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Coherence in
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...
is what makes a text semantically meaningful. It is especially dealt with in text linguistics. Coherence is achieved through syntactical features such as the use of deictic, anaphoric and cataphoric elements or a logical tense structure, as well as
presupposition In the branch of linguistics known as pragmatics, a presupposition (or PSP) is an implicit assumption about the world or background belief relating to an utterance whose truth is taken for granted in discourse. Examples of presuppositions include ...
s and implications connected to general world knowledge. The purely linguistic elements that make a text coherent are subsumed under the term cohesion. However, those text-based features which provide cohesion in a text do not necessarily help achieve coherence, that is, they do not always contribute to the meaningfulness of a text, be it written or spoken. It has been stated that a text coheres only if the world around is also coherent. Robert De Beaugrande and Wolfgang U. Dressler define coherence as a "continuity of senses" and "the mutual access and relevance within a configuration of concepts and relations". Thereby a textual world is created that does not have to comply to the real world. But within this textual world the arguments also have to be connected logically so that the reader/hearer can produce coherence. "Continuity of senses" implies a link between cohesion and the theory of Schemata initially proposed by F. C. Bartlett in 1932 which creates further implications for the notion of a "text". Schemata, subsequently distinguished into Formal and Content Schemata (in the field of TESOLCarrell, P.L. and Eisterhold, J.C. (1983)
Schema Theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy
, in Carrell, P.L., Devine, J. and Eskey, D.E. (eds) (1988) Interactive Approaches to Second Language Reading. Cambridge: CUP.
) are the ways in which the world is organized in our minds. In other words, they are mental frameworks for the organization of information about the world. It can thus be assumed that a text is not always one because the existence of coherence is not always a given. On the contrary, coherence is relevant because of its dependence upon each individual's content and formal schemata.


See also

* M.A.K. Halliday *
Systemic functional linguistics # * Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) is an approach to linguistics, among functional linguistics, that considers language as a social semiotic system. It was devised by Michael Halliday, who took the notion of system from J. R. Firth, h ...
* Coh-Metrix


Sources

*Bußmann, Hadumod: ''Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft''. Stuttgart, 1983. S. 537.


Further reading


A Bibliography of Coherence and Cohesion by Wolfram Bublitz at Universität Augsburg
Syntax Semantics {{semantics-stub