CONCEPT OF COHESION

Resources:

M.A.K. Halliday (1985). An Introduction to functional grammar. London: Edward Arnold Ltd.
M.A.K. Halliday & Hassan, R. (1976). Cohesion in English. New York: Longman Inc.

In Cohesion in English (1976:4), the concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations
of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a text.

It stated that the potential for cohesion lies in the systematic resources of reference, ellipsis and so
on that are built into the language itself. Cohesion is expressed through the stratal organization of
language. Language can be explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels of
coding, or ‘strata’:

(i) The semantic (meanings),

(ii) The lexicogrammatical (forms), and
(iii) The phonological and orthographic (expressions).

Meanings are realized (coded) as forms, and forms are realized in turn (recoded) as expressions.
In other words, meaning can be put in wording, and wording into sound or writing:

meaning (The semantic system)

(The lexicogrammatical system, grammar and

wording
vocabulary)

‘Sounding’ or writing (The phonological and orthographic systems)

The popular term ‘wording’ refers to lexicogrammatical form, the choice of words and
grammatical structures. Within this stratum, there is no hard-and-fast division between vocabulary
and grammar; the guiding principle in language is that the more general meanings are expressed
through the grammar, and the more specific meanings through the vocabulary. Cohesive relations
fit into the same overall pattern. Cohesion is expressed partly through the grammar and partly
through the vocabulary. We can refer therefore to GRAMMATICAL COHESION and LEXICAL
COHESION. Some forms of cohesion are realized through the grammar and others through the
vocabulary.

Meanwhile, in an introduction to functional grammar (1985:287), the concept of cohesion can be

defined as follows:

(i) By reference,
(ii) Ellipsis,
(iii) Conjunction, and
(iv) Lexical organization

Cohesion, is of course, a process, because a discourse itself is a process. Text is something that
happens, in the form of talking or writing, listening or reading. When we analyse it, we analyse
the product of this process; and the term ‘text’ is usually taken as referring to the product –
especially the product in its written form (since this is the most clearly perceptible as an object –
though now that we have recorders/smartphones it has become easier for people to conceive of
spoken language also as text).

So, it is natural to talk about cohesion as a relation between entities, in the same way that we talk
about grammatical structure, for example the structure of the clause. Since clause has a tight formal
structure we do not seriously misrepresent it when we look at it as a static configuration. The
organization of text is semantic rather than formal, and (at least as far as cohesion is concerned;
we are not going into questions of register structure in this book) much looser than that of
grammatical units. We shall represent cohesive relations simply by additions to the structural
notations. But it is important to be able to think of text dynamically, as an ongoing process by
meaning; and of textual cohesion as an aspect of this process, whereby the flow of meaning is
channeled along the speaker’s purposive courses instead of spilling out aimlessly in every possible
direction.
LEXICAL COHESION

In the book of an introduction of functional grammar, M.A.K. Halliday (1985: 289) had stated that
the choice of words (or what we called as vocabulary) may be able to established a continuity in a
text. This form of continuity is what he refer as ‘repetition’; or the choice of a word that is related
in some way to a previous one (synonymy) – either semantically, such that the two are in the
broadest sense synonymous, or collocationally, such that the two have more than ordinary
tendency to co-occur. Lexical cohesion may be maintained over long passages by the presence of
keywords, words having special significance for the meaning of the particular text.

Continuity in a text Repetition

How to indentify?

Choice of words

Bagaimana reiterasi memainkan peranan sebagai penguat wacana?

Apakah ciri-ciri yang menempatkan reiterasi sebagai pengukuh sebuah wacana?

Sebelum menyentuh mengenai soal reiterasi, perlu kita ketahui bahawa sebuah teks tidak akan
dianggap kohesi jika tidak mempunyai dua ciri utama berikut: (a) kohesi Nahuan dan (b) kohesi
leksikal. Apabila kita menyentuh mengenai kohesi leksikal di sini, maka bukan bererti kita
mengabaikan ciri nahu. Hal ini Cuma kehadiran leksikal itu yang menjadi persoalan utama dalam
kertas kerja ini kerana ia dianggap penting. Pernyataan ini adalah berdasarkan apa yang telah
dikemukan oleh Halliday (1985) dalam an introduction in functional grammar sepertimana berikut: