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Language above the sentence or clause
The use of language in speech and writing in
order to produce meaning; language that is
studied, usually in order to see how different
parts of a text are connected.
My natal town was in a small town, very close
to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia. The distant
between my town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly.
The name of this Almasani that means in
English Factories. It takes this name from the
peopl’s carrer. In my childhood I remember the
people live. It was very simple. Most the people
was farmer.
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Cohesion refers to the grammatical and/or
lexical relationships between the different
elements of a discourse. This may be the
relationship between different sentences or
between different parts of a sentence.
◦ A: Is Jane here?
B: No, She isn’t.
◦ You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make
him drink.
Cohesion actually concerns the question of
how sentences are linked together in a
discourse by different kinds of devices. Such
cohesive devices include reference,
substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical
cohesion.
Reference: Use of pronouns (e.g. it, they, he,
she, them, etc.), demonstratives (this, that,
these, those), the article the, and items like
such as. e.g. Respect a man, he will do the
more.
Substitution: The process or result of
replacing one word by another at a particular
position in a structure. e.g.
◦ A: I’ve lost my dictionary.
◦ B: Get a new one.
◦ She chose the roast duck; I chose the same.
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Ellipsis: Omission of a word or phrase of a
sentence for reasons of economy, emphasis
or style. e.g.
◦ A: Were you typing?
B: No, I wasn’t (typing).
Conjunction: refers to an item or a process
whose primary function is to connect words
or other constructions.
◦ If you do good, good will be done to you; but if you
do evil, the same will be measured back to you.
◦ I think, therefore I am. (Descartes)
Coherence refers to the relationships which
link the meanings of utterances in a
discourse.
◦A: Could you give me a lift home?
B: Sorry, I’m visiting my sister.
There is no grammatical or lexical link
between A’s question and B’s reply but the
exchange has coherence because both A and
B know that B’s sister lives in the opposite
direction to A’s home. The link is based on
A’s and B’s shared knowledge.
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Refers to activities that are governed by rules
or norms for speech. A speech event has a
beginning and end. e.g. debate, interview etc.
◦ Party as a speech situation
◦ A conversation at the party as a speech event.
Conversational analysis is particularly
interested in the sequencing of utterances,
i.e. not in what people say but how they say
it. It also refers to study of turn-taking in
conversation. e.g.
◦ A: This is Mr. Smith, may I help you?
B: I can’t hear you!
A: This is Mr. Smith.
B: Smith!
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The way in which each speaker takes a turn in
conversation.
An underlying assumption of conversation
that you will “Make your conversational
contribution such as is required, at the stage
at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose
or direction of the talk exchange in which you
are engaged”.
(Grice: 1975:45)
Supporting this principle are four maxims,
often called the “Gricean maxims.”
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Maxim of Quality
◦ Do not say what you believe to be false
◦ Do not say that for which you lack adequate
evidence.
Maxim of Quantity
◦ Make your contribution as informative as is
required.
Basic maxims of conversation are
Maxim of Relevance
◦ Be relevant
Maxim of Manner
◦ avoid obscurity of expression
◦ avoid ambiguity,
◦ be brief,
◦ be orderly
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Words or phrases used to indicate that you
are not really sure that what you are saying is
sufficiently correct or complete. e.g.
◦ As far as I know……….
◦ Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but………
◦ I’m not absolutely sure, but………….
An additional meaning conveyed by a speaker
adhering to the co-operative principle. e.g.
◦ Carol: Are you coming to the party tonight?
Lara: I’ve got an exam tomorrow.
Instead of saying yes/no. Lara’s answer is not
simply a statement about tomorrow’s
activities.
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Information that is not in a text, but is used
from memory by a reader to understand the
text. e.g.
◦ John was on his way to school last Friday. He was
really worried about the math lesson.
Schema is a conventional knowledge
structure in memory for specific things, such
as a supermarket (food is displayed on
shelves, arranged in aisles, etc.)
Script is a conventional knowledge structure
in memory for the series of actions involved
in events such as “Going to the dentist”.
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References
Yule, George. (1985) The Study of Language
(4th ed.). (Cambridge University Press)
Jindal, D.V. (2007) An Introduction to
Linguistics (Prentice Hall of India) New Dehli.
Radford, Andrew. (1999) Linguistics: An
Introduction (Cambridge University Press)
Aitchison, J. (1993) Linguistics.
Hodder&Stoughton: London
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