Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices

Recognizing and interpreting cohesive devices

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  Recognizing and interpretingcohesive devices  Cohesive devices sometimes called linking words, linkers, connectors, discourse makers or transitional words.  Cohesive devices are words or phrases that show the relationship between paragraphs or sections of a text or speech.  Cohesive devices are words like ‘for example’,’ in conclusion’, ‘however’ and ‘moreover’. cohesive devices tell us what we are doing in a sentence and help to guide us through our writing .they give signal to us what the relationship are between the different clauses ,sentence and paragraphs. Let’s look two examples below.  The public transport in this city is unreliable and it’s cheap.  The public transport in this city is unreliable but it’s cheap. There are two cohesive devices in the sentences above: ‘and’ and ‘but’. Both are showing the different signals and change the meaning of the sentence. The first sentence tells the reader that ‘it’s cheap ‘ is simply being added to the previous information ,however the second sentence tells the reader that they are giving a contrasting opinion to the first part of the sentence by using the word ‘but’. The word ‘but’ conveys that whole message without needing to literally say it. What are they?  Cohesive devices are like bridges between parts of your paper.
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   They arecues to help the reader to interpret ideas in the way that you as a writer want them to understand. Function: The major function of cohesion is text formation.  Helps in achieving unity of text as a semantic whole  Unified whole of linguistic items.  A text must be meaningful.  A text that is not cohesive is never meaningful.  They show the logical relationship between sentences and paragraphs.  They help expand the context, such as; - whether information is completely new, - related to information in other sentences, - or is a reference to "old" information from a previous sentence.  Improves reading and comprehension skills. Types of cohesive devices Reference • Reference is used to describe the different ways in which entities- things, people, events are referred to within texts • Linguistic features e.g. pronouns are used to refer to the already mentioned entities. There are two referential devices that can create cohesion. • E.g. Sara went to the market in rain. She stepped in puddle and never went there again.
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  She and thereshow that the information about them is retrieved elsewhere within the text. This type of cohesion is called reference. Anaphoric reference Anaphoric reference occurs when the writer refers back to someone or something that has been previously identified, to avoid repetition. Some examples: replacing ‘the taxi driver’ with the pronoun ‘he’ or ‘two girls’ with ‘they’. Another example can be found in formulaic sequences such as ‘as stated previously ‘or ‘the aforementioned’. Cataphoric reference Cataphoric reference is the opposite of anaphoric: a reference opposed to backward in the discourse. Something is introduced in the abstract before it is identified. For example ‘here he comes, our award winning host……its john doe. Cataphoric reference can also be found in written text. There is one more referential device, which cannot create cohesion: Exo-phoric reference Exo-phoric references used to describe generics or abstracts without ever identifying them (in contrast to anaphoric and cataphoric, which do identify the entity and thus are forms of endophora) rather than introduce a concept, the writer refers to it to by a generic word such as ‘everything’ .the prefix ‘exo’ means ‘outside ‘and the person or events referred to in this manner are never identified by the writer.
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  Ellipsis Ellipsis is anothercohesive device .it happens when, after a more specific mention, words are omitted when the phrase must be repeated. A simple conversational example: A: where are you going? B: to school. The full form of b’s reply would be: ‘I’m going to school’. A simple written example: the younger child was very outgoing, the older much more reserved. The omitted words from the second clause are ‘child’ and ‘was’. Substitution A word is not omitted, as in ellipsis, but is substituted for another, more general word .for example, ‘which ice-cream would you like? ‘I would like the pink one’. Where ‘one’ is used instead of repeating ‘ice-cream’. • It is replacement of one linguistic item by another i.e. replacement of one word/phrase with another word/phrase. • Used to avoid repetition of a particular item. • Something you use instead of the thing you would normally use. E.g. the glass broke. I must get another. A: I will have two eggs on the bread. B: I will have the same.
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  Conjunctions Conjunctions are linkingdevices between sentences or clauses in a text. Unlike the other grammatical devices, conjunctions express the logical semantic relation between sentences rather than between words and structures. In other words they structure the text in a certain logical order that is meaningful to the reader or listener. Conjunctions are divided into four types namely additive, adversative, causal, and temporal. Types of conjunctions Additive conjunctions Additive conjunctions connect units that share semantic similarity .examples of additive conjunction are, and, likewise, furthermore, in addition, etc. Adversative conjunctions Adversative conjunctions are used to express contrasting results or opinions. This type of conjunctions is expressed by word such as, but, however, in contrast, whereas, etc. Causal conjunctions Causal conjunctions introduce results, reasons, or purposes. They are characterized by the use of items such as so, thus, therefore, because, etc. Temporal conjunctions Temporal conjunctions express time order of events such as, finally, then, soon, at the same time, etc.