Literature Review of Lexical Cohesion Theory

XIAO Fuliang

【Abstract】Lexical cohesion theory contributes to its patterns and cohesive functions in English texts. Different linguists have different views on lexical cohesion are introduced and its patterns are guided in detail as well. A full understanding of lexical cohesion can help better comprehend English texts.

【Key words】lexical collocation； function； English text

Many linguists have been researching on lexical cohesion at home and abroad such as Halliday & Hasan， Hoey， Winter， Harnett， Phillips， Cook， Hu Zhuanglin， Zhu Yongsheng. Well illustrate them in detail one by one.

1. Researches Abroad

Halliday & Hasan

The work Cohesion of English of Halliday & Hasan （1976） is regarded as the “most comprehensive description and analysis” of the text forming properties of cohesion （Numan 1993：21）. In their work， Halliday & Hasan make the first attempt at the analysis of cohesive devices.

They think cohesion is the principal factor in the creation of a coherent text and emphasize that cohesion is a semantic relation， which is realized partly through grammar and partly through vocabulary： grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. Cohesion devices are categorized into five types： reference， substitution， ellipsis， conjunction， and lexical cohesion， among which the former four categories belong to grammatical cohesive devices. Lexical cohesion， as the name suggests， concerns cohesive effects achieved through vocabulary choice. It is classified into two classes： reiteration and collocation. Reiteration is a form of repetition of the same word， synonym， general word and super-ordinates. Collocation achieves cohesion through associations that exist between lexical items， many of which have no readily available name. To compensate for the loss of the category of collocation， in her later work language， context and text （1985）， Hasan tightens up the categorization of lexical cohesion， incorporating within her sub-categories some lexical relations that would previously have been handled under the umbrella heading of collocation. The sub-categories of lexical cohesion that she now recognizes are shown as follows：

Categories of lexical cohesion

A. General：repetition（happy/happiness）， synonym（hard/difficult）， antonym（ deep/shallow）， hyponymy（travel/leave）， metonymy（ animal/dog）

B. Instantial： equivalence（The teacher was his mother）， naming （We named Li Ping Apple.），semblance（My love is like a red， red rose）

Hasan promotes an important notion of the cohesive chain in her book. She shows that there is noeasy correlation between the number of cohesive ties and the degree of coherence awarding a text by readers. She concludes that cohesive chains are composed of a succession of message components， which are mainly lexical items.

Hoey

In Hoeys book Patterns of Lexis in Text（1991）， Michael Hoey places much more emphasis on the lexical items than on grammatical items as the cohesive devices. He claims that lexical cohesion is “the single most important form of cohesive tie and makes up about forty percent of the total”（1991：9）. Thus， according to Hoey， the study of the greater part of cohesion is the study of lexis， and the study of cohesion in text is to a considerable degree the study of patterns of lexis in text. Lexical cohesion plays a decisive role and becomes the dominant mode of creating texture， since it is the only type of cohesion that regularly forms multiple relations. In his analysis， he sees cohesion as a form of repetition and divides cohesive devices into nine types listed as below in decreasing order of importance.

Nine types of cohesive devices： simple lexical repetition； complex lexical repetition； simple mutual paraphrase； simple partial paraphrase； antonymous complex repetition； other complex repetition； substitution； co-reference； ellipsis.

Winter

In Winters view it is much more important to recognize the common function of the variety of cohesive ties than to distinguish them. The common function is to repeat as he notes：

A commonplace observation that everyone can make for themselves is that many clauses are repeated， either partially or （almost） entirely， in speech and in writing the most obvious kind of being the very common partially repeated structures of the clause. This repetition may however， be disguised by the grammatical form which it takes； that is， either by substitution， by deletion， or by a combination of both forms.

Harnett

Harnett reports that cohesive ties may fall into two categories —static and dynamic. Static cohesive tie includes repetition， substitution and ellipsis， the function being to have the readers focus on one topic but not contribute to the development of proposition. Dynamic cohesive tie includes conjunctions， super-ordinates and hyponyms， the function being to focus on a topic and to contribute more or less to the rhetoric.

Philips

Philips develops a sophisticated statistical method to identify collocates of any given words in a text. He states that lexical items often intercollocate in text， forming a network of connections. More importantly， it is found that collocation is text-sensitive： lexical networks of collocate correspond to major divisions in the texts planes of content. The network of collocations thus correlates with large-scale organization of subject matter.

Cook

According to Cook， cohesive devices refer to the formal links between sentences or between clauses. He develops seven cohesive devices： verb form， parallelism， referring expressions， repetition and lexical chains， substation， ellipsis and conjunction. He thinks repetition of words can create the same sort of chain as pronouns and there are sometimes good reasons for preferring it. Repetition is regarded “bad style” in Britain， and learners of English are encouraged to use a device known as “elegant repetition”， where synonyms or more general words or phrases are used. So instead of writing

The pineapple…the pineapple…the pineapple…the pineapple…

They might write

The pineapple…the luscious fruit…our meal…the tropical luxury

Lexical chain may be created by words meaning the same， or words which associate with each other.

2. Researches in China

Based on western cohesion theory， many linguists in China have done some researches on cohesion in Chinese.

Hu Zhuanglin

On the basis of Halliday and Hasans theory， in his book Cohesion and Coherence of Text， Hu Zhuanglin broadened the range of cohesion by counting transitivity， tone， and intonation patterns as cohesive ties. He categorizes lexical cohesion into five kinds： repetition， general word， similarity （synonym， near-synonym and antonym）， classification （hyponymy， part-whole relation， collectivity and consistency） and collocation （different lexical items having the tendency to co-occur in some context）.

Zhu Yongsheng

Zhu Yongsheng et al （2001） have conducted the first effective research on contrastive study of cohesion in English and Chinese. They have done research mainly on the framework of Halliday & Hasans cohesive model except the classification that is on the basis of Halliday and Hasans Functional Grammar. Zhu categorizes conjunctions into three kinds： elaboration， extension and enhancement instead of adopting Halliday and Hasans classification of conjunctions： additive， adversative， causal and temporal. Whats more important， he goes further by making a more detailed comparison and contrast with a large quantity of corpus.

Conclusion

As noted above， Halliday & Hasan（1976） and Hoey（1991） are regarded as the most influential on cohesion. Halliday and Hasan put a great deal of effort into classification of categories including substitution and ellipsis that occur infrequently in text. While Hoey focuses on lexical cohesion as the single most important cohesive structure and provides good summaries and presentations of his findings in the form of repetition matrixes and bond nets.

References：

[1]Cook，Guy.Discourse and Literature[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，1994.

[2]Halliday，M.A.K.and Hasan，R.Cohesion in English.London：Longman，1976.

[3]Hoey，M.Patterns of Lexis in Text.Oxford：Oxford University Press，1991.

[4]朱永生，鄭立信，苗興偉.英漢語篇銜接手段對比研究[M].上海：上海外語教育出版社，2001.

About the author： Xiao Fuliang（1971-）， Associate Professor， Vice Dean of Foreign Languages Department of Loudi Vocational and Technical College. Main field of research is Applied Linguistics and Business English.