لخّصلي

Making sense of discourse

3.1 Discourse coherence

In the preceding chapter we looked at some of the building blocks If discourse. The focus of attention was therefore firmly on the text itself. In this chapter, we shall bring the users into the picture. In other words, we shall look in greater detail at speakers and listeners, readers and writers, as they construct and interpret discourse.

At the beginning of chapter 2, we examined some of the linguistic characteristics of coherent discourse. We saw that coherent dis- course was distinguished from random sentences by the existence of certain text-forming, cohesive devices. In this section I wish to look in greater detail at the role of cohesion in the establishment of coherent discourse.

ACTIVITY

Study the following texts and decide which are coherent and which are random sentences. In the process, try and identify the basis for your decisions.

3a

A: That's the telephone.

B: I'm in the bath.

A: OK.

(Widdowson 1978)

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4. What this

B. That? It's a watch. Why?

A Fury looking one if you ask me

(Author's data)

Charles Dickens was born on the seventh of February 1812, the year of victory and the year of hardship. He came crying into the world in a small first-floor bedroom in an area known as New Town or Mile End, just on the outskirts of Portsmouth where his father. John Dickens, worked in the Naval Pay Office. His mother, Elizabeth, is reported to have claimed that she went to a ball on the night before his birth...

(Ackroyd 1990: 1)

3d

A: How much was it?

B: Oh, you don't really want to know, do you?

A: Oh, tell me.

B: Wasn't cheap.

A: Was it a pound?

B: Pound fifty.

(Author's data)

3e

Psycholinguistic reading skills are not invariant. Reading skills are something that English teachers work hard to develop. Singapore's economy has developed rapidly in recent years. We shall need to economise if we are to save money.

Most readers agree that the only random collection of sentences is text 3e. All of the other passages are seen as being coherent. Yet these passages do not seem to conform to the principle established in chapter 2 namely, that coherent texts are distinguished from random sentences by the existence of text-forming, cohesive devices. utterances in text 3a seem to go together despite the fact that there is no evidence of cohesion. In text 3e, on the other hand, each sentence shares a link with the one which precedes it; despite this, there is general agreement that the sentences do not belong together. Clearly, cohesion is neither necessary nor sufficient for the creation of coherent discourse. How can we explain coherence in the case of texts 3a, 3b, 3c and 3d, and the lack of connectivity in the case of text 3e?

It would seem that in the case of the first four texts it is possible to construct a context in which these pieces of language could conceivably have taken place. This is not the case with text 3e, although I should point out that with a little ingenuity it is probably possible to construct a context for any two of the four sentences. For example, consider the two sentences: Reading skills are something that English teachers work hard to develop. Singapore's economy has developed rapidly in recent years. As they stand, these sentences do not seem to relate to each other. However, when an extended context is provided, they are readily seen as coherent.

3f

A: Education, particularly literacy, is extremely important for devel- oping the full potential of a society.

B: True. Take our situation here in Singapore. Reading skills are something that English teachers work hard to develop.

A: Singapore's economy has developed rapidly in recent years. Would you say that this has been due, at least in part, to the educational system?

B: I certainly would!

Text 3a has been taken from Widdowson (1978), who uses it to support his argument that cohesion is neither necessary nor suffi- cient for the establishment of coherence. He goes on to suggest that we are able to recognize this text as coherent by creating a context and then identifying the functions that each utterance fulfils within .that context. Most native speakers would create a domestic situ- ational context in which the following functions are assigned to each utterance:

UTTERANCE

FUNCTION

A: That's the telephone.

REQUEST

B: I'm in the bath.

EXCUSE

A: OK.

ACCEPTANCE OF EXCUSES

In creating a meaningful context and identifying the functions of each utterance, coherence is established. As a result, the missing bits of conversation, which would make it cohesive as well as coherent, could be restored. Such a cohesive conversation might run as follows:

A. That's the telephone. Can you answer it, please?

B: No, I'm sorry, I can't answer it because I'm in the bath.

A: OK, I'll answer it then.

Of course, the interlocutor can always deliberately misinterpret the functional intention of the speaker for humorous, ironic or other effects, as the following example shows.

3g

(A is addressing her husband who is clearing out a garden shed.)

A: Are you wearing gloves?

B: No.

A: What about the spiders?

B: They're not wearing gloves either.

(Author's data)

Although there is no surface cohesion between A's two utterances,

Are you wearing gloves? and What about the spiders?, B readily

perceives that they are coherent in at least two ways: 1. What about the spiders? You might get bitten, if you don't wear gloves.

2. What about the spiders, are they wearing gloves?
   If the subject of the second utterance happened to be human, the second interpretation would be the preferred one (for example, if the wife had said, What about the children?). Here it would be quite natural for the clause are they wearing gloves? to be omitted. However, given the non-human subject of the wife's second utter- ance, the second interpretation is highly improbable. We shall charitably assume that the husband chooses the second interpreta- tion for humorous effect. If the subject of the second utterance had been inanimate for example, What about the nails? - then the second interpretation would be merely silly.

Edmonson (1981) also explores the issue of what distinguishes text from non-text (that is, coherent from non-coherent texts). He claims that it is difficult to create non-texts from random sentences because some sort of context can generally be created which will give coherence to any set of sentences. He challenges van Dijk's (1977) assertion that the following two sentences are incoherent:

3h

We will have guests for lunch.

Calderon was a great writer.

Edmonson argues that any native speaker will immediately see a causal link between these two sentences. (Before reading further, see whether you can construct a context which might lend coherence to these two sentences.)

Edmonson provides the following context:

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Did you know Calderon died exactly one hundred years ago today? Good heavens! I'd forgotten. The occasion shall not pass unnoticed. We will have guests for lunch. Calderon was a great Spanish writer. I shall invite Professor Wilson and Señor Castellano right away (Edmonson 1981: 13)

Two points which should be noted here are, firstly, that in order to provide interpretable texts that lack cohesive markers, Widdow- son and Edmonson provide very brief examples three utterances in the case of the first, and two sentences in the case of the second. One wonders how far either text could be extended without the appearance of a cohesive device. The second point with which one might want to take issue is Edmonson's claim that any native speaker will immediately be able to establish the coherence of van Dijk's two sentences. In fact, the provision of an appropriate context requires a reasonable level of ingenuity.

Despite these quibbles, I am in basic agreement with the notion that cohesion does not 'create' coherence, for reasons that I shall outline in greater detail later. However, I believe that Widdowson and Edmonson overstate their case. Their argument assumes that each utterance has a clearly identifiable function, the perception of which is somehow independent of the ideas or propositions ex- pressed. In Widdowson's example, it is claimed that coherence is achieved through perception of the functions being performed by each utterance. This enables the complete propositional content of each utterance to be supplied by the listener. However, the issue of which comes first perception of the full propositional meaning, or the function performed by each utterance is a 'chicken and egg' argument. In this particular instance, I believe that perception of the propositions must either precede or occur simultaneously with the recognition of functions. Thus, for interlocutor B in Widdowson's example to recognize that That's the telephone is functioning as 'request', he or she must also have perceived the unstated proposition Could you answer it, please? Someone trying to comprehend spoken or written discourse must simultaneously perceive both the proposi- tional meaning and functional intention of the speaker or writer.

I believe that interpreting discourse, and thus establishing coher- ence, is a matter of readers/listeners using their linguistic knowledge to relate the discourse world to people, objects, events and states of affairs beyond the text itself. While any piece of language is ultimately interpretable with reference to extra-linguistic context, it is going too far to conclude that the language itself is somehow irrelevant or unnecessary.