Coherence is a semantic or topical unity of the spoken or written text that is, the sentences within the text are usually connected by the same general topic. Generally speaking, a coherent text is the text that sticks together as a whole unit. Coherence is usually achieved by means of the theme and rheme progression. There exist various types of the theme and rheme progression, e.g.
a)T1 R1 Once there lived an old man.
T2 R2 The old man lived in a hut.
T3 R3 The hut was near a wood.
b) T1 R1 Michael is a student.
T1 R2 He lives in Boston.
T1 R3 He has a cheap car.
c) T The general topic is Ukraine. Subtopics are its
climate, industry, population, etc.
T1
R1 T2 R2 T3 R3
Naturally, in the process of text development different types of theme and rheme progression are combined.
Cohesion is a succession of spoken or written sentences. Sometimes the sentences may even not coincide topically. The connection we want to draw between various parts of the text may be achieved by textual and lexical cohesion. Textual cohesion may be achieved by formal markers which express conjunctive relations and serve as text connectors. Text connectors may be of four different types:
a) additive and, furthermore, similarly, in addition, etc.
b) adversative but, however, on the other hand, in fact, anyway, after all, nevertheless, etc.
c) causal so, consequently, for this reason, thus, etc.
d) temporal then, after that, finally, at last, in the long run, etc.
The full list of text connectors is very long. Some of them do not possess direct equivalents in the Ukrainian language. At the same time it is impossible to speak and write English naturally without knowing for sure when and how to use text connectors of the English language.
Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in the text are semantically related in the same way in other words, they are related in terms of their meaning. Two major categories of lexical cohesion are reiteration and collocation. Reiteration includes repetition, synonym or near synonym use and the use of general words. E.g. (1) You could try driving the car up the slope. The incline isnt at all that steep. (2) Pneumonia arrives with the cold and wet conditions. The illness can strike everyone from infants to the elderly.
Collocation includes all those items in text that are semantically related. The items may be related in one text and not related in other. For instance, the words neighbour and scoundrel are not related at all. However, in the following text they are collocated: My neighbour has just let one of his trees fall into my garden. And the scoundrel refuses to pay for the damage he has caused.
Cohesive ties within the text are also formed by endophoric relations. Endophoric relations are of two kinds those that look back in the text for their interpretation are called anaphoric relations; those that look forward in the text are called cataphoric relations:
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Look at the sun. It is going down quickly. It refers back to the sun.
It is going down quickly, the sun. It refers forwards to the sun.
As a linguistic term deixis means identification by pointing.
Much of the textual meaning can be understood by looking at linguistic markers that have a pointing function in a given context. For example, consider the following note pinned on a professors door: Sorry, I missed you. Im in my other office. Back in an hour. Without knowing who the addressee is, what time the note was written, or the location of the other office, it is really hard to make a precise information of the message. Those terms that we cannot interpret without an immediate context are called deixis. Deictic terms are used to refer to ourselves, to others, and to objects in our environment. They are also used to locate actions in a time frame relative to the present. Deictic terms can show social relationship the social location of individuals in relation to others. They may be used to locate parts of a text in relation to other parts.
Deictic expressions are typically pronouns, certain time and place adverbs (here, now, etc.), some verbs of motion (come/go), and even tenses. In fact all languages have expressions that link a sentence to a time and space context and that help to determine reference.
We can identify five major types of deictic markers person, place, time, textual and social.
Person deixis refers to grammatical markers of communicant roles in a speech event. The first person is the speakers reference to self; the second person is the speakers reference to addressee(s) and the third person is reference to others who are neither speaker nor addressee.
Place deixis refers to how languages show the relationship between space and the location of the participants in the text: this, that, here, there, in front of, at our place, etc.
Temporal deixis refers to the time relative to the time of speaking: now, then, today, yesterday, tomorrow, etc.
Textual deixis has to do with keeping track of reference in the unfolding text: in the following chapter, but, first, Id like to discuss, etc. Most of the text connectors discussed above belong to this group.
Social deixis is used to code social relationships between speakers and addressee or audience. Here belong honorifics, titles of addresses and pronouns. There are two kinds of social deixis: relational and absolute. Absolute deictic markers are forms attached to a social role: Your Honor, Mr.President, Your Grace, Madam, etc. Relational deictic markers locate persons in relation to the speaker rather than by their roles in the society: my cousin, you, her, etc. In English, social deixis is not heavily coded in the pronoun system. You refers to both singular and plural. As well as in the Ukrainian language, English possesses a powerful we: We are happy to inform, In this article we
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Prepositions, Particles
Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary study of language development, language in relation to human mind, language in thought, etc. Therefore the analysis of different language units and structures can hardly be separated from the study of human mind and the way it functions. Let us proceed from the assumption that there are two spheres in human soul: the conscious sphere and the subconscious one. We will talk about those spheres in the next chapter.
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When studying different aspects of the subconscious sphere, modern psychologists use the term MIND SET.
It was D.N.Uznadze, a Georgian psychologist, who defined mind set as a state that precedes every human activity, including speaking. It is a special form of soul modification that underlies every involvement into the world. The mind set is the persons readiness to perform an action, it is the modality of human behavior. D.N.Uznadze shows that it is in the mind set that the persons need and the concrete situation are reflected in the form of a drive. So the mind set is the beginning of every human activity, and it underlies both conscious and subconscious behavior.
Speaking about the language, we can think of two possible mind sets that underlie the process of speaking:
1) the communicative mind set and
2) the expressive mind set,
which correspond to the two main functions of language: the communicative function and the expressive function. Of course, when we speak, both functions are realized. However, the persons desire to say something may proceed from the necessity to get something from the hearer, which can be either of material or ideal nature: an object, an action, a piece of advice, even understanding and compassion. Of course, the speaker will do his best to be understood by the hearer. He will control what he is saying, he will keep in mind the hearers social status, his specific character traits as well as different parameters of the communicative speech situation, like the time and the place. So when the speaker wants to share some information with somebody, he will proceed from the communicative mind set. Most speech acts are realizations of the communicative mind set.
Therefore, any speech activity, proceeding from the communicative mind-set is well controlled, and attention is highly involved, even though certain operations are realized automatically without the speaker actually controlling them.
When the expressive mind set is realized, the person is driven by the desire to pour out his soul, to get rid of something that is tormenting him. He doesnt care whether he will be understood or not. He perceives linguistic signs as a part of himself. The speaker creates, he is just like an artist or a composer. And it doesnt matter what will eventually appear: a poem, a hypnotic text, a joke or a schizophrenic text. What is really important is that the expressive mind set has been realized. The speaker forgets about the hearer or the reader to some extent. Of course, there can be different stages or levels of the speakers drift from reality. Still it is the logic of wish-fulfillment that underlies everything that goes on. That is why the texts that are the product of speech based on the expressive mind set are, in most cases, samples of the negative speech material.
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