Cohesion (linguistics) facts for kids

Imagine a story or an article you're reading. What makes it easy to understand? It's how all the words and sentences connect and stick together. This "sticking together" is called cohesion.

Cohesion is about the links inside a text that make it meaningful. It's closely related to coherence, which means the text makes overall sense.

There are two main kinds of cohesion:

• Grammatical cohesion: This uses grammar rules to connect parts of a text.
• Lexical cohesion: This uses words and their meanings to link ideas.

Experts like M.A.K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan studied how texts stick together. They found five main ways this happens: using references, leaving out words (ellipsis), swapping words (substitution), using related words (lexical cohesion), and using connecting words (conjunctions).

How Words Connect: Referencing

Referencing is like using shortcuts in your writing so you don't have to repeat the same words over and over.

Looking Back: Anaphoric Reference

Anaphoric reference happens when you refer back to something you've already mentioned. This helps avoid repeating words.

• Instead of saying "The taxi driver drove the taxi driver's car," you can say, "The taxi driver drove his car." Here, "his" refers back to "the taxi driver."
• Another example: "The two girls played. They had fun." "They" refers to "the two girls."

Looking Forward: Cataphoric Reference

Cataphoric reference is the opposite of anaphoric reference. You refer to something that hasn't been fully introduced yet.

• For example: "Here he comes, our award-winning host... it's John Doe!" Here, "he" refers forward to "John Doe."

Outside the Text: Exophoric Reference

Exophoric reference refers to something that is not actually in the text itself. It's something the reader is expected to know from the world outside the text.

• For example, if you say "everything" without explaining what "everything" means, it's an exophoric reference.
• This type of reference doesn't connect two parts of the text, so it doesn't create cohesion within the text itself.

Common Knowledge: Homophoric Reference

A homophoric reference is a common phrase that gets its specific meaning from what people generally know.

• For example, "the Queen" might mean the Queen of England if you are in the United Kingdom. The meaning comes from shared knowledge, not from something explained in the text.

Leaving Words Out: Ellipsis

Ellipsis is a way to make writing shorter and more natural. It happens when you leave out words that are clearly understood because they were already mentioned.

• Imagine a conversation:
  • A: "Where are you going?"
  • B: "To dance."
• The full answer from B would be: "I am going to dance." But "I am going" is left out because it's obvious.

• In writing: "The younger child was very outgoing, the older much more reserved."
• The words "child" and "was" are left out of the second part, but you still understand it means "the older child was much more reserved."

Swapping Words: Substitution

Substitution is when you replace a word or phrase with a more general word to avoid repeating it.

• For example: "Which ice-cream would you like?" – "I would like the pink one."
• Here, "one" is used instead of saying "ice-cream" again.

Connecting Words: Lexical Cohesion

Lexical cohesion is about how related words are chosen to link different parts of a text. There are two main ways this happens:

Repeating or Using Similar Words

This involves using the same word, or words that mean almost the same thing (synonyms), or words that mean the opposite (antonyms).

• Example: "Which dress are you going to wear?" – "I will wear my green frock."
• "Dress" and "frock" are synonyms, and using them helps the sentences stick together.

Words That Go Together: Collocation

Collocation uses words that often appear together or are related in meaning.

• An example is the phrase "once upon a time." These words often go together, creating a sense of connection.

See also

In Spanish: Cohesión textual para niños

• Coherence (linguistics)
• M.A.K. Halliday
• Systemic functional linguistics