М. В. Ломоносова Филологический факультет Кафедра английского языкознания Когезия и когеренция в философском дискурсе на материале эссе Бертрана Расселла "О природе знакомства". Курсовая
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The hierarchy of cohesive relations in text.In order to make a clear-cut distinction between different means of cohesion, we need to view them from one perspective, and adduce a hierarchy of such relations, so that they do not overlap each other in any way. We should not introduce the required hierarchy from the perspective of the quantity of linguistic material of the speech elements involved in cohesion. First of all, it would be wrong to say that, for example, reference is in any way “inferior” to lexical cohesion or vice versa. Moreover, it is quite obvious that the distinction between the types of grammatical cohesion should be preserved, whereas from this point of view nominal and clausal substitution, for instance, should pertain to different groups. Therefore it is irrelevant, whether these are words, or clauses, or sentences etc which are involved in cohesive relations. Regarding to what has just been said, a much more complex approach should be adopted as to how all means of cohesion are similar and in what way they differ. On every level of cohesion there is its inherent degree of abstraction. Very briefly and generally, this means that the identification of the tie between the elements of cohesion by the recipient is either inevitable (concrete relations) or less necessary (abstract relations): in other words, the recipient cognitively establishes a link leading from the sender of cohesive relation to its target, but with some types of cohesion this is not compulsory. To clarify the point, let me adduce an example. (1) Originally, the "philosophy of experience" was opposed to the a priori philosophy, and "experience" was confined to what we learn through the senses. Gradually, however, its scope widened until it included everything of which we are in any way conscious, and became the watchword of an emaciated idealism imported from Germany. (2) Originally, the "philosophy of experience" was opposed to the a priori philosophy, and "experience" was confined to what we learn through the senses. Gradually, however, its scope widened until it included everything of which we are in any way conscious, and became the watchword of an emaciated idealism imported from Germany. In the instance (1), the reader faces the necessity to associate the pronoun its with the term “experience”, which would be otherwise impossible to interpret. In the sentence (2) there is a bridging relation which is a “set – subset” relation. However, it may remain almost unnoticed by the reader, let alone become a subject of deep reflection. There is also a bridging relation between a priori philosophy and emaciated idealism which are almost synonyms in the given context. The range of linguistic means is also either wide or comparatively limited by the list of the speech elements which can be involved in cohesion with regards to the level of abstraction. Potentially, any two nominal groups (as well as verbal groups etc – see the chapter “Bridging Relations”) can be connected by bridging, whereas reference (nominal, verbal, or demonstrative) is confined to a limited “list” of pronouns. A singular means of cohesion – the one called by M.K. Halliday “substitution by zero” – is characteristic of ellipsis, the narrowest type of cohesion with regards to this range of linguistic means. At the same time, there is another significant parameter of coherence which is superior to cohesion. It is information structure, that determines local coherence and includes reference, substitution, ellipsis and bridging ties. What we mean to say is that contextual boundness (see the chapter “Topic-Focus Structure And Contextual Boundness”) appears in every instance of bridging, reference, substitution, and ellipsis, but also when there is appropriate extralinguistic context, when boundness is determined by the theme of the text etc. Thus, contextual boundness is wider than various types of cohesive relations and unifies them under one parameter (Zikanova et al. 2015). In summary, we establish the following hierarchy of cohesion and coherence parameters considered in the present work: a) topic-focus structure b) bridging relations c) lexical cohesion d) reference e) substitution f) ellipsis This is the order which we will follow while describing these relations. Topic-focus structure and contextual boundness. |