Discourse analysis

COHESION, as we have seen, is a surface feature of texts. A text can be cohesive but it may not be COHERENT. Coherence results from the interaction of the reader and the text. A good writer will, of course, use cohesive device to make the text easier to follow, i.e. to make the text more coherent. But if the text is basically nonsense, no amount of cohesive devices will make it coherent.
Readers have certain expectations of a text, and of how meaning is likely to be developed from one sentence to another. When these expectations are met, then the text will seem coherent. Coherence is thus achieved when the reader can easily understand what the text about, when the text is organized in a way that answers the reader’s likely questions, and when the text is organized in a way that is familiar to the reader.
Coherence is a quality that the reader derives from the text: it is not simply a function of its cohesion. Even quite cohesive texts can be nonsense, as in above invented example: (see Activity 1)
Cohesion, then, is a surface feature of texts, independent of the reader. Coherence, on the other hand, results from the interaction between the reader and the text. This is not to say that cohesion and coherence function independently. Writers intentionally use cohesive devices with the aim of making their texts easier to follow, i.e. more coherent. But if the text is basically nonsense, no amount of linkers will make it coherent. Unfortunately, a lot of student writing reflects an over-dependence on the cohesive 'trees' at the expense of the coherent 'wood'.
First, though, we need to consider what exactly it is that makes a text coherent - or, rather, what helps make a text coherent, since coherence.
Activity 3 Work in a small groups Match the two halves of these short authentic texts. What is the logical relation between the two parts of each text?