Developing writing skills meaningfully:

for life and for the Euro exams

COHERENCE AND COHESION

Rdai Pter
Euro Nyelvvizsga Kzpont
peter.radai@euroexam.org

Coherent or cohesive?
Incoherent and not cohesive?
Coherent and cohesive?
Coherent but not cohesive?
Cohesive but incoherent?

Cohesion
the use of explicit linguistic devices to signal
relations between sentences and parts of
texts."
(Ulla Connor 1996 in http://www.criticism.com/da/coherence.php)

All the grammatical and lexical links that

establish connections within a text at all sorts
of different levels, e.g., section, paragraphs,
sentences and even phrases.

Cohesion
is
a formal feature of texts

the glue that holds a piece of writing together

fairly objectively verifiable
achieved through cohesive devices:
1.
2.
3.
4.

reference (it, this, those cars, neither etc.)

ellipsis (i.e. avoiding repetition: )
substitution (i.e. avoiding repetition: one(s), do)
lexical cohesion (e.g. repetition of lexis, synonyms,
reformulation)
5. conjunction (in addition, for instance etc.)

Coherence
Coherence is a semantic property of discourse
formed through the interpretation of each
individual sentence relative to the interpretation
of other sentences, with "interpretation"
implying interaction between the text and the
reader.
(Teun A. van Dijk 1980 in http://www.criticism.com/da/coherence.php)

Coherence
is the extent to which the reader (or listener) is able
to infer the writers (or speakers) communicative
intentions
shows how meanings and sequences of ideas
relate to each other, e.g.

general > particular

statement > example

problem > solution

question> answer

argument > counter-argument

How to achieve
Scott
Thornbury:
coherence

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?docId=154867

Learners awareness and skills can be

developed to
1.

write coherent texts through the analysis of the

generic features of particular text types;

2.

establish both the purpose of the text and the

intended readership;

3.

second-guess the intended readers questions, and

to answer them beforehand.

Helping teachers &

learners
www.euroexam.org:
rsbeli rtkel verseny
Writing tutorials: raising awareness
without writing
http://elearning.euroexam.org/

Assessing cohesion and

coherence
Writing: Evaluation criteria

Points / Weight

TASK ACHIEVEMENT
(sense of audience and purpose)
COHERENCE AND COHESION
(sense of discourse)
RANGE AND ACCURACY

10 pts (40%)

APPROPRIACY {style, genre}

(sense of audience and discourse)

5 pts (20%)

5 pts (20%)
5 pts (20%)

References
Connor, U. M. 1996. Contrastive Rhetoric: Cross-Cultural
Aspects of Second Language Writing. Cambridge: CUP.
Thornbury, S. 2006. An A-Z of ELT. Oxford: Macmillan.
Thornbury, S. 2005. Beyond the Sentence. Oxford: Macmillan.
van Dijk, T. A. 1980. Text and Context: Explorations in the
Semantics and Pragmatics of Discourse. London: Longman.