On The Explicitness And Implicitness Of Cohesion In Political Speeches

Cohesion and coherence theory is one of the important theories of modern discourseanalysis, which also covers two essential concepts and core theories for discourse analysisresearch. In 1976, Halliday and Hasan published their book Cohesion in English whichcaused strong response and more and more scholars attach their attention to the study ofcohesion and coherence. Both domestic and foreign scholars have approached the cohesionand coherence research from different perspectives. On the basis of Halliday and Hasan’sexplicit cohesion theory, researchers have analyzed different types of discourses, such asnovels, poems, and explored the importance of explicit cohesion for discourse coherence.However, any theories are in constant development for perfection. In the cause of discourseanalysis development, researchers found that there does not only exist explicit cohesion invarious discourses; implicit cohesion also plays an important role in discourse coherence. Butup to now, there are still few systematic studies on implicit cohesive devices, and even fewerstudies on certain specific discourse. As it is well known that political speech discourse hasits unique stylistic features. In order to pass political views and information effectively, tostimulate mass emotion and guide the political tendencies of the public, to realize thepersuasive aims, speakers must choose their words carefully; pay more attention to theexpression of the speech theme and its coherent significance. From the perspectives ofexplicit cohesion and implicit cohesion, this research intends to explore the cohesion andcoherence of political speech, with the hope that is can in a way expand the researchperspectives of specific discourse so as to enrich cohesion theory.Explicit cohesion and implicit cohesion constitute the essential and important part forcohesion theory, for whether the text is cohesive or not decides the texture of the discourse.Explicit cohesive devices, put forward by Halliday and Hasan, include grammatical cohesionand lexical cohesion, namely, reference, ellipsis, substitution, conjunction and lexicalcohesion. However, Zhang Delu tries to research explicit cohesive devices and implicitcohesive devices from the situational context and cultural context, including cognitive model and mental process, which makes a useful and meaningful complement to cohesion theory.Applying Halliday and Hasan’s explicit cohesive devices and Zhang Delu’s implicit cohesivedevices as the theoretical framework and basis, the present research intends to explore thecohesive devices and coherent meaning in political speeches.Based on the cohesion theory, this paper selects seven famous political speeches as theresearch data. The present study aims to research and discuss the application of explicit andimplicit cohesive devices, as well as their coherent function in political speeches. The paperis designed to reveal the special function of cohesion for discourse, especially the implicitcohesive devices. The research employs quantitative and qualitative research methods in dataanalysis and the frequency and manner of explicit and implicit cohesive devices in thepolitical speeches are statistically analyzed and discussed. Thus, the study hopes to generatethe rules and regularities of cohesive devices application and their pragmatic function inpolitical speeches.Through the analysis and discussion of explicit and implicit cohesive devices in politicalspeeches, the study finds that political speech bears its unique language feature and textualstyle; its explicit and implicit cohesive devices show different characteristics in differenttypes of examples. Besides, political speech discourse always has its potential coherence.Explicit and implicit cohesive devices are no longer just a simple semantic relation betweenwords, but have a deeper textual significance. The study holds that explicit cohesive devicescan simplify the structure of language, and enhance the persuasion of language in politicalspeech, so as to achieve the desired effect of the speaker; while implicit cohesive devices canreveal the deep meaning of political speech by reasoning through context, shared knowledgeand cognitive models. Thus, the analysis and discussion of explicit and implicit cohesivedevices have an important role in analyzing and appreciating the language features ofpolitical speech. Further, the research bears the irreplaceable function in the comprehensionof textual meaning.This research has made a tentative study on the explicit and implicit cohesion ofpolitical speeches. It is sincerely hoped that this research results can provide inspiration forEnglish learners, so that they can better understand and appreciate cohesive mechanism inpolitical speeches from different perspectives, as well as perceive the coherent meaning of the discourse.