A Systemic-Functional Interpretation Of Discourse Coherence

After the publication of Cohesion in English, the term coherence becomes the focus of attention among linguists. Many theories are formed to study it from different perspectives.A text is a passage of discourse which is coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore cohesive. Neither of these two conditions is sufficient without the other, nor does the one by necessity entail the other.The register consistency of a coherent text depends on the coherence of three components of the situation: field, tenor and mode, which are respectively related to three language functions: ideational, interpersonal and textual. In turn, the ideational function is realized by transitivity system, the interpersonal function by mood and modality; textual function by theme-rheme and cohesion systems. Thus analysis on the transitivity system, themes and mood and modality in a text can explain the coherence of a text.In this thesis, extracts from Pride and Prejudice are analyzed from transitivity system, mood and modality, theme structure to explain discourse coherence. This thesis is a tentative endeavor to interpret coherence from systemic-functional perspective, intending to find out what kind of coherence feature the writer represents in the texts of different register. That is, register is paid more attention in interpreting coherence. The findings of analysis support our theoretical tentative: extracts of different register represents different features in creating coherence. This proves that register motivates the creation of coherence and its role cannot be ignored.The significance of this thesis lies in that it focuses on the impact of register in creating discourse coherence which may shed new light on coherence study.