Categories of Cohesion 1

1
Categories of Cohesion 1

• Category Example
•  
•  Reference
• Pronominal The woman lost track of her little
  boy
• at the mall. She became very worried.
• Demonstrative That was the worst exam I had
  all term.
• Comparative It's the same band we heard last
  week.
•  
• Substitution My computer is too slow. I need to
  get a
• faster one

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 158.
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Categories of Cohesion 2

• Category Example
•  
• Ellipsis I wish I had more talent. My
  sister has a lot more
• than I do.
•  
• Conjunction Melissa flunked out of school,
  so she is looking
• for a job.
•  
• Lexical
• Reiteration I saw a boy win the spelling
  bee.
• The boy was delighted afterward.
• Synonymy I saw a boy win the spelling
  bee.
• The lad was delighted afterward.
• Hyponymy I saw a boy win the spelling
  bee.
• The child was delighted afterward

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 158.
3
Cohesion through Pronominalization

• I went to the supermarket and bought a bottle
  of milk. I took the bottle of milk home and put
  the bottle of milk in the refrigerator. Later,
  when I wanted a drink, I took the bottle of milk
  out and poured myself a glass of milk. The milk
  was sour, so I took the bottle of milk back to
  the supermarket to exchange the spoiled bottle of
  milk for a good bottle of milk.

4
Anaphor and Antecedent

• The rat climbed up the wall to escape through
  a hole in the window. I sprayed it with the
  shower hose and it fell into the tub with me.

5
Use of Cohesive Devices

• I went to the supermarket and bought a bottle
  of milk. I took it home and put it in the
  refrigerator. Later, when I wanted a drink, I
  took the bottle out and poured myself a glass of
  milk. The milk was sour, so I took lousy product
  back to the supermarket to exchange it for a good
  one.

6
Given / New Strategy of Sentence Integration

• "In an explicit extension of Grices' (1975)
  maxim of relation, Clark and Haviland (1977)
  suggest that readers expect authors to use given
  information cues to refer to or to signal or
  highlight information the readers already know
  or can identify and to use new information cues
  to refer to concepts with which they the
  readers are not already familiar." (160 c)

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 160.
7
Three-Stage Process of Sentence
ComprehensionUsing the Given/New Strategy

• 1. Identify NEW and OLD/GIVEN information in
  current
• sentence
•  
• 2. Find antecedent in memory for GIVEN
•  
• 3. Attach NEW information to that spot in memory

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 160.
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Strategies for Establishing Coherence

• 1. Direct matching (repeat)
• We got some beer out of the trunk.
• The beer was warm.
•  
• 2. Bridging (inference)
• Last Christmas John went to a lot of parties.
• This Christmas he got very drunk again.
•  
• 3. Reinstating old information
•  
• 4. Identifying new topics of discourse

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 161-163.
9
Late Closure(Frank and Ernest)

Ashcraft, Mark H. 1994. Human Memory and
Cognition, second edition. New York Harper
Collins College Publishers, p. 432.
10
Memory for Discourse

• 1. Surface representations (forms)
•  
• 2. Propositional representations
•  
• 3. Situational models

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 166-172.
10
11
Discourse Structure Storage

• Information stored in propositions
• Propositions are explicit information
• Propositions also include inferences
• Studies show that higher level propositions
  remembered better

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 167-170.
11
12
Conditions for AutomaticDrawing of Inferences

• 1. "The inference must be necessary to make a
  text locally coherent."
• 2. "The information on which the inference is
  based must be easily activated (either from
  explicit statements in the text or from general
  knowledge)."

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, p. 169.
13
Untitled Story

• With hocked gems financing him, our hero
  bravely
• defied all scornful laughter that tried to
  present his
• scheme. "Your eyes deceive," he had said, "an
  egg
• not a table correctly typifies this unexplored
  planet."
• Now three sturdy sisters sought proof, forging
  along
• sometimes through calm vastness, yet more often
  over
• turbulent peaks and valleys. Days became weeks
  as
• many doubters spread fearful rumors about the
  edge.
• At last from nowhere welcome winged creatures
• appeared signifying momentous success.
  (Dolling
• Lachman, 1971, p. 217)

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 175-176.
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Genres

• Spoken Written
• lecture newspaper article
• sermon opinion article
• comedy monologue presidential
  inauguration speech
• narrative stories psych journal
  article (or thesis)
•   abstract
• introduction
• method
• results
• discussion
• detective
  stories
• narrative
  stories

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 176-177.
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Educational Implications of Insights on Discourse
Comprehension

• ? Actively Processing Discourse
• ? Connecting Propositions in Discourse
• ? Identifying the Main Points
• ? Building Global Structures
• ? Tailoring Comprehension Activities to Tests

Carroll, David W. 1999. Psychology of Language,
third edition. Pacific Grove Brooks/Cole
Publishing Company, pp. 183-187.