A Study Of Discourse Coherence And Cohesion From Social And Psychological Perspectives

Coherence and cohesion are the two essential qualities for the textuality of discourse. Many linguists have made efforts to study the two concepts. However, the theories put forward have many problems and the study as a whole is not systematic and comprehensive enough. This dissertation is intended to present a systematic study of the two phenomena. Efforts are first made to handle some theoretical issues such as the status and importance of the two concepts, relation between them, approaches for study, and to set up a systematic framework for the present study.Then coherence is studied systematically, from both a social-cultural and psychological-cognitive point of view. The nature, criteria, characteristics are investigated and a tentative definition is provided. The various conditions for coherence are also discussed, including social-cultural conditions, psychological-cognitive conditions and text-proper conditions. The intension here is to illuminate the major aspects of coherence.Cohesion is studied in close relation to coherence. The definition, characteristics, domain, range and dimensions of cohesion are discussed first. Efforts are then made to investigate the cohesive devices at various levels of the language, so as to get a thorough understanding of the phenomenon.The study shows that the relation between cohesion and coherence is one between means and ends. On one hand, coherence as the ends will be controlled by various extra-text and intra-text conditions, the latter of which include cohesion. On the other hand, cohesion as the means will necessarily be manifested at all levels of language use, so as to realize the ends and ensure successful communication.