collocation is cohesive because it involves the use of
words that, because of their meaning, are already linked in
the reader’s mind.
EG ‘tropical paradise’, ‘heavy rain’, ‘keep a promise’

Exercise: How many collocations can you think of for the

word ‘line’ and ‘long’ (these two words have a large
unlimited range of collocations. Some words are restricted
‘spick’ as in ‘spick and span’)
ANTONYMY
Antonyms are words whose meanings are in some way
opposite to each other. Many antonyms are adjectives (e.g
hot/cold, wet/dry) They may also belong to other word
classes (e.g. verbs start/finish), adverbs (always/never),
nouns (boy/girl).
A hyponym is a word that is linked in meaning to, but more
specific than, another word, known as a hypernym.
EG The hypernym is flower. Words referring to different
kinds of flowers?

Exercise. These words are hypernyms: furniture, stationery,

clothing. List four hyponyms for each word.

HYPONYMS AND HYPERNYMS

SUBSTITUTION
One word is substituted for another.
EG ‘I’ve got a pencil. Do you have one?’

Avoids repetition
EG I bet you get married before I get married.
I bet you get married before I do.
Time flies. You can’t though, but yes, it flies too quickly.

IDENTIFYING COHESIVE DEVICES