Grammatical Cohesion Devices in English News

Xiao Bin

Abstract：News is a kind of practical style whose unique cohesion devices deserve us special attention.Based on the theory of cohesion，it is to analyze the grammatical cohesion in English news to provide beneficial enlightenment on the comprehension and writing of English news.

Key words：English news；cohesion；reference；conjunction

1 Cohesive Mechanism in Text

Text is described by Halliday and Hasan as any passage，spoken or written，of whatever length，that does form a unified whole （Halliday&Hasan;，2001）.A stretch of language which is coherent and ‘makes sense is said to have texture.Texture is simple the quality of being a text，rather than a set of unconnected bits of language such as one might find in a collection of independent sentences used as exercise in a language text book（Thomas&Meriel;，2001）.In 1994，Halliday indentified a rather clear concept for the textual component of the grammar of English，which includes two main groups of resources：the structural components，involving information structure and thematic structure，and the cohesive components，grammatical and lexical cohesion included.Grammatical cohesion is further divided into reference，ellipsis，substitution and conjunction.

2 Typical Grammatical Cohesive Devices in English News

News，as a kind of text，possesses all of the cohesive devices stated above，but different texts have different features，so news also exists some special features in cohesive devices.It is said that objective and brevity are two main features of English news.Therefore whether a piece of news report is successful or not depends a lot on how the sentences are combined and how to use cohesive devices to fulfill the two aims：objective and brevity.In this paper，the English news Harvard Finds Scientist Guilty of Misconduct is taken as an example to investigate the grammatical cohesion system in news in terms of reference and conjunction.

2.1 Reference

Reference is the set of grammatical resources that allow the speaker to indicate whether something is being repeated from somewhere earlier in the text or whether it has not yet appeared in the text （Geoff，2008）.It includes exophoric，pointing outwards to the environment，and endophoric，pointing inwards to the text.Both of them can serve the function of showing how the message is fixed into the whole text，but through the news story，Harvard Finds Scientist Guilty of Misconduct，the latter- endophoric is used much more.News should be concise.In this news，many endophorics are used to achieve the goal.For example，Hours later，Dr.Hauser，a rising star for his explorations into cognition and morality，made his first public statement since news of the inquiry emerged last week，telling The New York Times，“I acknowledge that I made some significant mistakes” and saying he was “deeply sorry for the problems this case had caused to my students，my colleagues and my university.”

In this paragraph，there are just sixty-eight words，where eight personal references，such as his，he，my and four demonstrative references，including “the” and “this”，are used.Suppose all of these words are changed into the original words，for example，transferring “his” to “Dr.Hausers”，this paragraph will become extremely complex and excessive，which disobey the rule of news-conciseness.In addition，the readers will be tired.Thirdly，personal reference is a main device of avoiding repetition.For example，in this paragraph，“I acknowledge that I made some significant mistakes”.Apparently，“I” means “Dr.Hauser”，so in this sentence，“I” is used to avoid the appearances of “Dr.Hauser”，which makes the whole passage be brief and cohesive.

2.2 Conjunction

Judging by the name，conjunction means using a great number of conjunctive elements，most of which are transitional words expressing time、reasons、conditions and so on，to make the whole text to be cohesive，and embody different kinds of logical relations.Conjunctive elements are cohesive not in themselves but indirectly，by virtue of their specific meanings，which express certain meaning presupposing the presence of other components in the discourse.There are mainly three broad categories for conjunction classification proposed by Halliday which are under the headings of elaboration，extension and enhancement.Elaboration consists of the sub -types of apposition and clarification including words like in other words，or rather； extension with the sub -type addition and variation including words and，but，alternatively and so on； while enhancement has spatio-temporal and casual-consitional two detailed categories，consisting of the words such as previously，consequently，and in that case.In news，lots of conjunctive elements are used to make the logical relations be much clearer.For example，Harvard itself had faced growing criticism for not releasing more details of the inquiry since The Boston Globe reported on Aug.10 that the university had found evidence of scientific misconduct in Dr.Hausers lab.

In this sentence，there are two conjunctive elements，“for” and “since”.The first conjunctive word “for” expresses the reason why Harvard had faced growing criticism.The word “since” identifies the time and the reason of growing criticism that Harvard had faced.

3 Conclusion

Objective and brevity are two main features of English news，which lay heavy demands on the unique cohesion devices to make it a unitary whole.Reference and conjunction are two main devices applied to achieve it.Obviously，it is great significance to make a further research for the analysis of lexical cohesion in news.

Reference

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