Point Of View And Its Coherence

Coherence is a key issue in discourse analysis. Traditionally, the focus of the coherence study is on information structure, topic and coherence devices in the text. But this essay adopts a new angle of coherence analysis. That is to analyze coherence through the study of "point of view'. 'Point of view' is a term widely used in literature criticism, indicating the perspective through which a story is told. In 1970's, it was introduced into the research in linguistics. In the linguistic interpretation of point of view, it is the perspective and attitude toward the world. This "perspective' is physical (including spatial and temporal perspective) and logic, and the 'attitude" is psychological and emotional. Point of view reflects a certain cognitive mode. A coherent text must contain coherent point of view.Point of view can he distinguished into three kinds: spatial-temporal point of view, narrative point of view, and ideological point of view. The first kind is actually the combination of spatial point of view and temporal point of view. They concern the viewing position in space and time, including the start point and the moving order of space and time. Narrative point of view concerns from whose perspective a story is told in narrative text. Ideological point of view indicates the world-view and value system reflected in a text. Coherence phenomenon will be analyzed in these three kinds respectively.Coherence in point of view has two characteristics or conditions. The first is maintenance of a certain perception center. The other is the ordering of the movement of point of view. The first characteristic can be reflected mostly in narrative point of view and ideological point of view. The second characteristic can be reflected mostly in spatial-temporal point of view.Different markers are to be found to indicate different kinds of point of view. The central aim of this essay is to make explicit the linguistic markers that can be used to identify point of view and explain how the regular and consistent appearance of these markers indicates coherent point of view.The coherence in spatial and temporal point of view is realized through a sense of orderly dimension of time and space by using spatial and temporal deixis. Spatial deixis indicate the movement and location in space. Temporal deixis indicate the time sequence. Spatial and temporal point of view combined together help to establish a coordinate of space and time. Spatial point of view most closely concerns the 'view'concept. Suppose the narrator of the text is holding a camera, his position is where the viewpoint is. The camera-holder can observe the surroundings from far to near, or from above to below. The order of movement reflects the coherence in spatial point of view.In narrative point of view, coherence is achieved through the adherence to a certain character or narrator's viewpoint. A story must have a certain angle of telling. It may be narrated from a traditional omniscient angle, or from one or several character's perception and consciousness, or from an extremely objective 'outsider observer' angle. Each type has its peculiar use of narrative viewpoint. As to whose point of view is adopted to narrate the story, it must be consistent with which narrative type the text belongs to.In ideological point of view, coherence is achieved through the representation of a consistent ideology, that is, a consistent set of value system of the narrator or the characters. Different people may have different ideology system, that is to say, a certain ideology must be matched to a certain person.All the analysis leads to a conclusion that text coherence can be reflected by the point of view in the text.