English cohesive devices with reference to vietnamese equivalence based on the bilingual selected short stories “the last leaf” by o’ henry

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ DUÊ
ENGLISH COHESIVE DEVICES WITH REFERENCE TO
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENCE BASED ON THE BILINGUAL
SELECTED SHORT STORIES “THE LAST LEAF: BY O’ HENRY”
(CÁC PHƢƠNG TIỆN LIÊN KẾT TRONG TIẾNG ANH
LIÊN HỆ VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT DỰA TRÊN TUYỂN TẬP TRUYỆN NGẮN
CHỌN LỌC SONG NGỮ “CHIẾC LÁ CUỐI CÙNG” CỦA O‟ HENRY)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language
Code: 8220201

Hanoi, 2018


MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

NGUYỄN THỊ DUÊ
ENGLISH COHESIVE DEVICES WITH REFERENCE TO
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENCE BASED ON THE BILINGUAL
SELECTED SHORT STORIES “THE LAST LEAF: BY O’ HENRY”
(CÁC PHƢƠNG TIỆN LIÊN KẾT TRONG TIẾNG ANH
LIÊN HỆ VỚI TIẾNG VIỆT DỰA TRÊN TUYỂN TẬP TRUYỆN NGẮN
CHỌN LỌC SONG NGỮ “CHIẾC LÁ CUỐI CÙNG” CỦA O‟ HENRY)

M.A. THESIS
Field: English Language

Code: 8220201

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr.NGUYEN DANG SUU

Hanoi, 2018


STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled “English
cohesive devices with reference to Vietnamese equivalence based on the bilingual
selected short stories “The last leaf by O’ Henry” submitted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Master in English Linguistics. Except where the reference is
indicated, no other person‟s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the text
of the thesis.

Hanoi, 2018

Nguyễn Thị Duê

Approved by
SUPERVISOR

Date:……………………

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This thesis could not have been completed without the help and support
from a number of people.

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Assoc.
Prof. Dr. Nguyen Dang Suu, my supervisor, who has patiently and constantly
supported me through the stages of the study, and whose stimulating ideas,
expertise, and suggestions have inspired me greatly through my growth as an
academic researcher.
My sincere acknowledgement also go to all my lecturers and officers of
Faculty of Graduate Studies, Hanoi Open University, who have facilitated me
with the best possible conditions during my whole course of studying.
Last but not least, I am greatly indebted to my family, my friends for the
sacrifice they have devoted to the fulfillment of this academic work.

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ABSTRACT
The study deals with the types of cohesive devices used in selected short
stories by Olivier Henry. The objectives of study are to identify and to derive the
types of cohesive devices dominantly used in selected short stories. The data are
taken from selected short stories from online edition. This research is conducted
by using descriptive method. Halliday & Hasan framework of cohesion was used
to analyze the frequent use of two aspects of cohesive devices, namely
grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. The results of the cohesive devices
show that reference and repetition are the most frequently followed by
conjunctions and substitutions. The study will become a useful tool for teachers of
English to improve their teaching and will serve as a good reference for those who
love stories by Olivier Henry in particular and literary works in English in general
for a good academic writing.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

PR.:

Personal Reference

DR.:

Demonstrative Reference

CR.:

Comparative Reference

NS.:

Nominal Substitution

VS.:

Verbal Substitution

CS.:

Clausal Substitution

NE.:

Nominal Ellipsis

VE.:

Verbal Ellipsis

CE.:

Clausal Ellipsis

Ad. Conj.:

Additive Conjunction

Adver. Conj:

Adversative Conjunction

Cau. Conj.:

Causal Conjunction

Temp. Conj.:

Temporal Conjunction

Rep.:

Repetition

Syn.:

Synonym

Sup.:

Super ordinate

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LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 2.1: Type of Cohesion ..................................................................................13

Table 2.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion ............................................ 14
Table 2.3: Demonstrative reference .............................................................. 18
Table 4.1: Grammatical cohesive devices in the selected short stories by
O‟ Henry ....................................................................................................... 32
Table 4.2: Lexical Cohesive Devices in the selected short stories by O.
Henry……………………………………………………………………... 44

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Certificate of originality ...............................................................................................i
Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... ii
Abstract...................................................................................................................................... iii
List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................. iv
List of tables and figures............................................................................................................v

Table of content ..............................................................................................vi
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1

1.1.

Rationale for the research ................................................................................ 1

1.2.

Aims of research .............................................................................................. 2

1.3.

Objectives of research ...................................................................................... 3

1.4.

Research questions ........................................................................................... 3

1.5.

Scope of research ............................................................................................. 3

1.6.

Significance of research ................................................................................... 3

1.7.

Design of study…………………………………………………….……… ...4

Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 5

2.1.

Review of previous studies .............................................................................. 5

2.1.1.

Previous studies overseas ............................................................................. 5

2.1.2.

Previous studies in Vietnam.......................................................................... 6

2.2.

Review of theoretical background ................................................................... 7

2.2.1.

The concepts of text and discourse ............................................................... 7

2.2.2.

Concepts of Cohesion ................................................................................. 10

2.2.3.

Cohesive devices ......................................................................................... 14

2.2.3.1. Grammatical cohesive devices…………………………………….………….14
2.2.3.2. Lexical cohesive devices……………………………………………………….23

2.2.4.

Paragraphs ................................................................................................. 26

2.3 Summary ......................................................................................................... 26

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CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………28

3.1.

Subject……………………………………………………………………...28

3.2.

Instrumentation……………………………………………………………………..28

3.3.

Procedures………………………………………………………………......28

3.4.

Statistical Analysis……………………………………………..……….…..29

3.5.

Summary……………………………………………………………………29

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................... ..31

4.1.

Findings ....................................................................................................... ..31

4.1.1. Grammatical Cohesive Device in the selected short stories by O. Henry’s
Stories………………………………………………………………………………31
4.1.1.1. Reference………………………………………………………………................33
4.1.1.2. Substitution…………………………………………………………………..…....36
4.1.1.3. Ellipsis……………………………………………………………….………….....38
4.1.1.4. Conjunction…………………………………………………………….………….39

4.1.2.

Lexical Cohesive Device in the selected short stories by O’ Henry’s

Stories……………………………………………………………………………………...43
4.1.2.1. Reiteration………………………………………………………………….……45
4.1.2.2. Collocation……………………………………………………………………….48
Discussion………………………………………………………………...49
4.3. Implications……………………………………………………………………50

4.2.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………. 52

5.1.

Recapitulation………………………………………………………………52

5.2.

Concluding remarks………………………………………………………...53

5.3.

Limitations of the study…………………………………………………….54

5.4.

Suggestions for future research……………………………………………. 54

REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………. 55
APPENDICES………………………………………………………...................... 57

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Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale

One form of written language is useful to convey knowledge to the people is
discourse. A discourse should have requisite as a good text. Beugrande and Desseler
(1981:3-10) state that a text is a communication occurrence which meets seven

standards of textuality. The requisites of a good text are intentionality, acceptability,
informativity, situationality, intertextuality, coherence and cohesion.
A good discourse has some factors. Some of those factors are described in
terms cohesion or ties which exist within text. Gutwinsky (1976:26) in Tarigan
states that cohesion is a syntactical organization, and is a „container‟ where the
sentences are arranged in harmony intensively to produce discourse.” In other
words, cohesion is the grammatical and lexical relationship within a text or sentence that
holds a text together and gives its meaning.
Text cohesion in the broadest sense is a universal feature shared by all
languages (Hoey 1991, Halliday&Hasan 1976, Nunan 1993). Cohesive devices play
an essential role in producing and interpreting texts. Linguists agree that text
belonging to different registers vary in cohesive ties as well. For instance, literary
texts allow a wider use of synonyms while technical texts give preference to lexical
repetition in order to avoid ambiguity (Buitkiene 2005). Ellipsis and substitution are
more common in more interactive types of discourse (Berzlanovich 2008).
Conjunction is a favored cohesive link by academic discourse (Verikaite 2005).
Moreover, even literary texts themselves present differences in the
distributionofcohesive devices. It is determined by the writer‟s style of writing.
Furthermore, a text of the source language and its translation into the target
language exhibit interesting cases in the distribution of cohesive ties.
Cohesion is an important factor of discourse which has attracted a lot of
attention from linguists. The most significant research on cohesion is “Cohesion in
English” by Halliday and Hasan (1976). Cohesion is considered one of the most
challenging aspects of translation, as any language has its own unique manners in
which it employs cohesive devices in the creation of a cohesive text. Each language
has its own patterns to convey the interrelationships of persons and events; there is
not any language that these patterns may be ignored, if the translation is to

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beunderstood by its readers (Callow, 1974). The topic of cohesion has always
appeared as the most useful constituent of discourse analysis that is applied to
translation. English and Vietnamese have different grammatical and lexical
structures, and it is only natural that they pose great difficulties and challenges for a
translator to deal with, especially in the field ofliterature.
Literature, which plays a very important role in our spiritual life, has been
greatly developing as a consequence of high living standards. As a matter of fact,
there have been more and more people choosing to work in literary field and their
efforts have created so many famous works. It is open to questions as to which
factors have to be taken into consideration to make a successful work? How
important are those factors to the completion of a coherent and cohesive text?
Added to this, the knowledge of cohesion and coherence are actually regarded as
the crucial aspects of the languageusage.
William Sydney Porter, whose pen name was Olivier Henry or O. Henry,
was an American short story writer. He has been recognized amongthe greatest
American authors by his great devotion to American literature.With the huge and
unique collection of short stories; he is deserved to becalled “one of the greatest
masters of modern literature", said StephenLeacock. Nearly 200 short stories
published have gained the notice of thepublic as well as created the lasting
popularity of O Henry‟s literary style.He also employs cohesive devices in his short
stories in making cohesive effect to the short stories. So, it helps the readers to
understand the unity of the text easier.
Those reasons mentioned above are the most important ones that have
encouraged the author to conduct: English cohesive devices with reference to
Vietnamese equivalence based on the bilingual selected short stories “The last
leaf: by O’Henry”as the topic of this study. Based on the detailed classification of
cohesive devices in English by Halliday and Hasan (1976), this study provides a
close analysis of particular cohesive devices in some selected short stories “The last
leaf”. The study is also expected to be a good reference for those who love stories

by O. Henry in particular and literary works in English in general for a good
academic writing.
1.2. Aims of research

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This research is conducted to aim at finding the grammatical and lexical
cohesive devices in the bilingual selected short stories (English and Vietnamese) to
give better opportunities to learners of English so that they can get good result of
their studying English, mainly in using cohesive devices in writing skills.
1.3. Objectives of research
To achieve the above mentioned aims, some following objectives are put forward:
Finding out the grammatical cohesive devices used in the bilingual selected
short stories and the translated version.
Identifying the lexical cohesive devices used in the English selected stories
and the translated version.
Suggesting some possible implications for teaching the cohesive devices used
in English to Vietnamese students of English as a foreign language.
1.4. Research questions
What are the grammatical cohesive devices used in the bilingual selected short
stories and the translated version?
What are the lexical cohesive devices used in the bilingual selected short
stories and the translated version?
What are the possible implications for teaching the cohesive devices in
English toVietnamese students?
1.5. Scope of research
The analysis which is done by the writer is the field of discourse analysis. All
materials were taken from selected short stories by O. Henry for his diversity in
using cohesive devices. The types of cohesive devices are derived from the theory

of Halliday and Hasan(1976).
In this case, the writer would like to scope this thesis only about the analysis
of cohesive devices: grammatical and lexical cohesion found in selected short
stories by O. Henry. It is hoped that the outcome of this research, to some extent,
would be able to make a certain contribution to enhance the quality of English
writing skills of students at the Vinh Bao High school.
1.6. Significance of research
This analysis is expected to be able to give some significance both practically
and theoretically. It is expected that this analysis is practically very significant for
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better understanding of the very basic principles of cohesive devices. Analysis of
these cohesive links within a text gives us some insight into how writers structure
what they want to say and show how one sentence or paragraph relates with another
sentence. Thus, it helps us to understand the unity of the text easier.
Furthermore, this analysis is theoretically expected to be useful as reference
for the readers who are interested in analyzing the same subject.
1.7. Design of the study
Within the scope mentioned above, the study consists of five chapters:
Chapter1 is the INTRODUCTION that presents rationale, aims, scope,
significance, research questions, and organizational structure of the study.
Chapter 2 is the LITERATURE REVIEW that discusses the theoretical
background of the study, in which the definition of text and discourse, cohesion and
coherence as well as cohesive devices are presented.
Chapter 3 is the METHODOLOGY that concentrates on detail of the subject,
instrumentation, procedures and statistical analysisemployed for conducting the
whole thesis.
Chapter 4 is the FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION that describes and analysis
the prevailing cohesive devices in the selected short stories by O. Henry, and his

style in writing the short stories.
Chapter 5 is the CONCLUSION that summarizes the main points presented in
the thesis, the limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research.

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Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The literature review serves two main purposes. Firstly it gives a review of
previous studies related to discourse analysis in general and cohesive devices in
particular. Secondly it presents and discusses the theoretical background which
guide and inform this research.
2.1. Review of previous studies
Cohesive devices which are important factors in discourse analysis by English
as well as a foreign language speaker have attracted the great attention of linguistics
all over the world. Hence, it is no surprise that a large number of studies on English
cohesive devices in terms of various fields of language have been undertaken.
2.1.1. Previous studies overseas
There are some researches analyzing cohesion using theory from Halliday and
Hasan (1976). The first is a work by Morley. He presents the lexical cohesion and
rhetorical structure. This article looks at this argument-structuring function of
lexical cohesion first by considering single text using the techniques of classical
discourse analysis and then by using the methodology of corpus linguistics to
examine several million words of text. In his research, he analyzes the lexical
cohesion in several newspaper headlines and points out the register before analyzing
the lexical cohesion. He also uses the theory of Halliday and Hassan(1976).
Another study that relates to this research is a study done by Rosalina
LBN.Tobing (2008) “The use of cohesive devices in selected short stories of Ernest
Hemingway”. In his research, he focuses on the types of cohesive devices occurred
in selected short stories of Ernest Hemingway and the frequency of each type of

cohesive devices is used.
Another study that relates to this research is a study done by Teich and
Frankhouse (2005). They present a system for linguistic exploration and analysis of
lexical cohesion in English text. They use semantic concordance version of the
Brown Corpus which comprises 352 texts. Each text was divided into paragraphs,
sentences and words. Their work is based on Halliday and Hasan theory (1976:2),
“cohesion is defined as the set of linguistic means we have available for creating
texture”.
The last research is conducted by Stokes (2004). This analysis investigates the

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appropriateness of using lexical cohesion analysis to improve the performance of
Information Retrieval (IR) and Nature Language Processing (NLP) application that
deals with documents in the news domain. Stokes explores the effect of lexical
cohesion analysis on New Story Gisting (ex: a type of summarization that generates
a news story title or headline). In his analyzing, he used the theory proposed by
Halliday and Hasan (1976). He found that lexical is property text that is responsible
for the present of semantically related vocabulary in written and spoken discourse.
The types of lexical cohesion which are found such as repetition, synonym, and
collocation.
2.1.2. Previous studies inVietnam
In Vietnam, a number of linguists and researchers have made great
contributions to the study of discourse analysis. Nguyen ThienGiap (2000) mentions
a set of different aspects as context and semantics, information structures, especially
discourse and discourse analysis. He particularly emphasizes the necessity of
coherence and cohesion in creating a clear and comprehensible discourse/text. Do
HuuChau (2001) point out some of the communicative factors deciding the
successful communication; they are situational context, language and its varieties,

and discourse. He also defines discourse as a continuous stretch of talk, normally
larger than an utterance to make the conversation a coherent unit.
Together with these theoretical studies relating to discourse and discourse
analysis, some practical ones on this topic have been conducted so far, such as the
master thesis “An Analysis of Coherence and Cohesion and a Contrastive Analysis
of Lexical Cohesive Devices in English and Vietnamese” by Phuong To Tam
(2003). The data for this thesis is from a chapter (chapter 5) on International Trade
in the textbook “International Business – An integrated Approach” (1998). The
attention of the study is paid to considering contrastive analysis of lexical cohesive
devices (including reiteration and collocation) in English (source language) in the
original textbook and their equivalents in Vietnamese (target language) in the
translation version. The author then attempts to collect data in both English and
Vietnamese to see the frequencies, similarities and differences of each device and
sub-device of lexical cohesive devices in the discourse of bothlanguages.
The next research in another M.A thesis by Le Thi Mai Hien (2004) entitled
“An Analysis of Cohesive Devices in English Application Letter”. The process of

6


researching on twenty English application letters has enables her to reach the results
of the frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive device. The data present
repetition in English application letter also occupies the first position among the
four kinds of reiteration with up to 53.4%. Different from English sales letters,
super ordinates rank the second with a considerably higher percentage, 24.9%
compared with 11%. Synonyms and Near-synonyms account for nearly the same
portion, which is respectively 10.4% and11.3%.
The next research conducted by Nguyen ThiHoa (2011) “A contrastive study
of grammatical cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese” has pointed out the
similarities and differences in grammatical cohesive devices in English and

Vietnamese. The results of this research help teachers of English and students avoid
making mistakes in using grammatical cohesive devices and translating between
these twolanguages.
The last research is Cao Thi Huyen Nga (2012) entitled “An analysis of
cohesive devices in the ESP textbook on accounting at the University of Labor and
Social Affairs”. This study is mainly aimed at analyzing cohesive devices in the
reading texts on Accounting at ULSA, finding out teachers‟ attitudes towards
cohesion teaching”. The analysis reveals that lexical cohesive devices are used more
often in the textbooks than grammatical cohesive devices. The data from interview
indicates that the teachers often teach cohesion in class but they cannotcover all types of
cohesion.
Although several studies which analyze cohesion and coherence have been
carried out, there is no evidence that any researchers have conducted a study
relating to cohesive devices in the opening paragraphs of short stories in general,
and those by O. Henry in particular as this study aims to explore. Therefore, in this
study, the matter of cohesive in the opening paragraphs of short stories by O. Henry
is taken into consideration with the aim at helping learners of English create their
own writing products coherently; as a result, improve their academic essay writing.
2.2. Review of theoretical background
2.2.1. The concepts of text and discourse
The concepts of text and discourse have always presented a degree of
confusion. Different linguists treat the two terms differently. The concepts were
sometimes regarded as identical, sometimes opposed, or evenunconnected. Due to
7


conventional linguistics, both of them were developed in different scientific
contexts. The necessity for research program on both text and discourse occurred
when a significant amount of independent analysis appeared.
Linguists refer to a text as “any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length

thatformsaunified whole” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:1). In order to create a text as
a unifiedwhole, itis necessary to know what makes text coherent. Firstly, it can be
said that text is not defined by its size, it is not a grammatical unit and it differs
from a sentence. As observed earlier a collection of random sentences cannot be
regarded as the text, it can be said that “in its deep structure, the text is a sequence
of mutually related clauses, which after the application of appropriate textualizing
operations, are turned into text sentences” (ValeikaandBuitkienė, 2006:168).
Furthermore in order to create mutually connected sentences the meaning that is
semantic relation of the words is important, because words and context are in
separable. If we take any word for example, we can make predictions about the
textual environment it can occur, and if we know something about the environment,
then we can make predictions about the words which are likely to occur there
(Stubbs, 2002:100). The main conclusion, however, is that the meaning and logical
relation of words and sentences are important when creating a coherent text. That is
why the text is not composed of sentences it is realized by sentences. (Halliday and
Hasan, 1976:1-2)
The word “text” refers to any instance of language, in any medium, that makes
sense tosomeone who knows the language. We can produce text, when we speak or
write. Halliday and Hasan (1976:1) purpose that text can be in the form of spoken
or written. A spoken language is in the forms of conversation, speech, storytelling,
while written language is reflected in the forms of newspaper, magazine, and book.
Fadjrin (2011:3) states that cohesion is the most important thing needed in
cohesiveness of a text or discourse, including in the journalistic text. It shows that
cohesion helps the process of understanding a text by using its connective so that
the information will be easy to understand. Within a text, if an item previously
mentioned isreferred to again and dependent with another element, it is considered a
tie or cohesive device. The cohesive devices are tools that when used appropriately
enable the writer tohang sentences and text segments together (Fakeuade and
Sharndama, 2012:300-318). Cohesive device or types of cohesion consist of five

8


such as reference, conjunction, substitution, ellipsis, and lexical cohesion. Cohesive
device will help the participants in interpreting a text.
In Bell‟s opinion (1991) a text must possess:
A. Generic structure (it must belong to cognizable genre or register);
B. Textual structure (it must reflect the selection of options from the same
systems, theme and information);
C. Internal cohesion.
His definitions are as follows:
“Text: the formal product of selections of options from the theme systems of
the grammar; a unit which carries the semantic sense of the proposition (the
prepositional content and locutionary force of the speech acts) through sentences
which are linked by means of cohesion”.
Discourse: a communicative event which draws on the meaning potential of
the language (and other systems of communication) to carry communicative value
(the illocutionary force) of speech acts through utterances which are linked by
means of coherence”.
The Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics
(1998) defines discourse as follows: “Discourse is a general term for example of
language use, i.e. language has been produced as the result of an act of
communication.” Sharing the same concern, many other linguists have so far given
definitions of discourse. Widdowson (1979) states: “Discourse is a use of sentences
to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger communicative units,
ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the pieces of
language as a whole as a kind of communication.” Whereas Crystal (1992: 25) says:
“Discourse is a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence, often
constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke or a narrative.” Quite
differently from the others, Halliday and Hasan (1976) give a simple definition:

“We can define text (discourse) in the simplest way perhaps by saying that it is
language that is functional.”
Linguists have paid much attention to the distinction between a discourse and
a text since confusion of these two terms may result in the failures of discourse
analysis. Even though that the distinction is not always clear and the two terms are
9


used interchangeably by some linguists. As in the above-mentioned definition of
discourse by Halliday and Hasan, “text” is employed to refer to “discourse”; they
see “text” as a “semantic unit” characterized by cohesion. The two authors state: “A
text is a passage of discourse which coherent in these two regards: it is coherent
with respect to the context of situation, and therefore consistent in register; and it is
coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive” (1976: 23). For some other
linguists, “text” is used for writing and “discourse” for speech. The third group of
linguists like Brown & Yule, Nunan, Widdowson, and Cook see discourse as a
process and text as a product. Brown & Yule argue that text is the representation of
discourse and the verbal record of a communicative act.
In this study, we would like to take Widdowson‟s viewpoint of the difference
and the interrelationship between the two as the base: “Discourse is a
communicative process by means of interaction. Its situational outcome is a change
in state of affairs: information is conveyed, intentions made clear, its linguistic
product is Text.” (1984: 100)
2.2.2. Concepts of Cohesion
Cohesion based on Halliday and Hasan (1976) “cohesion theory as the major
characteristic of coherence considering linguistic properties of the language, gives a
sequence of sentences a coherent texture. Cohesion occurs where the interpretation
of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another”. Halliday and
Hasan (1976, p. vii) pointed out that cohesion is one of the linguistic system's major
resources for text construction. In fact, cohesion represents the presence of explicit

cues in the text that allow readers/listeners to find semantic relations within it as
part of linguistic system enhancing the semantic potentials of text. A text is
meaningful only when elements referring to each other in the text set up a relation.
The relation can be set up through reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction
as grammatical and lexical cohesion. So, the grammar and lexicon are two forms of
cohesion. These cohesive devices used by speakers and writers in order to express
meaning based on the interpretations of the listeners and readers provide semantic
relations for the semantic units whose interpretations they facilitate. Cohesion
depicts how meaning-based relationship is set up by lexical and syntactic features.
These explicit lexical and syntactic features are known as cohesive devices,
signaling the relationship in sentences and paragraphs. Halliday and Hasan (1976)
introduced five different types of cohesive devices in order to provide a guidelinefor
10


studying and judging the cohesion and coherence of writing: (a)reference (i.e., the
indication of information from elsewhere such as personals, demonstratives, and
comparatives), (b) substitution (i.e., thereplacement of one component by another),
(c) ellipsis (i.e., the omission of a component), (d) conjunction (i.e., the indication
of specific meaning which presupposes present items in the discourse, such as
additive, adversative, casual, and temporal), and finally (e) lexical cohesion (i.e., the
repetition of the same orrelative lexical items). They contended that through
analyzing the use of cohesive devices, one could evaluate or assess writing quality
from the perspective ofcoherence.
Cohesion is the term used to describe the structural, grammatical and lexical
means by which sentences and paragraphs in the texts are linked and relationships
between them established. The basic concept that is employed in analyzing the
cohesion of a text on the basis of the presented framework of cohesion by
Halliday&Hasan is that of the tie. It is a complex notion which comprises not only
the cohesive element by itself but also that which is presupposed by it. The notion is

interpreted as a relation between these two elements. The relation may be
anaphoric, with the presupposed element preceding, or cataphoric, with the
presupposed element following.
According to Halliday&Hasan (1976), other cohesive relations are:
1.Exophoric relation is found outside the text, i.e. in thesituation
2.Paraphoric relation points to the information that is in the other text.
3.Homophonicrelation is a self- interpreting relation. Entities are unique under
certain circumstances.
While analyzing cohesion,two facts about ties have to be taken into
consideration. In the first place, any sentence may have more than one tie in it. In
the second place, the distance between cohesive items may be immediate, i.e. the
presupposed item may be in the immediate preceding sentence; or remote, i.e. the
presupposed item may be not in the immediately preceding sentence. Also, the
presupposed item may include a mediated tie. Distance between ties is relevant in
terms of analysis of cohesion (Halliday&Hasan1976).

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In English, the basic means of establishing cohesion are through the use of
pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and adverbials to substitute, repeat, refer or
omit items across a text and others, and lexical cohesive devices. Cohesion occurs
where the interpretation of some element in the text is dependent on that of another.
The one presupposes the other, in the sense that it cannot be effectively decoded
except by shift to it. When this happens, a relation of cohesion is set up, and the two
elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are thereby at least potentially
integrated into a text (Halliday&Hasan 1976: 4).
According to Halliday&Hasan in their book Cohesion in English, language
can be expressed through the concept of cohesion. The concept of cohesion is a
semantic one, it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text and that

define it as a text. Cohesion is a semantic relation between an element in the text
and some other element that is crucial to the interpretation ofit.
A text should be a unified whole; it is not just a collection of unrelated
sentences. Therefore, to make a text as a unified whole, there should be a device to
tie it together. The device is cohesive devices.
Connor (1984) defines cohesion as the use of explicit cohesive devices that
signal relations among sentences and part of a text (Rahman, 2013: 2). This means
that the use of cohesive devices enables readers and listeners to capture the
connectedness orthe meaning between what precedes and what follows. It also
shows that cohesive device isimportant.
2.2.3. Cohesive devices
Cohesive devices are the ones used to stick one clause to another in a sentence
and one sentence to another in a paragraph and make the text communicative.
According to M.A.K. Halliday and RuqaiyaHasan, there are two main types of
cohesion: grammatical, referring to the structural content, and lexical, referring to
the language content of the piece. Five general categories of cohesive devices that
create coherence in texts can be identified are: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical
cohesion and conjunction.
Logical cohesion is on the border-line of the grammatical and lexical, the set
of conjunctive elements can probably be interpreted grammatically in terms of
systems.

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According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the classification of cohesion is
based on the linguistic form. The types of cohesion depend either on semantic
relation in the linguistic system or on lexico-grammatical relations. In other words,
the cohesive relation can be interpreted as being either lexico-grammatical in nature
or semantic. It can be made clearer in the followingdescription:

Table 2.1: Type of Cohesion
Nature of cohesive relation

Type of cohesion

Relatedness of form

Substitution and ellipsis; lexical collocation

Relatedness of reference

Reference; lexical reiteration

Semantic connection

Conjunction

(Source: Halliday and Hasan, 1976:304)
Reference, substitution and ellipsis are clearly grammatical; lexical cohesion,
as the name implies, lexical. Conjunction is on the borderline of the grammatical
and the lexical; the set of conjunctive element can probably be interpreted
grammatically in terms of systems, and some conjunctive expressions involve
lexical selection. However, it is better to put it in the group of grammatical cohesion
as it is mainly grammatical with a lexical component inside. Consequently, we can
refer to grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion as follows:

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Table 2.2: Grammatical and Lexical Cohesion

Grammatical cohesion

Lexical cohesion

Reference

Conjunction

Reiteration

 Exospheric

 Additive

 Same word/repetition

 Endophoric

 Adversative

 Synonym/nearsynonyms

- personal

 Causal

 Superordinates

- demonstrative

 Temporal

 Generalwords

- comparative

 Others

Collocation

Substitution

 Noun +Noun

 Nominal

 Adjective +Noun

substitution

 Verb +Noun

 Verbalsubstitution

 Noun +Preposition

 Clausalsubstitution

 Adjective +Preposition

Ellipsis

 Nominal ellipsis
 Verbalellipsis

 Adverb +Adjective
 Verb +Preposition

 Clausalellipsis
(Adapted from Haliday and Hasan, 1976)
2.2.3.1. Grammatical cohesive devices
Grammatical cohesion is constructed by the grammatical structures, each
component tie each other. Halliday and Hasan (1976) classify grammatical cohesion
into 4 major classes: Reference, Substitution, Ellipsis and Conjunction.
a. Reference
Reference is one of the most extensively used cohesive devices in texts.
Therefore, we will have a closer look at the definition of reference and what
characterizes this particular type of cohesion.
Reference is a well-researched area within linguistics. According to Lyons
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(1969: 424), “this term was introduced into linguistics to name the relationship
which holds between words and things, events, actions, and the qualities they stand
for” (cited in Verikaite 1999: 47). The development of linguistics has broadened the
meaning of reference. Salkie (1995: 5) claimed that it includes “a relation between
the meaning of a word and its environment, which can be either a real world or the
text”.
Every language has particular items which have the feature of reference. They
make reference to something else for their interpretation. In English it is personals,

demonstratives and comparatives. These items show that information indicates
something else. It shows the relationship between a word and what it points to in the
real world (Baker, 1992:181). The main feature that characterizes reference is that
the information signals for retrieval. The identity of particular thing that is being
referred to has a referential meaning and cohesion is found then the same thing
occurs a second time. Reference has the semantic feature of definiteness or
specificity. Because of that there has to be reference to the context of situation.
Referencing items do not have to match the grammatical class they must have
semantic properties (Halliday and Hasan, 1976:31).
There is referential cohesion in every language, they are in their own right,
they make reference to something else for their interpretations” (Haliday and Hasan,
1976). There are three types of reference in English. They are personal,
demonstrative and comparative items which have the property of reference (…),
instead of being interpreted semantically.
Haliday and Hasan (1976) make a clear distinction between situational and
textual reference by contrasting Exophora, or Exophoric reference with Endophora
or Endophoric reference as a general name for reference within thetext
Exophoric reference looks outside the text to the situation in which the text
occurs for the item which is being refer to (Paltridgeand Burton, 2000).
E.g.We are at the supermarket and we’ll be here for about another hour.
In this example, “The” and “here” are only instances of exophoric reference if
the name of the restaurant has not already been referred to earlier in the text
(Paltridge and Burton,2000).
Endophoric reference is textual reference referring to an item which is

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identified in the text.
E.g:"If a man has talent and can't use it, he's failed." "If a man has talent and

can't use it, he's failed." In this example, “he”is a man; “it”: talent.
A reference item may be either exospheric or endophoric. If it is endophoric, it
may be anaphoric or cataphoric.
Anaphoric reference signifies a word or phrase that refers to another or
phrase used earlier in a text (Paltridge and Burton, 2000).
E.g."No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether
she will or will not be a mother."
In this example, “herself” &“she”: woman.
Cataphoric reference describes the use of a word or phrase that refers to
another word or phrase which is used later in a text (Paltridge and Burton,2000).
E.g.When I told them I got the first prize, my parents smiled happily.
In this example, “them” refers to my parents.
Halliday and Hasan (1976) divide referential cohesion into three sub- types:
personal, demonstrative and comparative.
When characterizing reference, “It is often considered important in formal
semantics that the expression used to refer to an entity must, in its description, be
true of the entity. That is, if an individual is referred to by the expression must be
true of the individual in order for correct reference to take place” (Brown & Yule
1996: 205). However, when we analyse discourse, we are interested not in the
correct reference but in the success of reference. Successful reference can only be
achieved if three conditions are met. In the first place, the speaker must have
linguistic competence, i.e. the speaker and the addressee must know the language in
which they communicate. In the second place, the speaker must have the cognitive
ability. That is she/ he must have enough factual knowledge about the reference.
Thirdly, the speaker must have pragmatic willingness to communicate the total
knowledge he has about the referent. But this of course may not always be the case;
the speaker may wish to keep some information from us (Yule 1996:17).
Nevertheless, Halliday & Hasan (1976) define reference as a case where the
information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the particular

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