衔接手段 Cohesion.ppt

1、,衔接手段分析 Cohesion,The Study of Texture,Hallidays Theory Halliday (1976:2) said: “A text has texture(语篇特征) and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a textThe texture is provided by the cohesive relation.” e.g. Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish. Accord

2、ing to Halliday, the cohesive relations include: reference, substitution, ellipsis and lexical relationship.,The concept of text The word text is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole. A text may be spoken or written, prose

3、 or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to all-day discussion on a committee.,The property of being a text If a speaker of English hears or reads a passage of the language which is more than one sentence in length, he

4、can normally decide without difficulty whether it forms a unified whole or is just a collection of unrelated sentences.,Take the following two passages for example.,A. Throughout the long history of mathematics, men have always wished that they could calculate quickly. As each mathematical discovery

5、 was made and knowledge advanced a little the calculations facing mathematicians became more and more complicated and demanded an even greater time. There are some people who like doing long and difficult arithmetic, but most of us do not and are eager to finish our sums in the shortest and easiest

6、way.,B. Every morning Toms mother got up early to prepare breakfast. But Tom preferred music to math at school. Last week there was a traffic jam due to a car accident, which was caused by the carelessness of the driver. However, the schoolmaster decided to keep the secret for Tom. Although he was n

7、ot too rich, Toms father managed to buy a beautiful dress for his wife as a Christmas gift.,Although the distinction seems to be made in an intuitive way, actually there does exist some properties of being a text, which distinguishes a text from something which is not a text. For example, a text mus

8、t have a consistent subject matter, which is observed by text A and violated by text B. Hence, a text is not a random collection of unrelated sentences. On the contrary, it must form a unified whole and is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit of meaning.,In all cases, the task of textual analysi

9、s is to identify the linguistic features that cause the sentence sequence to cohere. The ties that bind a text together are often referred to under the heading of cohesion (after M. A. K. Halliday and R. Hasan, 1976). The unity of a text can be achieved by a number of semantic and lexicogrammatical

10、means, among which the most important is cohesion.,Concept of cohesion,To call a sequence of sentences a text is to imply that the sentences display some kind of mutual dependency; they are not occurring at random. Sometimes the internal structure of a text is immediately apparent, as in the heading

11、s of a restaurant menu; sometimes it has to be carefully demonstrated, as in the network of relationships that enter into a literary work. (e.g. a narrative consists of setting, theme, plot, resolution),The concept of cohesion, as defined by Halliday the trains coming. (exophora) e.g. Mrs Mooney was

12、 a butchers daughter. She was a determined woman. (anaphora) e.g. I would never have believed it. Theyve accepted the whole scheme. (cataphora),Exophoric reference: which refers to an item whose referent is retrievable in the context of situation. Exophoric relation is a means of linking outwards to

13、 some person or object in the environment. For example: (A mother said to her child) “Come here and pick it up.” In this utterance, the interpretation of “here” and “it” is dependent on the situation in which the utterance is produced.,Endophoric reference: which refers to an item whose referent can

14、 be retrievable within the text. Two types of relationship are recognized: anaphoric relations look backwards for their interpretation, and cataphoric relations look forwards. For example, Several people approached. They seemed angry. Listen to this: Johns getting married.,We can illustrate referenc

15、e with the following diagram: Reference situational textual exophora endophora to preceding text to following text anaphora cataphora,According to Halliday, only endophoric reference is cohesive. Exphoric reference contributes to the creation of text, but it does not contribute to the cohesion of th

16、e text, because exphoric reference links the language with the context of situation. Endophoric reference includes three types: personal, demonstrative, and comparative.,Exophoric reference is also called situational reference. Endophoric reference is also called textual reference.,Personal Referenc

17、e(人称照应) reference made by personal pronouns;,including: I, me, my, mine, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, we, us, our, ours, they, them, their, theirs, etc.,Limerick There was a young lady of Niger, Who smiled as she rode on a tiger. They returned from the ride With the lady inside An

18、d the smile on the face of the tiger.,Here she and they are anaphoric, pointing respectively to a young lady, and a young lady and a tiger. An anaphoric relationship of this kind creates cohesion. Presented with these words, the listener has to look back for its interpretation. So these words have t

19、he effect of linking the two sentences into a cohesive unity.,Demonstrative Reference,reference made by the following words such as the, this, that, these, those, here, there, now, then,etc., which expresses the degree of proximity.(亲近).,In other words, economical writing is efficient and aesthetica

20、lly satisfying. While it makes a maximum demand on the energy and patience of readers, it returns to them a maximum of sharply compressed meaning. You should accept this as your basic responsibility as a writer: that you inflict no unnecessary words on your readers just as a dentist inflicts no unne

21、cessary pain, a lawyer no unnecessary risk.,Here this is cataphoric, pointing to the latter part of the sentence.,Comparative Reference,reference made by the following words such as same, different, identical, similar, equal, equally, more, less, better, etc., which expresses IDENTITY or SIMILARITY.

22、,A Reasonable Affliction(痛苦) Mattew Prior On his death-bed poor Lubin lies; His spouse is in despair; With frequent sobs and mutual cries; They both express their care. “A different cause,” says Parson Sly, “ The same effect may give: Poor Lubin fears that he may die; His wife, that he may live”.,He

23、re different is cataphoric, pointing forward, and same is anaphoric, pointing to what has been said in the first part of this poem.,2、Ellipsis Ellipsis means something left unsaid. There are three types of ellipsis:,nominal ellipsis,verbal ellipsis,clausal ellipsis,Nominal Ellipsis,a. Here are my tw

24、o white silk scarves. b. Where are yours?,Ellipsis within the nominal group. The nominal group is composed of a Head with the other elements: Deictic, Numerative, Epithet, Classifier, and Qualifier. The Deictic is normally a determiner such as those, these, etc., the Numerative a numeral or other qu

25、antifier such as two, four, etc., the Epithet an adjective such as fast, etc., the Classifier a noun or an adjective such as train in train set, electric, etc. The function of the Head, which is always filled, is normally served by the common noun, proper noun or pronoun expressing the thing. Under

26、certain circumstances, the common noun may be omitted and the function of the Head is taken on by one of these other elements. E.g.,As for b yours (Deictic) is Head, and the presupposed elements include not only scarves (Thing) but also silk (Classifier), white (Epithet) and possibly two (Numerative

27、).,a. Have you been playing football? Yes, I have. b. What have you been doing? Playing football.,Verbal Ellipsis,Ellipsis within the verbal group.,The two verbal groups in the answers, have in (a) and playing in (b) are both instances of verbal ellipsis.,Clausal Ellipsis,Clausal ellipsis is related

28、 to the question-answer process in dialogue, which determines that there are two kinds of ellipsis: yes / no ellipsis, and WH-ellipsis.,Yes / No Ellipsis First, in a yes / no question-answer sequence, the answer may involve the ellipsis of the whole clause. For example:,Spurgeon More funny stories a

29、re told of Spurgeon than perhaps any great preacher. Here is a good one. He was called to the telephone by a friend who said: “Have you read this mornings paper?” “Yes. (I have)” “Did you see in it a notice that I was dead?” “Yes. (I did)” “What do you think of it?” “Dont know,” replied Spurgeon. “W

30、hat I want to know is where you are speaking from?”,Second, in a yes / no question-answer sequence, there may be ellipsis of just one part of it, the Residue. For example: - Must we hand in our paper at the end of this term? - Of course you must (hand in your paper at the end of this term) .,WH-elli

31、psis,First, in a WH-sequence, the entire clause is usually omitted except for the WH-element itself, or the item that is the response to the WH-element: - “What did you think of the bird, Mother?” he asked eagerly. - “Delicious!”, his mother said.,Second, sometimes in a WH-clause, or its response, t

32、he Mood element is left in and only the Residue is omitted. For example: With WH-Subject -Whore at work now. - I am (at work now).,3 Substitution Substitution means the replacement of one item by another. There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal and clausal.,Nominal Substitution,The it

33、ems that occur as substitutes are one, ones, the same. For example:,-A very nice old lady had a few words to say to her granddaughter. “ My dear,” said the old lady, I wish you would do something for me. I wish you would promise me never to use two words. One is lousy and the other is swell. Would y

34、ou promise me that?” - The climate in Northern China is not the same as that in Southern China.,Verbal Substitution,The verbal substitute in English is do, with the usual morphological variant forms do, does, did, doing, done. For example: She can sing as well as he does. (does = sings) - Do you pla

35、y violin every day? - Yes, I do. (do = play violin),The substitute do is often used with so to substitute the Predicator, the Object or the Predicator and Adjunct. He can sing many Italian songs, but I cant do so. (do so = sing many Italian songs),Clausal Substitution,What is presupposed is not an e

36、lement with the clause but an entire clause. The words used as substitutes are so and not.,1. Substitution of the (Reported) Clause,- Will they arrive on time? - I hope so. (=I hope they will arrive on time),2. Substitution of the Conditional Clause,Conditional clauses are frequently substituted by

37、so and not, especially following if but also in other forms such as assuming so, suppose not. For example: Everyone seems to support him. If so (= if everyone supports him), he will become the principal of our school.,3. Substitution of Modalized Clauses,So and not can combine with some modal adverb

38、s (e.g. perhaps, certainly, probably) and occur as substitutes for clauses expressing modality. For example: (25) Have they married? - Perhaps not. (= Perhaps they havent married.),Substitution: The replacement of one item by another.,1) Ive got a pencil. Do you have one? 2) These biscuits are stale

39、. Get some fresh ones. 3) A: Ill have two poached eggs on toast, please. B: Ill have the same. 4) You think Joan already knows? I think everyone does. 5) Will we get there on time? - I think so. 6) Has everyone gone home? I hope not. Nominal: one, ones, same; verbal: do; clausal: so, not.,4 Conjunct

40、ion,Conjunction means that a clause or clause complex, or some longer stretch of text, may be related to what follows it by one or other of a specific set of semantic relations (or the devices of various logical relation).,There are four types of conjunction: additive, adversative, causal, and tempo

41、ral,I took a bath, dined, and then dozed fitfully for a while. (additive) Law-and order is the longest-running and probably the best-loved political issue in U. S. history. Yet it is painfully apparent that millions of Americans who would never think of themselves as law-breakers, let alone criminal

42、s. (adversative),Red-light running has always been ranked as a minor wrong, and so it may be in individual instances. (Causal),Soon afterwards the cloud sank down to earth and covered the sea; it had already blotted out Capri and hidden the promontory of Misenum from sight. Then my mother implored,

43、entreated, and commanded me to escape as best as I could a young man might escape, whereas she was old and slow and could die in peace as long as she had not been the cause of my death too. (temporal),The words and, yet, so and then can be taken as typifying these four general conjunctive relations.

44、 Actually a lot of words can be found within these four general categories of conjunction.,5. Lexical Cohesion,Lexical cohesion refers to the selection of items that are related in some way to those that have gone before. It includes the following devices such as repetition, synonymy for example jok

45、e and story, smiled and laughed in the following passage.,The Joke,Sir William Thompson was very deaf but he did not like people to know this. One evening he had invited several friends to dinner, and while they were sitting at the table, one of the friends told a funny story. Everyone laughed, and

46、Sir William, who had laughed as loud as everyone, said, “That was a very funny joke, but I know a funnier one. Would you like to hear it?” They all said they would, so Sir William began his story. When it ended, everyone laughed louder than ever and Sir William smiled happily. But he didnt know the

47、reason for their laughter. He had told the very same story that his friend had just told.,e.g. He was just wondering which road to take when he was startled by a noise from behind him. It was the noise of trotting horses. He dismounted and led his horse as quickly as he could along the right-hand ro

48、ad. The sound of the cavalry grew rapidly nearer. sound with noise, cavalry with horses,What is closely related with synonymy is hyponym (下义词), whose meaning is included into the category of superordinate (上坐标词). One superordinate (e.g.flower) often subsumes several co-hyponyms:,Flower rose daffodil

49、 daisy dandelion snowdrop ,The superordinate expresses general and abstract meaning while the hyponym the specific and concrete meaning.,Another semantic relationship is meronym (局部词), which seems to be congruent with hyponym, but in fact the relationship between meronym and superordinate is a kind

50、of part-whole rather than specific-general. For example:,Tree root trunk branch leaf ,As can be seen, root, trunk, branch, leaf, etc. are a group of co-meronyms.,Antonymy Lexical items which are opposite in meaning, namely antonyms, also function with cohesive effect in a text. For example:,To err i

51、s human; to forgive divine Cheers for the living and tears the dead.,e.g. It was the best of times, it was the worst times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was an epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness,

52、it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us. ( Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities),Collocation Collocation refers to the co-occurrence tendency, namely some lexical items regularly tend to co-occur. Collocation can help to achieve

53、cohesive effect in a text. For example:,And sings a solitary song, That whistles in the wind. There is a strong collocation bond between sing and song, song and whistles, which make the two lines cohesive.,A little fat man of Bombay Was smoking one very hot day. But a bird called snipe Flew away wit

54、h his pipe, Which vexed the fat man of Bombay. There is a strong collocational bond between smoke and pipe, which makes the occurrence of pipe in line 4 cohesive.,In the above we talked about Hallidays cohesive theory. According to Halliday, texture is provided by cohesive relations. That is to say,

55、 if these cohesive devices can ensure a stretch of utterance cohesive, then it is of texture or textuality, and it is a text. Otherwise it is a non-text.,But Brown and Yule (1983) rasied two questions: First, is such cohesion necessary to the identification of a text? Secondly, is such cohesion suff

56、icient to guarantee identification as a text? For example: A. Theres the doorbell. B. Im in the bath.,This example tends to show us that cohesive relationship is not necessary to the identification of a text.,I bought a Ford. A car in which President Wilson rode down the Champs Elysees was black. Bl

57、ack English has been widely discussed. The discussions between the presidents ended last week. A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats have four legs. The cat is on the mat. Mat has three letters.,But Brown and Yule (1983) rasied two questions: First, is such cohesion necessary to the i

58、dentification of a text? Secondly, is such cohesion sufficient to guarantee identification as a text? For example: A. Theres the doorbell. B. Im in the bath.,This example tends to show us that cohesive relationship is not necessary to the identification of a text.,According to Halliday and Hasan, Le

59、xical cohesion includes the following devices: repetition, synonymy And I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands olife shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve! And fare thee weel a white! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho it were ten thousand mile.,In this poem the direct repetitive words include the following: my Luve, my Luve, my (only ) Luve) red, red Luve (n.), Luve (v.) Till a the seas gang dry, Till a the seas gan