Cohesion in English

by M.A.K. Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan

Cohesion in English is concerned with a relatively neglected part of the linguistic its resources for text construction, the range of meanings that are speciffically associated with relating what is being spoken or written to its semantic environment. A principal component of these resources is 'cohesion'. This book studies the cohesion that arises from semantic relations between sentences. Reference from one to the other, repetition of word meanings, the conjunctive force of but, so, then and the like are considered. Further, it describes a method for analysing and coding sentences, which is applied to specimen texts.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Writing

374 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1976

About the author

Michael Alexander Kirkwood Halliday is a British-born Australian linguist who developed the internationally influential systemic functional linguistic model of language.

Reviews

[Daniel]

Happy to say that while the Longman paperback copy I got for $9 is indeed ugly, with its 1970s textbook cover of purple on slightly yellowish split-pea soup (seriously who thought barf was a good color to go with?), it is nowhere near as hideous as the cover Routledge put on it. Pages are in very nice condition too.

[Jackie]

This book has a lot of information that I need for my dissertation, but it is not casual reading and it is overdue at the library.

[Riscky C'nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really want to read it!!

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book changed linguistics. Before 1976 hardly anyone thought it was necessary to look beyond the sentence in order to study grammar. Without 'Cohesion in English' this erroneous view of language would probably still hold sway (and some like to think that they can still get away with it). Fortunately Halliday and Hasan were able to show how the grammatical system of reference works within and between sentences. This, of course, is just the beginning, although again many would be surprised to hear that Halliday and Hasan have moved on to bigger and better descriptions of English. Cohesion allows a description of language that extends up as far as the structure of each society but is all based on the same fundamental notion of meaning being created through choice.

[Amin19998]

Cohesion in English
M.A.K. Halliday, Ruqaiya Hasan

[Owoeye Taiwo · Rating 5 out of 5]

make sense

[Jakub Sláma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know that this book was very important and so on and so forth, but, honestly? Very repetitive, sometimes presumes no previous knowledge of linguistics, I guess, which makes it painfully boring and captain-obvious-ish at (a lot of) times, but at the same time it doesn't feel like a textbook, so I wonder what the intended audience was. The important stuff could easily fit into 100 pages, maybe even fewer. The basic ideas are certainly important, but at this point I'm also pretty much allergic to linguists claiming things about how language comprehension works without actually bothering to consider anything from psycholinguistics or cognitive science whatsoever, so, yeah, it was ok, hence two starts, but I certainly won't feel tempted to read this ever again.

[Gordon Eldridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this book is not an easy read if tackled from cover to cover, doing so will give you an excellent overview of how cohesion works in the English language. The book gives an overview of cohesion and then goes chapter by chapter through every cohesive device available in English. Each device is explained in all its nuances with copious well-chosen examples as illustrations. For someone who already has a good understanding of how the system overall works, the book would be best used as a handbook. Since it is organized very clearly around the different devices and subsets within them, it is easy to look up explanations and examples relating to exactly what you want to check on.

[Romy Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is well put and written in a comprehensible way. What worries me though is the constant use of ‘death’ in most of the provided examples. Seriously, I am trying to keep it positive before my exam, but these examples are making it hard.

[Feliana · Rating 5 out of 5]

i need read

[Eva · Rating 3 out of 5]

En "Cohesión en inglés", Halliday y Hasan (no olvidemos nombrarla) explican cómo funciona la cohesión en los textos de habla inglesa.

El hablante es capaz de distinguir entre una totalidad unificada o una oración no relacionada, pero a veces puede tener incertidumbres. Es por eso que Halliday y Hasan describen los rasgos característicos de los textos.

Un texto es cualquier pasaje hablado o escrito (de cualquier extensión) que forma una totalidad unificada y se realiza mediante oraciones. Los textos tienen textura, que permiten distinguir un texto de lo que no es un texto. Y surge el concepto estrella: la cohesión.

La cohesión es cuando la interpretación de un elemento del discurso depende de otro. Existen varios tipos: gramatical, lexical, referencia, sustitución, elipsis y conjunción. Cada uno tiene rasgos particulares. A su vez, hay cadenas cohesivas como las conocidas anáfora (pa' tras), catáfora (pa' delante) y exofórica (pal exterior, pero no es cohesiva).

Halliday y Hasan vuelven al texto, mencionando que se dependen de su contexto de situación, que tiene forma y contenido, contexto, participantes, propósito, tono, medio, género y normas interaccionales. Los factores externos que afectan a las elecciones lingüísticas del hablante son la audiencia, el medio y el propósito de la comunicación. Y determinan los significados del campo, tenor y modo. El campo es el evento, el modo es el funcionamiento del texto en su evento y el tenor es el tipo de interacción.

Por último, mencionan que hay componentes del sistema lingüístico. El ideacional se relaciona con la expresión del contenido. El interpersonal tiene función social, expresiva y conativa del lenguaje. El textual es el formador de un texto.

Y ya. Ahora, que haya entendido algo, es otra cosa.

[Ivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Membaca Halliday memberiku struktur dalam worldview. Urutannya Functional Grammar trus Language as Social Semiotics. Seperti Heidegger, he's one of my basics

[Mike Stockwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for EFL / ESL teachers.

[Ara · Rating 3 out of 5]

That was really dense. Historical importance aside, there are probably more accessible ways to get this information now.

[Soraia Ferreira · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well it's a good book, they explain every thing in a really detailed way. Can't say I enjoyed it because it's about grammar but its content is good

[J A H Khatri · Rating 4 out of 5]

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