as Soon as the Curtains Closed I Turned to My Sister Again

Cohesion refers to the many ways (grammatical, lexical, semantic, metrical, alliterative) in which the elements of a text are linked together. Cohesion differs from coherence in that a text tin be internally cohesive but be breathless – that is, make no sense. Hither is a text that is grammatically and lexically cohesive, just non very coherent:

An octopus is an air-filled drape with vii heads and 3 spike-filled fingers, which poke in frills and furls at ribbon-strewed buttons.

Grammatical cohesion:

The clause-structure obeys normal English grammatical rules (which is itself a form of cohesion):

Anaphoric reference:

which poke refers back to the fingers

Lexical cohesion - semantic fields:

heads, fingers (body parts)

curtain, frills, furls, ribbons, buttons (haberdashery)

However the text only makes sense if we invent some kind of other-earth context. Notice how our tendency is to want to make sense of information technology, to find some kind of science-fictional or poetical circumstance whereby information technology could make sense.

Coherence:

Past contrast, texts can be coherent when not cohesive:

Speaker 1: "Chocolate biscuits!"

Speaker 2: "Me! Me!"

Speaker 3: "Uh uh. Lent."

Readers who know that people give up things like chocolate for Lent can infer that Speaker 3 is refusing the biscuit on offer whilst Speaker 2 is enthusiastically asking for one. But zip grammatical or lexical groups chocolate biscuits with me with Lent, rather it is the reader's real-world (or exophoric ) knowledge that enables interpretation.

Cohesion is objectively identifiable; coherence is far more than subjective, depending on the reader/listener'southward estimation.

Consider the cohesion and coherence in the post-obit dialogue:

i. 'I'g thinking of getting married,' Matthew said.

2. 'Oh, are you? Who to?'

iii. 'I haven't anyone in mind,' Matthew said. 'Only my brother-in-police force thinks I should get married. My sister wants me to get married and then does my uncle. Every time I go home to Republic of ireland my mother's ashamed that I'1000 not married to a girl.'

4. 'I got a young woman into trouble at the age of xviii,' Walter said. 'Daughter of one of our footmen. He was an Irish young man. The butler defenseless him reading Nietzsche in the pantry. To the detriment of the silverish. Of class at that place was no question of my marrying his daughter. The family unit made a settlement and I went away to paint. My hair turned white at the age of nineteen.'

5. Matthew said, 'I know a daughter who's expecting a baby by an old spiritualist. She'due south lovely. She's got long blackness pilus.' He saddened into silence and gazed upon the girl in jeans dispassionately, recognizing her as Ronald'south former girl-friend.

vi. 'I went abroad to paint, but my cousin the Marquise –'

vii. 'I'll tell you this much,' Matthew said, 'there'due south no justification for beingness a available and that'south the truth, allow's face it. Information technology's everyone's duty to be fruitful and multiply according to his calling either spiritual or temporal, every bit the example may exist.'

8. 'Monet admired my work. Just before he died he visited my studio with his friends, and –'

9. 'These are the figures,' Matthew said, and took from inside his coat a parcel of papers from which he selected one which had been folded in 4, and which was divide and grubby at the folds. He straightened out the sheet, following the typewritten lines with his finger, as he read out, 'Greater London, the census of 1951. Single males of twenty-one and over: half-dozen hundred and fifty-nine 1000 five hundred. That's including divorced and widowed, of course, only the majority are bachelors –'

x. 'I can see him now,' said Walter, 'as he was when he was assisted into a chair earlier my easel. Monet was silent for fully ten minutes – the painting was a unproblematic, only rather exquisite roof-elevation scene –'

11. 'Single males of thirty and over,' said Matthew: '3 hundred and 50-8 thousand one hundred. Since 1951 the bachelor population has increased past –'

12. 'Put that vulgar trivial bit of paper away,' Walter said.

Analysis of lexical cohesion

Matthew begins with an observation nigh marriage. Walter answers anaphorically in paragraph 2. In paragraph 3 Matthew continues the cohesion by repeating the lexeme marriage. (A lexeme encompasses all the derived forms, so the lexeme marriage contains marry, married, marrying, marriageable, etc.) In paragraph 4, Walter uses the euphemism got a immature adult female into trouble for 'got pregnant', which is in the same semantic field equally matrimony (in the wider context of the novel, it volition transpire that Walter is a fantasist), and goes on to link this to the lexeme paint. Matthew provides cohesion with marriage with expecting a babe in paragraph five. In paragraph 6 Matthew and Walter begin to diverge: Walter continues with the lexeme paint. In paragraph 7 Matthew continues with pregnancy in be fruitful and multiply. In paragraph 8, Walter is cohesive with paragraphs 4 and half dozen with the words Monet and studio. In paragraph ix, Matthew is cohesive with paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, v, 7, with the lexemes unmarried, divorced, widowed, bachelors. In paragraph x Walter ignores this and continues with his own cohesion with paragraphs 4, half-dozen, and eight with the lexemes him (referring anaphorically to Monet), easel, Monet, painting, scene. In paragraph 11, Matthew continues with lexemes unmarried, bachelor, and in paragraph 12 Walter finally returns to Matthew with the word newspaper, referring anaphorically dorsum to the census of paragraph 9. At no point does Matthew enter into Walter'south reverie nearly having been an aloof painter. There are some more than local lexical cohesions: the repetition of hair in paragraphs 4 and 5; footmen, butler, pantry, silver, Marquise and family, cousin in 4 and six; the number sequences in paragraphs 9 and 11.

Both Matthew and Walter are preoccupied with their own concerns and only pay half attention to the other. Their individual texts are cohesive, merely their joint soapbox in the sequence paragraphs 6-11 is not. These characters are interacting, simply not fully.

The following dialogue is extracted from Caryl Churchill's play Top Girls. Churchill uses the post-obit note system:

when i character starts speaking before the other has finished, the indicate of interruption is marked /

when a speech follows on from a speech before than the one immediately before it, continuity is marked *

Read the following dialogue, looking out for various kinds of cohesion.

[They laugh. They wait at menus.]

1.

ISABELLA Yes, I forgot all my Latin. But my father was the mainspring of my life and when he died I was so grieved. I'll take the chicken, please, / and the soup.

ii.

NIJO Of course yous were grieved. My father was saying his prayers and he dozed off in the sun. So I touched his genu to rouse him. 'I wonder what will happen,' he said, so he was dead before he finished the sentence. / If he'd died saying

4.

NIJO his prayers he would have gone direct to heaven. / Waldorf salad.

v.

JOAN Death is the return of all creatures to God.

6.

NIJO I shouldn't accept woken him.

vii.

JOAN Damnation only ways ignorance of the truth. I was ever attracted past the teachings of John the Scot, though he was inclined to confuse / God and the globe.

8.

ISABELLA Grief always overwhelmed me at the fourth dimension.

9.

MARLENE What I fancy is a rare steak. Gret?

10.

ISABELLA I am of course a fellow member of the / Church of England*

12.

MARLENE *I oasis't been to church for years. / I like Christmas carols.

13.

ISABELLA Good works matter more than than church attendance.

xiv.

MARLENE Make that two steaks and a lot of potatoes. Rare. But I don't exercise good works either.

fifteen.

JOAN Canelloni, please, / and a salad.

16.

ISABELLA Well, I tried, but oh dear. Hennie did good works.

17.

NIJO The first half of my life was all sin and the second / all repentance*

18.

MARLENE Oh what almost starters?

xx.

JOAN *And which did you similar best?

21.

MARLENE Were your travels just a penance? Avocado vinaigrette. Didn't yous / enjoy yourself?

22.

JOAN Nothing to first with for me, thank you lot.

23.

NIJO Yes, just I was very unhappy. / It hurt to retrieve

24.

MARLENE And the vino list.

25.

NIJO the past. I think that was repentance.

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Comment on cohesion in the dialogue, and its result. Write your answer below:

Compare your answer with the sample answer below:

Commentary

It is relatively like shooting fish in a barrel, in this extract, to pick out the lexical cohesion – and the author has helped by making it explicit via her notation arrangement. Two discourses run parallel, one about the ordering of a meal, and i about death, religion and sin. The characters Isabella, Nijo, Joan and Marlene all talk cohesively about these subjects just discover that they almost ever use the pronouns I/me. Gret only participates in the ordering of the meal. In item, there are local cohesions at:

lines 1, 2, v, viii: grieved, grief, dead, died, death
lines 2 and 3: he was dead earlier he finished the sentence and the anaphoric What a stupor (that he was dead before he finished the judgement)
lines seven, 10, 12: God, Church of England, Christmas carols
lines 12, 13: oasis't been to church, church attendance
lines thirteen, 14, sixteen: good works, and the anaphoric I tried (to do good works)
lines 17, 21, 25: sin, penance, repentance

At that place are other types of cohesion. There is the British politeness convention when ordering a repast, with its pleases and thankyous ("I'll have the chicken, please", "Canelloni, please", "Nothing to start with for me, thank you"). There are discourse markers [discourse markers, usually words or short phrases, are linking devices which indicate the speaker's attitude or shift topic]: "Of course you were grieved.", "Well, I tried, just oh honey.", "Oh what about starters?", "And which did you like all-time?"

Cohesion is objectively identifiable. However information technology is less piece of cake to decide the effect, particularly the running of more than one dialogue at once, which makes interpretation demanding for the audience, who are bound to miss some of the dialogue. Do nosotros regard Joan'south preoccupation with God and sin as a social deficiency (she does not offer sympathy to the bereaved Isabella and Nijo), or as prove of her religious character, or both? Are the overlaps a sign of an exuberant group of people anticipating the ends of each others' turns and enthusiastically leaping in with their own contribution, or are they indicative of inattention and social isolation? Ivanchenko (2007) points out that there is no interruption here, the discourse does not become hostile, it remains cohesive with no disjuncts, and so a relatively harmonious estimation of joint collaboration seems preferable – merely some directors have read hostility into the lines at this point.

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Reference

Ivanchenko, Andriy. 2007. An 'interactive' approach to interpreting overlapping dialogue in Caryl Churchill'south Top Girls (Act 1). Linguistic communication and Literature 2007 16(one), 74-89.

This article is is bachelor at SAGE journals , sign in with your Raven password.

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Kent Youth Theatre's production of Meridian Girls.

Here is an amateur production of Top Girls; the stretch of dialogue occurs at 6.58-8.twenty.

Dialogue is a staple of literature, but it is unlike real speech and has evolved stage conventions of its ain, including discrete turn-taking. At that place need not be cohesion (although in that location usually is), only the audition has to be able to interpret the dialogue coherently, if it is to function as such.

Team:

Content: Laura Wright

Illustrations: John Wilcox

Implementation: Pedram Badakhchani

Concept: Christoph Zähner

Copyrights: Elizabeth Tilley

Permissions:

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Every try was made to clear permissions of all extracts reprinted in this English Online Course, and the Kinesthesia of English would be very happy to hear from copyright holders we have been unable to trace.

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Source: https://www.english.cam.ac.uk/elor/lo/cohesion/index.html

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