A presentation about what lexical cohesion is, with a practical section.

1. Lexical Cohesion By Elhassan ROUIJEL 1 Mamas 2009

2. Outline Introduction. Lexical Cohesion. Lexical Cohesion throught General Nouns. Lexical Cohesion through Reiteration. Lexical Relations as Cohesive Patterns. Conclusion 2 Mamas 2009

4. A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion on a committee.

5. A text is a unit of language is use.

6. A text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but of meaning.3 Mamas 2009

8. Cohesion is an aspect of a text, which entails that the latter forms a unified whole, rather than unrelated sentences.

9. The concept of cohesionis a semantic one; itrefers to relations of meaningthatexistwithin the text, and thatdefineit as a text.

10. Cohesionoccurswhere the interpretation of someelements in the discourseisdependent on that of another.E.g: « Yes, wecan » ismeaninglesswithout «Can webring about the change wedesire? » 4 Mamas 2009

11. Lexical Cohesion It is the cohesive effect achieved by the selection of vocabulary. Lexical cohesion is basically created by the general nouns (super-ordinates, for example - public transport), or repetition (reiteration) of the same lexeme, or the use of other lexical relations as cohesive patterns. 5 Mamas 2009

12. Lexical cohesionthroughtgeneralnouns The class of general noun is a small set of nouns having generalized reference within the major noun classes such as ‘human noun’, ‘place noun’, ‘fact noun’ … etc. 6 Mamas 2009

15. From a grammatical point of view, the anaphoric ‘the’+ general noun functions like an anaphoric reference item. (the man= him/ the place= it).

16. However, the interpretations the two words bear are not the same. E.g: ‘the man’ bears other interpersonal interpretations such as familiarity, as opposed to distance.7 Mamas 2009

17. Some general nouns have this intepersonal element as an inherent part of their meaning such as idiot, poor, fool, devil, dear …etc. A general noun in cohesive function can always be accompanied by an attitudinal modifier, such as the dears, the poor dears. E.g: « I’ve been to see my great-aunt. The poor old girl’s getting very forgetful these days. » 8 Mamas 2009

18. Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion which involves the repetition of a lexical item, at one end of the scale; the use of a general word to refer back to a lexical item, at the other end of the scale; and a number of things in between-the use of a synonym or superordinate. Lexical CohesionthroughReiteration 9 Mamas 2009

20. Accordingly… I took leave, and turned to the ascent of the peak. The climb is perfectly easy…

21. Henry’s bought himself a new Jaguar. He practically lives in the car.Repetition Synonyms Superordinate and subordinate In these instances one lexical item refers back to another, to which it is related by having acommon referent. This is called ‘reiteration’. A reiterated item may be a repetition, a synonym or near-synonym, a superordinate, or a general word. In most cases it is accompanied by a reference item, typically ‘the’. 10 Mamas 2009

23. Whydoesthislittleboy have to wriggle all the time?

24. Boysalwayswriggle.

25. Good boysdon’twriggle.

26. Boysshouldbekept out of here.

27. The lexemes ‘boy’ and ‘boys’ are not coreferential. However, lexical cohesionhereisachievedthroughcomparative reference.

28. A lexical item cohereswith a preceding occurrence of the same item whether or not the two have the samereferent.11 Mamas 2009

30. There’s a boy climbingthattree.The boy’sgoing to fall if hedoesn’ttake care. Those boys are alwaysgettingintomischief. And there’sanother boy standing underneath. Most boys love climbingtrees. 12 Mamas 2009

33. Thesewordsdon’toccurnecessarily in pairs, but sometimes in ranges:Candle/flame/flicker.hair/comb/curl/wave … etc. 14 Mamas 2009

36. consistent in resorting to the use of force.

37. unilateral military threats and force.

38. Liberal

39. consistent in his attempts to build international consensus or at least wide coalitions.

40. negotiations and dialogue16 Mamas 2009

41. Lexical Cohesion of the title of the article: «Obama and Israel: the Nuclear (in)difference» 17 Mamas 2009

42. Conclusion Every lexical item may enter into a cohesive relation, but by itself it carries no indication whether it is functioning cohesively or not; it is cohesive only when it is a part of whole (text), not as it is standing alone. In assessing lexical cohesion, lexical items of high frequency (such as ‘do’, ‘take’, ‘good’ …etc) are to be disregarded. 18 Mamas 2009

43. Reference http://blogs.aljazeera.net/imperium/2010/04/13/obama-and-israel-nuclear-indifference 19 Mamas 2009