Cohesive Devices

Name Naeem Akram
Roll no 19011517-026
Course code TRAN-304
Course Name Art of Translation
Quiz Topic Summary
Submitted to Ms Faria Shaheen
Department CeLTS
English is considered the first language for the majority of the population in several countries
and the second language for others. Hence, English is becoming the language of communication
globally. Communication allows language users to interact with each other and in turn
understand what others are trying to convey.
Discourse in a language means that language gives meaning verbally and non-verbally. English
is a discourse language; its native speaker can understand it in any way like sentences are
unrelated or unified whole. The unity of these sentences achieved through cohesive devices.
The Concept of Cohesion
Text and Texture

In linguistics, any spoken or written discourse that forms a unified whole is referred to as a text.
A text is not a grammatical unit, but rather a semantic unit of language, i.e. a unit of meaning,
not of form. Texture differentiates the text from non-text.
Cohesion
Cohesion is the semantic relation between one element and another in a text. A text is cohesive
when the elements are tied together and considered meaningful to the reader. Cohesion occurs
when the interpretation of one item depends on the other.
For example; Amy went to the party. She sat with Sara.
In this sentence the element she is dependent on Amy.
There are two types of Cohesion.
1. Grammatical Cohesion
2. Lexical Cohesion
Grammatical Cohesion
There are four types of Grammatical Cohesion. Reference, Substitution, Ellipsis and
Conjunctions.
Reference
Reference can be identified as the situation in which one element cannot be semantically
interpreted unless it is referred to another element in the text. Pronouns, articles, demonstratives,
and comparatives are used as referring devices to refer to items in linguistic or situational texts.
Reference may either be exophoric or endophoric.
In exophoric reference reader gets the meaning looking beyond the situation to retrieve the
message. For example; That is a wonderful idea.
In this sentence for getting the message, reader has to look in previous sentences for getting the
message of that.
On the other hand, endophoric reference lies within the text itself. It is classified into two
classes: anaphoric and cataphoric. Anaphoric reference is where a word or phrase refers back to
another word or phrase used earlier in the text.
Amy went to the party. She sat with Sara.
She refers back to Amy; therefore, she is an anaphoric reference. Cataphoric reference looks
forward to another word or phrase mentioned later in the text. For instance in the following
sentence, he is a cataphoric reference that looks forward to Mike.
As soon as he arrived, Mike visited his parents.
Substitution
Substitution occurs when an item is replaced by another item in the text to avoid repetition. The
difference between substitution and reference is that substitution lies in the relation between
words, whereas reference between meanings. There are three types of substitution: nominal,
verbal, and clausal.
Nominal substitution is substituting a noun or a nominal group with another noun. In the
following example, one substitutes car.
This car is old. I will buy a new one.
Verbal substitution involves substituting a verb or a verbal group with another verb. The verb
element used to replace items in this type is do.
For example: I challenge you to win the game before I do!
Here, do is the substitution for win the game
Clausal substitution is substituting clauses by so or not. This is illustrated by the following:
A: Do you think the teacher is going to be absent tomorrow?
B: No. I don’t think so.
In this example, so substitutes the clause going to be absent.
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is the process of omitting an unnecessary item, which has been mentioned earlier in a
text, and replacing it with nothing. It is similar to substitution because Ellipsis is simply
substitution by zero. Normally, it is considered as an anaphoric relation because the omission
takes place within a text. When ellipsis occurs, the item that is omitted from the structure of the
text can still be understood. Ellipsis has three types; nominal, verbal and clausal.
In nominal ellipsis, the noun is omitted. This is exemplified by: My brothers like sports. In fact,
both [0] love football. [0: My brothers] In the second sentence, the nominal my brothers is
omitted.
Verbal ellipsis involves the omission of the verb. In the following example, the verb been
studying is left out in B.
A: Have you been studying?
B: Yes, I have[0]. [0: been studying]
Clausal ellipsis occurs when the clause is omitted. In the example mentioned below, the clause
writing on the board is excluded in B.
A: Who is writing on the board?
B: Alice is [0]. [0: writing on the board]
Conjunctions
Conjunction words are linking devices between sentences or clauses in a text. Unlike the other
grammatical devices, conjunctions express the ‘logical-semantic’ relation between sentences
rather than between words and structures.
Conjunctions are divided into four types, namely additive, adversative, causal, and temporal.
Additive conjunctions connect units that share semantic similarity. Examples of additive
conjunctions are, and, likewise, furthermore, in addition, etc.
Adversative conjunctions are used to express contrasting results or opinions. This type of
conjunction is expressed by words such as, but, however, in contrast, whereas, etc.
Causal conjunctions introduce results, reasons, or purposes. They are characterized by the use
of items such as, so, thus, therefore, because, etc.
Temporal conjunctions express the time order of events such as, finally, then, soon, at the same
time, etc.
Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesion concerns with vocabulary, the relationship between words and phrases involves
lexical cohesion. Lexical cohesion includes two types, reiteration and collocation.
Reiteration
Reiterations mean that two items could be repeated or have similar meanings in a text. The forms
of reiteration are repetition, synonymy, antonymy, and super ordination (hyponymy and
meronymy).
Repetition is the restatement of the same lexical item. This is illustrated by the following: Anna
ate the apple. The apple was fresh.
Synonymy is used to refer to items of similar meaning just as, attractive and beautiful.
Antonymy is the relation between items of opposite meanings such as, hot and cold.
Hyponymy refers to items of ‘general-specific’ or ‘an example of’ relationship. For example,
vehicle is the co-hyponym of car.
Meronymy is a ‘whole-part’ relationship between items. For instance, cover and page are co-
meronyms of the item book. In other words, book is the superordinate item of cover and page.
Collocation
Collocation is a combination of vocabulary items that co-occur together. It includes
combinations of adjectives and nouns such as, fast food, verbs and nouns such as, run out of
money, and other items such as, men and women.

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Cohesive Devices

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Name Naeem Akram

Course code TRAN-304

Course Name Art of Translation

Quiz Topic Summary

Submitted to Ms Faria Shaheen

The Concept of Cohesion

Text and Texture

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