Grammatical cohesive devices in tiếng anh 12 reading texts and their vietnamese equivalents

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING
HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

M.A. THESIS

GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN
TIẾNG ANH 12 READING TEXTS AND THEIR
VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS
(Các phương tiện liên kết ngữ pháp dùng trong các bài
đọc Tiếng Anh 12 thí điểm và bản dịch tương đương
tiếng Việt)
LE THI XUAN
Field: English Language
Code: 8.22.02.01

Hanoi, November 2020


CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY
I, the undersigned, hereby certify my authority of the study project report entitled
GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN TIẾNG ANH 12 READING
TEXTS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE EQUIVALENTS submitted in partial
fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in English Language.
Except where the reference is indicated, no other person’s work has been used
without due acknowledgement in the text of the thesis.
Hanoi, 2020

Le Thi Xuan
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. Ho Ngoc Trung, 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.
A special word of thanks goes to all the lecturers of the M.A course at Hanoi
Open University and many others, without whose support and encouragement it
would never have been possible for me to have this thesis accomplished.
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.

ii


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Certificate of originality

i

Acknowledgements

ii

Table of contents

iii

Abstract

iv
vi

List of abbreviations

vvii

List of tables and figures

viii

Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale

1

1.2. Aims and objecties of the study

2

1.3. Research questions

2

1.4. Methodology of the study

2

1.5. Scope of the study

3

1.6. Significance of the study

3

1.7. Structure of the study

4

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Review of the previous studies

5

2.2. Review of theoretical background

6

2.2.1. The Theory of discourse and Discourse Analysis

6

2.2.1.1. The concept of discourse

6

2.2.1.2. Discourse and text

8

2.2.1.3. Spoken and written discourse

9

iii


2.2.1.4. Discourse analysis

10

2.2.2. Cohesion and Coherence in Discourse

10

2.2.3. Types of Cohesion

12

2.2.4. Grammatical Cohesion

13

2.2.4.1. Reference

13

2.2.4.2. Substitution

18

2.2.4.3. Ellipsis

21

2.2.4.4. Conjunction

22

2.2.5. A brief oveview of contrastive analysis

25

2.3. Framework of the Study

26

2.4. An introduction to the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” and “ Học Tốt 29
Tiếng Anh 12 Thí Điểm”
2.5. Summary of the chapter

30

Chapter 3: GRAMMATICAL COHESIVE DEVICES IN TIẾNG
ANH 12 READING TEXTS AND THEIR VIETNAMESE
EQUIVALENTS IN HỌC TỐT TIẾNG ANH 12

3.1. Grammatical cohesive devices used in English texts

31

3.1.1. Reference

31

3.1.2. Substitution

35

3.1.3. Ellipsis

36

3.1.4. Conjunction

37

3.1.5. General overview of frequecy and distribution of grammatical
iv


cohesive devices in the chosen English texts

40

3.2. A comparison and contrast between the use of grammatical

41

cohesive devices in Tiếng Anh 12 reading texts and their Vietnamese
equivalent in Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12
3.2.1. In terms of reference

42

3.2.2. In terms of subtitution and ellipsis

44

3.2.3. In terms of conjunction

46

3.3. Implication for teaching and learning grammatical cohesive devices

47

3.3.1. For teachers

48

3.3.1.1. How to teach cohesion in reading classes

49

3.3.1.2. How to teach cohesion in writing classes

50

3.3.2. For students

51

3.3.

51

Summary of the chapter

Chapter 4: CONCLUSION
4.1. Recapitulation

53

4.2. Concluding remarks

54

4.2. Limitation of the study

55

4.3. Recommendations and suggestions for further research

55

REFERENCES
APPENDICES
APPENDIX I
APPENDIX II

v


ABSTRACT
The thesis deals with the use of grammatical cohesive devices in the reading
texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” and the Vietnamese equivalents in “Học
tốt Tiếng Anh 12”. In the thesis, the theoretical background knowledge is based
on the viewpoints of Halliday and Hasan (1976). The data was collected from
the ten reading passages extracted from the new English textbook for grade 12
students, called “Tiếng Anh 12”, first published in 2015 and the Vietnamese
equivalents in “Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12”. Combinations of methods such as
descriptive, statistic and contrastive analysis are used with a view to: Firstly,
investigating the frequency and distribution of grammatical cohesive devices
used in the chosen English texts; Secondly, finding out the similarities and
differences between English texts and their Vietnamese translation in terms of
the cohesive devices used and their semantic relationships, as well as the
possible occurrences of cohesion shifts. Findings reveal that Vietnamese and
English have more similarities than differences in terms of grammatical
cohesive devices, but there are significant differences in the frequency of their
occurrence. The similarities are significantly preserved for the purpose of
accurateness, transparency and formality. Accordingly, not all English

grammatical cohesive devices are translated into Vietnamese which causes a lot
of challenges in learning and teaching

this

phenomenon. Related

recommendations are suggested in the hope of providing English teachers and
their students with some useful strategies in teaching and learning grammatical
cohesive devices in general, and in teaching and learning reading and writing
skills in particular more effectively.
vi


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
DA:

Discourse Analysis

C:

Conjunction

C1:

Additive

C2:

Adversative

C3:

Causal

C4:

Temporal

CA:

Contrastive analysis

CAH:

Contrastive Analysis Hypothesis

E:

Ellipsis

E1:

Nominal Ellipsis

E2:

Verbal Ellipsis

E3:

Clausal Ellipsis

R:

Reference

R1:

Pronominals

R2:

Demonstratives and Definite Article

R3:

Comparatives

S:

Substitution

S1:

Nominal Substitution

S2:

Verbal Substitution

S3:

Clausal Substitution

SLA:

Second Language Acquisition

vii


LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 2.1: Types of cohesion based on Halliday and Hasan

12

Table 2.2: Reference

15

Table 2.3: Personal Reference

16

Table 2.4: Comparative Reference

18

Table 3.1: The occurrence of reference in the English texts

33

Table 3.2: The occurrence of ellipis in the English texts

35

Table 3.3: The occurrence of conjunctions in the English texts

37

Table 3.4: density and distribution of major group of grammatical

40

cohesive devices in the chosen English texts
Table 3.5: Reference in English texts and Vietnamese equivalents

42

Table 3.6: Substitution in English texts and Vietnamese equivalents

44

Table 3.7: Ellipsis in English texts and Vietnamese equivalents

44

Table 3.8: Conjunction in English texts and Vietnamese equivalents

45

Figure 3.1: The percentage of reference in the English texts

33

Figure 3.2: The percentage of ellipis in the English texts

36

Figure 3.3: The percentage of conjunctions in the English texts

39

viii


Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Rationale
The English language, due to its hegemony throughout the world, has become an
international language, a lingua franca, it is both the most common language and
pivotal tool in international communication and global integration. Moreover, much
more demand, as a result of rapid globalization and increasing international trade,
has been made for people who can communicate in English. In Viet Nam, English
has long been considered an important subject in schools and a major at the tertiary
level.
In English as well as other languages, discourse is essential in communicating
thoughts and ideas. In order to understand any discourse, it must achieve cohesion.
Apparently, discourse unity can only be established via the use of cohesive devices
that contribute to text cohesion. According to Halliday and Hasan (1976), a text is

“any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified
whole” and “is best regarded as a semantic unit”. Halliday and Hasan (1976)
perceived cohesion as the only factor that distinguishes texts from nontexts.
Therefore, the mastery of cohesive devices is a crucial element for academic
success in any language program where English is the medium of instruction.
As a teacher of English who has been working for seventeen years, I have seen firsthand difficulties that high school students face in comprehending as well as in
writing English texts, especially in utilizing cohesive devices which are fundamental
to create cohesively unified texts. It cannot be denied that understanding
thoroughly the use of cohesive devices as linguistic means in the text is very
essential for students of English. The demand for analyzing cohesive devices used
in the texts of the textbook becomes extremely urgent. Therefore, this paper is
carried out with a view to exploring and describing the grammatical cohesive
devices used in the reading passages in the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” edited by
Hoàng Văn Vân and their Vietnamese equivalents in “Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12”,
based on the work of Halliday and Hasan (1976), in order to help high school
students enhance their reading comprehension and academic writing skills, in
particular and to improve English teaching and learning in general.

1


1.2. Aims and objectives of the study
Aims: To help learners of English master the use of grammatical cohesive devices
in English reading and writing.
Objectives:
-

-

-

To identify the density and distribution of grammatical cohesive devices
used in the reading passages in the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” edited by
Hoàng Văn Vân and their Vietnamese equivalents in “Học Tốt Tiếng Anh
12”.
To find out the similarities and differences between the use of grammatical
cohesive devices in the reading passages in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12”
edited by Hoàng Văn Vân and their Vietnamese equivalents in “Học Tốt
Tiếng Anh 12”.
To give some implications for teaching and learning cohesive devices to
enhance students’ reading comprehension skills and writing skills.

1.3. Research questions
The following research questions are raised for exploration while carrying out this
study.
1. How are grammatical cohesive devices used in the new textbook Tiếng Anh
12 reading passages in terms of distribution and cohesive functions?
2. What are the similarities and differences in using cohesive devices in reading
passages in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” edited by Hoàng Văn Vân and their
Vietnamese equivalents in “ Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12”?
3. What implication is drawn for teaching and learning cohesive devices?
1.4. Methodology of the study
1.4.1. Research orientations
The study cannot reach its final page without a logical system of approaches and
methods. Descriptive approach was applied to identify the types of grammatical
cohesive devices used in the chosen texts. The quantitative and qualitative
approaches were adopted to investigate the density of cohesive devices. And then,
contrastive analysis was carried out to find out the similarities and differences

2

between grammatical cohesive devices in English texts and their Vietnamese
equivalents.
1.4.2. Research Methods
Firstly, a number of materials on discourse analysis and contrastive analysis are
discovered to give the research a theoretical base. Then, it is ensured that none of the
most noticeable grammatical cohesive devices in reading passages in the textbook
“Tiếng Anh 12” edited by Hoàng Văn Vân and their Vietnamese equivalents in “Học
Tốt Tiếng Anh 12” is missed in the analysis and synthesis. A contrastive analysis is
applied to identify the similarities and differences in using grammatical cohesive
devices in the reading passages in the chosen textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” and their
Vietnamese equivalents in “Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12”. Finally, the results are drawn out
so that the author can suggest some teaching implications.
1.5. Scope of the Study
Within the limitation of the study, only grammatical cohesive devices in the reading
texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” are observed in terms of their distribution and
cohesive funtions. A contrastive analysis is also applied to identify the similarities
and differences in using grammatical cohesive devices in the English reading
passages and their Vietnamese equivalents. Only two skills, reading and writing are
chosen to present.
1.6. Significance of the study
1.6.1.Theoretical significance
The study brings with it the task to verify the correctness and significance of
linguistic theory by working on the discourses of different issues in social life
mentioned in the researched textbook. The study was also hoped to become a
valuable writing paper for those who are interested in giving further studies on
grammatical cohesive devices in academic texts. From what have been found in the
study, it is desired to be applied to draw out other researches on other kinds of texts
or documents.

1.6.2. Practical significance
Thanks to some recommendations in the study, it was hoped to bring great benefits

3


for learners of English who want to use grammatical cohesive devices to express
any ideas effectively. Moreover, hopefully, the researcher hopes to help Vietnamese
teachers and learners overcome difficulties in teaching and learning this
phenomenon.
1.7. Structure of the study
This graduation thesis is designed with 4 chapters:
- Chapter 1 (Introduction) introduces Rationale, Aims and objectives of the study,
Research questions, Methods of the study, Scope of the study, Significance of the
study, and Structure of the study.
- Chapter 2 (Literature review) deals with the theory related to Discourse and
Discourse Analysis, cohesion, and cohesive devices, as well as the theory of
contrastive analysis.
- Chapter 3 (Data analysis) analyses grammatical cohesive devices used in the
reading texts in the new textbook edited by Hoàng Văn Vân for grade 12 students
and their Vietnamese equivalents in Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12, basing on the view of
Holliday and Has an (1976); Compares and contrasts to find out some differences
and similarities in using cohesive devices in English and Vietnamese; gives some
implications for teaching and learning cohesion basing on reading and writing
skills.
- Chapter 4 (Conclusion) aims at summarizing the thesis by showing the study
results and giving some concluding remarks. Some suggestions for further studies
are also included to promise the continuance of the author’s future work.

4

Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter is devoted to a study of cohesive devices in English, presenting a
detailed overview of the different categories of cohesion in English as suggested
by Halliday and Hasan (1976) as well as some other researchers. The main
objective is to set a theoretical foundation for a linguistic analysis of
grammatical cohesive devices used in some English texts in the course book
“Tiếng Anh 12”.
2.1. Review of the previous studies
Cohesion has been studied thoroughly in various aspects. Most scholars including
Halliday and Hasan (1976), Beaugrande and Dressler (1981), Lyons (1995) define
cohesion as the network of lexical, grammatical, and other relations. These
relations link various parts of a text, organize it and require the reader to
interpret words and expressions by reference to other words and expressions
in the surrounding sentences. In other words, cohesion is a surface relation and
it connects together the actual words and expressions that we can see or hear.
There are two main divisions of cohesion namely: grammatical and lexical. This
paper focuses on grammatical cohesion. It is a relation between two adjacent text
units. Grammatical cohesion connects together the actual words and expressions;
because of that it is a surface relation. It is divided into reference, substitution,
ellipsis and conjunction.
The theory and practice of grammatical cohesion have been widely analyzed by
many foreign linguists such as Halliday and Hasan (1976), Beaugrande and
Dressler (1981), Lyons (1995), Baker (1992), Yule (1996) as well as the Lithuanian
scholars Valeika (2001). Abundant works about grammatical cohesion have been
written, but it would seem that further investigation is needed in the usage of
grammatical cohesion appearing in the academic texts as well as in a textbook for
high school students.
In Vietnam, discourse analysis has also drawn much attention of many linguists,

namely Trần Ngọc Thêm (1999), Diệp Quang Ban (2008), Nguyễn Hòa (2008).
Cohesion and cohesive devices have been addressed widely in literature as a

5


part of either discourse analysis or text analysis. Abundance of books and articles
have been published with the aim of discussing the distribution and the importance
of these devices in various types of texts. But most of these studies were directed
towards the study of written texts such as novels, essays, articles, children
stories, students’ writings, etc.
This study has been designed to discuss the use of grammatical cohesive devices
in the reading texts in the textbook “Tiếng Anh 12” edited by Hoàng Văn Vân and
their Vietnamese equivalents in “Học Tốt Tiếng Anh 12”. Then a comparison will
be drawn between them aiming to find the similarities and differences between
the two documents regarding the use of grammatical cohesive devices.
2.2. Review of theoretical background
2.2.1. The Theory of Discourse and Discourse Analysis
2.2.1.1. The concept of discourse
There are some definitions of discourse according to many theories. According to
Crystal, discourse is continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger
than a sentence, often constitutes a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument,
joke, or narrative. In this case, discourse is seen as a communication language, an
exchange between speaker and listener, and a personal activity which typically
determined by social objectives.
Discourse can also be defined as an instance of language use whose type can be
classified on the basis of grammatical and lexical choices and their distribution in
main versus supportive materials, theme, style, and the framework of knowledge
and expectations within which the addressee interprets the discourse. The
analysis of language in use is called discourse analysis. According to Paltridge

2006, it focuses on knowledge about language beyond the word, clause, phrase
and sentence that is needed for successful communication. This branch of
linguistics got its name in 1952. It was suggested by Z. S. Harris who put the idea
forward of analyzing the certain elements in texts according to their same
environments.
Usually, the object of the discourse analysis is a text. As Virtanen (2008, 1044)
claims, studying entire texts in context is one of the main tasks of discourse

6


analysis. Context can be understood as either understanding of factors outside the
analyzed text, or as knowledge of other parts of the analyzed text referred to
as co-text. According to Cook 1994, Discourse analysis must be both a study
of the formal linguistic qualities of stretches of language (texts), and a study of
the variable perception of these stretches of language by individuals and
groups”. Paltridge (2011, 9) terms the discourse analysis “<…> a view of
language at the level of text”.
One of the ways to look at discourse is to think about it as the social
construction of reality. According to this view, texts are seen as communicative
units which are embedded in social and cultural practices. Besides this, discourses
include different social languages which are used to perform and recognize
socially situated identities (Paltridge 2011: 9-12). Discourse is closely related
to culture, and this makes it the object of investigation which causes the interest
of sociologists as well as linguists.
In brief, discourse is a unit of spoken and written language that has relevance
among sections (cohesion), integration (coherent), and meaningful. Based on the
explanation, discourse uses the language that can be a series of sentences or
sequences of speech (although discourse may be one sentence or utterance).
Discourse is formed by a series of sentence or utterances that have certain

principles, the principle of integrity (unity) and cohesion (coherent). Moreover,
the complete discourse is the discourse which has supporting topics. Whereas, the
coherent discourse is the discourse which has sentence regularly and systematically,
and shows the idea. Based on the theories above, the discourse is like a “puzzle”
that has some small pieces. The small pieces are called sentence, that containing
the idea. Therefore, structure, coherence, and continuity among sentence to
another sentences should be appropriate, in order to become a meaningful
discourse.
Although discourse is understood and defined differently, the definition by Halliday
and Hasan, in which the discourse means language in use, seems to be the clearest to
follow. That is also the concept adapted in this research. Besides, as far as the scope
of discourse is concerned, discourse refers not only to spoken interactions and
interviews, but also to written and printed words, such as newspapers, articles, and

7


letters. The discourses in the research are written texts in textbook.
2.2.1.2. Discourse and text
The distinction between discourse and text has been paid much attention to for ages.
Although it is common knowledge that this distinction is not always visible,
confusion of these two terms may result in the failures of discourse analysis. There
exist two opposite points of view to the problem.
On the one hand, text and discourse are seen inconsistently. Widowson (1979:98)
makes a very clear and explicit distinction between text and discourse. According to
him, a text is the combination of sentences with the relation of their grammatical
cohesion, whereas discourse is the use of such sentences for communicative
purposes and discourse has coherence. Cook (1989:168) considered text as “a
stretch of language” doing nothing with context, while discourse is also “a stretch
of language”, but in context. Crystal (1992: 72), sharing the same ideas with

Widdowson, says that text should be used only for writing and discourse for speech.
On the other hand, the two terms are said to be interchangeable. In their book
“Cohesion in English”, Halliday and Hasan define text as follows:
A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a
sentence; and it is not defined by its size. A text is sometimes envisaged to be some
kind of super sentence, a grammatical unit that is larger than a sentence but is
related to a sentence in the same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a
clause to a group and so on: by constituency, the composition of larger units out of
smaller ones. But this is misleading. A text is not something that is like a
sentence, only bigger; it is something that differs from a sentence in kind. A text
does not consist of sentences, it is realized by, or encoded in, sentences. (Halliday
and Hasan 1976:1-2)
In their sense, “text” refers to “discourse”, and is “a passage of discourse.”
Schiffrin (1994: 363-364) supports this by stating that text is a linguistic product of
discourse that can be studied without reference to its contextual elements as an
evidence of linguistic rules. Salkie, (1995: IX) views text and discourse analysis as
just one area of linguistics - “the systematic study of language”; therefore, according
to him “a text, or a discourse, is a stretch of language that may be longer than one

8


sentence. Thus, text and discourse analysis is about how sentences combine to form
texts.” Cohesion, then, is a principle factor in determining texture since it is a means
through which we can relate our utterances or sentences.
Taking everything into account, text and discourse are closely related. One
offers the data for the analysis of the other. Text being a stretch of language
becomes discourse in a certain situation where it gains meaning for its users. In
this work, only the written texts will be investigated, and one of the types of
analysis used will be discourse analysis. One of my purposes in this work is to

analyze the use of grammatical cohesive devices in English. Cohesive devices
assist in creating cohesive ties that help to create texture. For this reason, the
term “text” in this work will be used to refer to the unit from which the data for the
analysis was collected.
2.2.1.3. Spoken and written discourse
Spoken and written discourses are different modes of discourse. Cook, (1989:50)
distinguishes them as follows:
“Spoken discourse is often considered to be less planned, more open to intervention
by the receiver. There are some kinds of spoken discourse, however -like lesson,
lectures, interview, and trials- which have significant features in common with
typical written discourse. Conversely, there are at times when readers do have rights
to affect written discourse. Written responds to the market.”
Brown and Yule (1983:13), moving on the same route, differentiate spoken
discourses from written ones in terms of their various functions: the first is used for
the establishment and maintenance of human relationships (interactional use) and
the second for the working out of and transference of information (transactional
use). In “Discourse analysis: an introduction”, Paltridge (2006: 25) concludes that
“speaking and writing draw on the same underlying grammatical system but in
general they encode meanings in different ways depending on what they wish to
present.”
In Cook’s opinion (1989: 128), whether the discourse is spoken or written
profoundly influences the choices of the appropriate cohesive ties. This present
study focuses on product of communicative process. Thus, though both spoken and

9


written texts are made to be persuasive and attractive, we just look into cohesion in
written discourses, not in the spoken ones. The question is how we can analyze a
discourse. There is nothing better than basing ourselves on disciplines of discourse

analysis.
2.2.1.4. Discourse analysis
Discourse Analysis (DA) has been developed from the work of different disciplines
in the 1960s and early 1970s, including linguistics, semiotics, psychology,
anthropology and sociology. Discourse analysts study language in use, written texts
and spoken data of all kinds under the approach different from that of old
grammarians.
British DA was mainly influenced by M.A.K. Halliday’s functional approach of
language. His framework emphasizes the social function of language and the
thematic and informational structure of speech and writing. De Beaugrande (1980),
Halliday and Hasan (1976) as well as Prague School of linguists have made their
significant contribution to this branch of linguistics in pointing out the links between
grammar and discourse.
Yule (1996: 139) state in his book, study of language “in the study of language,
some of the most interesting questions arise in connection with the way language is
used”, rather than what its components are (…) we were, in fact, asking how it is
that language-users interpret what other language-users, make sense of what we read
in texts, understand what speakers mean despite what they say, recognize connected
as opposed to jumbled or incoherent discourse, and successfully take part in that
complex activity called conversation, we are undertaking what is known as
discourse analysis."
Discourse analysis, therefore, is very important to understand or interpret a text. One
of the very key technical terms in DA is cohesion. A brief introduction about
cohesion as a core studying matter of this thesis will be discussed later on.
2.2.2. Cohesion and Coherence in Discourse
The term ‘cohesion’ was used by Halliday (1976) and later employed by other
linguists such as Hasan (1976), Cook (1994), Lyons (1995) and Yule (1996).
Halliday and Hassan (1976:11) analyzed relations between adjacent sentences and

10

clauses, they named these relations cohesive relations. They claimed that cohesion
is a semantic relation and that cohesion exists “where the interpretation of some
elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another”.
Baker (1992:180) claims that cohesion is: “The network of lexical, grammatical,
and other relations which provide links between various parts of a text. These
relations or ties organize and, to some extent create text, for instance by
requiring the reader to interpret words and expressions by reference to
other words and expressions in the surrounding sentences and paragraphs.
Cohesion is a surface relation; it connects together the actual words and
expressions that we can see or hear.”
Cohesion and coherence closely interrelate in the way that cohesion is regarded as
one of the ways of making the text coherent. While coherence is regarded as the
implicit links of utterances in a discourse or of sentences in a text, cohesion is
defined as "the use of explicit linguistic devices to signal relations between
sentences and parts of texts" [8, p.83]. Halliday and Hasan [23] and Cook [9] give
out cohesive devices used as formal links that causes texts to cohere or stick
together. However, through the analysis of the collected data, it can be said that the
three most suitable cohesive devices used in this thesis are: reference, parallelism
and repetition.
In conclusion, cohesion is the semantic relation between one element and another in
a text (Halliday & Hasan, 1976). A text is cohesive when the elements are tied
together and considered meaningful to the reader. Cohesion occurs when the
interpretation of one item depends on the other, i.e. one item presupposes the other
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976). Let’s have a look at the following example.
Amy went to the party. She sat with Sara.
The interpretation of the item she depends on the lexical item Amy. Therefore, the
text is considered cohesive because we cannot understand the meaning of she unless
Amy exists in the text. Cohesion is not only concerned with grammar, but also with

vocabulary. Hence, it is divided into grammatical and lexical cohesion.

11


2.2.3. Types of Cohesion
Halliday and Hasan state that “cohesion is expressed partly through grammar and
partly through the vocabulary.” In his book An A-Z of ELT: a dictionary of terms
and concepts used in English Language Teaching, Thornbury (2006:32) confirms
Halliday and Hasan’s idea that by means of grammar and lexical, cohesion can help
connect texts, either spoken or written. According to them, there are no clear rules
to define the relationship between grammar and lexicon; the basic idea is that the
more general meanings are expressed through the grammar, the more specific
ones are expressed through vocabulary. Cohesion follows the same pattern; some
meanings are expressed through grammar and some through vocabulary. Cohesion
expressed through grammar is known as grammatical cohesion; it is divided into
four types: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. Cohesion expressed
through vocabulary, lexical cohesion, is divided into relations of reiteration
(repetition, synonymy, etc.) and collocation (co-occurrence of lexical items).
The two types of cohesion, grammatical and lexical, can be classified as follows:
Table 2. 1: Types of cohesion based on Halliday and Hasan
COHESION
Grammatical
Reference

Lexical

Exophoric (situational)

Reiteration

Endothermic (textual)
Anaphoric
[to preceding
text]

Repetition
Synonymy

Cataphoric
[to following
text]

Antonymy
Superordinate
and Meronymy
General word

Substitution

Nominal substitution

Collocation

Verbal substitution
Clausal substitution
Ellipsis

Nominal ellipsis
Verbal ellipsis

Clausal ellipsis

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Conjunction

Adversative
Additive
Temporal
Causal

In brief, according to Halliday and Hasan (1976), the concept of cohesion is a
semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that
define it as the text. Cohesion occurs where the interpretation of some elements in
the discourse is dependent on that of another. Furthermore, Halliday and Hasan said
cohesion is classified into 2 broad types: grammatical and lexical. While the
grammatical type is realized by various grammatical devices used to make relations
among sentences more explicit, the lexical one is established through structure of
vocabulary; by relating words in terms of their meaning. Both types of cohesion and
their divisions are presented in Table 2.1 based on Halliday and Hasan (1976).
However, because of time limitedness, only grammatical devices are analyzed in
this research.
2.2.4. Grammatical Cohesion
2.2.4.1. Reference
In Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) taxonomy, the first source of cohesion in
English is reference. According to them, reference is a term used to refer to certain
items, which cannot be interpreted semantically in their own right but rather need to
make reference to somewhere else in the text for their interpretation. Reference
occurs when participants retrieve and identify presupposed information in the

immediate context, and in this manner building a cohesive relation.
In the example, in (Halliday and Hasan’s, 1976: 31), “three blind mice, three
blind mice, see how they run! See how they run”, the pronoun, they, refers to three
blind mice within the textual world itself. They stated: ……reference is the specific
nature of information that is signalled for retrieval. In the case of reference the
information to be retrieved is the referential meaning, the identity of the particular
thing or class of things that is being referred to; and the cohesion lies in the
continuity of reference, whereby the same thing centres into a discourse a second
time, (Halliday and Hasan’s, 1976: 31).

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Although reference is expressed by grammatical means, it is a semantic relation
“since the relationship is on the semantic level, the reference item is in no way
constrained to match the grammatical class of the item it refers to. What must
match are the semantic properties” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 32).
Depending on whether the presupposed element occurs within the text or
outside it, reference can be exophoric or endophoric. Exophoric reference refers to
items outside the text, i.e. the source of information is retrieved from the
immediate context of situation, and Endophoric reference or endophora refers to
items in the text, i.e. information retrieved from the text itself.
Reference concern on the relations between a discourse (text) and preceding or
following (element). In addition, Reference is related by semantic relationship.
According to Halliday and Hasan reference is the relation between an
element of the text which is interpreted by the participants. Reference is
potentially cohesive because the thing that serves as the source of the
interpretation may itself be an element of text. Halliday and Hasan have special
term for situational reference. Halliday and Hasan refer to the EXOPHORA or
EXOPHORIC reference. Then, they distinguish with ENDOPHORIC as general

name for reference within the text. Consider the following examples:
a: For he is a jolly good fellow. And so say all of us.
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 17-32).
b: Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish.
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976:2-18).
c: This is how to get the best results. You let the berries dry in the sun till all the
moisture has gone out of them. Then you gather them up and chop them very
fine.
(Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 17).
Exophoric reference is represented in example (a). The pronoun he does not refer to
any element in the text, but rather to an element that occurs in the context of the

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situation. Though the text does not make it clear who he is, participants are able
to identify the referent by the context in which the situation occurs. Example (b)
is an instance of endophoric reference; the personal pronoun them in the second
sentence refers back to six cooking apples in the first sentence.
Endophoric reference is further sub-divided into two types: anaphoric reference
(reference to the preceding text) and cataphoric reference (reference to the
following text). In example (b) above, them refers anaphorically to six cooking
apples, whereas, in example (c) the demonstrative pronoun this refers forward
to the whole sentence. Koch (2001:4) observed that in written discourse,
“anaphoric reference is more often used than cataphoric reference.”
Nevertheless, Halliday and Hasan (1976) asserted that because cataphoric
reference does not always function across sentence boundaries, it does not
always play a role in texts’ unity. Therefore, it can be said that anaphoric
reference is the only type that is applicable to cohesion, as it “provides a link
with a preceding portion of the text” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 51). They (ibid:

329) said “The typical direction ... is the anaphoric; it is natural, after all, to
presuppose what has already gone rather than what it is to follow”. Therefore,
reference is a device which allows the reader/hearer to trace participants,
entities, events, etc. in a text.
In English three types of reference are distinguished: personal, demonstrative,
and comparative reference. The table below is a summary of Halliday and Hasan
(ibid: 33) types of reference:
Table 2.2: Reference
Reference
[ situational ]

[ textual ]

EXOPHORIC

ENDOPHORIC
[ to preceding text ]

[ to following text]

ANAPHORA

CATAPHORA

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According to Halliday and Hasan, there are three types of reference:
personal, demonstrative, and comparative.
Personal Reference

According to Halliday and Hasan (1976:37), personal reference is “reference by
means of function in the speech situation, through the category of PERSON.” The
category of personals includes personal pronouns (I, me, you, he, him, she, her,
they, them, etc.), possessive determiners (my, your, his, her, etc.) and possessive
pronouns (mine, yours, his, hers, etc.). They are considered to be cohesive
devices only when they link to some other elements in the text. In what follows,
table 2.3 demonstrates three classes of personal reference in English (Halliday and
Hasan’s, 1976: 38):
Table 2.3. Personal Reference
Person

Personal

Possessive

Possessive

Speaker

Pronoun
I, Me

Adjective
My

Pronoun
Mine

Addressee (s) with /
without other person (s)

Speaker and other person(s)

You

Your

Yours

We, Us

Our

Ours

Other person; male

He, Him

His

His

Other person; female

She, Her

Her

Hers

Other person; object

They, Them

Their

Theirs

It

Its

Its

Object passage of text

Demonstrative Reference
Demonstrative reference is achieved by means of items which refer to other
elements by locating them on a scale of proximity. It is classified semantically into
adverbial demonstratives (circumstantial) and nominal demonstratives.

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