CHAPTER 1

1.1 The concept of Cohesion

1.1.1 Text
The word TEXT is used in linguistics to refer to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever
length, that does form a unified whole.
There must be certain features which are characteristic of texts and not found otherwise.
A text may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything
from a single proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion
on a committee.
A text is a unit of language in use. It is not a grammatical unit, like a clause or a sentence;
and it is not defined by its size. A text is sometimes envisaged to be some kind of
super-sentence, a grammatical unit that is longer than a sentence but is related to a
sentence in the same way that a sentence is related to a clause, a clause to a group and so
on: by CONSTITUENCY, the composition of larger units out of smaller ones.
A text is best regarded as a SEMANTIC unit: a unit not of form but of meaning. Thus it is
related to a clause or sentence not by size but by REALIZATION, the coding of one symbolic
system in another. A text does not CONSIST OF sentences; it is REALIZED BY, or encoded
in, sentences.

1.1.2 Texture
The concept of TEXTURE is entirely appropriate to express the property of ‘being a text’. A
text has texture, and this is what distinguishes it from something that is not a text. It derives
this texture from the fact that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment.
If a passage of English containing more than one sentence is perceived as a text, there will
be certain linguistic features present in that passage which can be identified as contributing
to its total unity and giving it texture.
[1] ​Wash and core six cooking apples. Put them into a fireproof dish.
The texture is provided by the cohesive RELATION that exists between ​them​ and ​six
cooking apples.​
What is the MEANING of the cohesive relation between ​them​ and ​six cooking apples?​ The
meaning is that they refer to the same thing. The two items are identical in reference or
COREFERENTIAL.
Identity of reference is not the only meaning relation that contributes to texture; there are
others besides. Nor is the use of a pronoun the only way of expressing identity of reference.
For ex: if it said ​the apples​ (instead of them); which works as a repetition of ​apples
accompanied by ​the​ as an anaphoric signal. One of the functions of the definite article is to
signal identity of reference with something that has gone before.

1.1.3 Ties
We need a term to refer to a single instance of cohesion, a term for one occurence of a pair
of cohesively related items. This we shall call a TIE. The relation between ​them​ and ​six
cooking apples​ in example 1 constitutes a tie.
We can characterize any segment of a text in terms of the number and kinds of ties with it
displays. In ex 1 there is just one tie, of the particular tie which we shall be calling

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REFERENCE. When adding ​the apples​ instead of ​them​, there appears another tie that
consists of REPETITION.
The concept of a tie makes it possible to analyse a text in terms of its cohesive properties,
and give a systematic account of its patterns of texture.

1.1.4 Cohesion
The concept of cohesion is a semantic one; it refers to relations of meaning that exist within
the text, and that define it as a text.
Cohesion occurs where the INTERPRETATION of some element in the discourse is
dependent on that of another. The one PRESUPPOSES the other, in the sense that it
cannot be effectively decoded except by recourse to it. When this happens, a relation of
cohesion is set up, and the two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, are
thereby at least potentially integrated into a text.
This is another way of approaching the notion of tie.
Cohesion is part of the system of language. The potential for cohesion lies in the systematic
resources of reference, ellipsis and so on that are built into the language itself. The
actualization of cohesion in any given instance, however, depends not merely on the
selection of some option from within these resources, but also on the presence of some
other element which resolves the presupposition that this sets up.
Like other semantic relations, cohesion is expressed through the stratal organization of
language. Language can be explained as a multiple coding system comprising three levels
of coding, or ‘strata’: the semantic (meanings), the lexicogrammatical (forms) and the
phonological and orthographic (expressions). Meanings are realized (coded) as forms, and
forms are realized in turn (recoded) as expressions. To put this in everyday terminology,
meaning is put into wording, and wording into sound or writing:
meaning (the semantic system) → wording (the lexicogrammatical system, grammar and
vocabulary) → ‘sounding’/writing (the phonological and orthographic systems).​
The popular term ‘wording’ refers to lexicogrammatical form, the choice of words and
grammatical structures. Within this stratum, there is no hard-and-fast division between
vocabulary and grammar; the guiding principle in language is that the more general
meanings are expressed through the grammar, and the more specific meanings through the
vocabulary. Cohesive relations fit into the same overall pattern. Cohesion is expressed partly
through the grammar and partly through the vocabulary.
We can refer therefore to GRAMMATICAL COHESION and LEXICAL COHESION. The
types of cohesion dealt with in ch 2-4 (reference, substitution and ellipsis) are grammatical;
that in ch 6 is lexical. That dealt with in ch 5 (conjunction) is on the borderline of the two;
mainly grammatical, but with a lexical component in it. The distinction between grammatical
and lexical is really one of degree. It is important to stress, however, that when we talk of
cohesion as being ‘grammatical or lexical’, we do not imply that it is a purely formal relation,
in which meaning is not involved. Cohesion is a semantic relation. It is realized through the
lexicogrammatical system; and it is at this point that the distinction can be drawn. Some
forms of cohesion are realized through the grammar and others through the vocabulary.
Certain types of grammatical cohesion are in their turn expressed through the intonation
system, in spoken English.

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1.2 Cohesion and linguistic structure

1.2.1 Texture and structure

Structure is, of course, an unifying relation. The parts of a sentence or a clause obviously
‘cohere’ with each other, by virtue of structure. Hence they also display texture; the elements
of any structure have, by definition, an internal unity which ensures that they all express part
of a text.
In general, any unit which is structured hangs together so as to form a text. All grammatical
units - sentences, clauses, groups, words - are internally ‘cohesive’ simply because they are
structured. The same applies to the phonological units, the tone group, foot and syllable.
Structure is one means of expressing texture.
A text typically extends beyond the range of structural relations, as these are normally
conceived of. But texts cohere; so cohesion within a text - texture - depends on something
other than structure. There are certain specifically text-forming relations which cannot be
accounted for in terms of constituent structure; they are properties of the text as such, and
not of any structural unit such as a clause or sentence. Our use of the term COHESION
refers specifically to these non-structural text-forming relations. They are semantic relations,
and the text is a semantic unit.

1.2.2 Cohesion within the sentence?

Since the sentence hangs together already, the cohesion is not needed in order to make it
hang together. But the cohesive relations are there all the same.
Cohesive relations have in principle nothing to do with sentence boundaries. Cohesion is a
semantic relation between an element in the text and some other element that is crucial to
the interpretation of it. The two elements, the presupposing and the presupposed, may be
structurally related to each other, or they may not; it makes no difference to the meaning of
the cohesive relation.
However, there is a sense in which the sentence is a significant unit for cohesion precisely
because it is the highest unit of grammatical structure: it tends to determine the way in which
cohesion is EXPRESSED. For example, if the same entity is referred to twice within the
same sentence, there are rules governing the form of its realization. These are the rules of
pronominalization. It is the sentence structure which determines, within limits, whether at the
second mention the entity will be named again or will be referred to by a pronoun.
This sort of thing can be accounted for by reference to sentence structure; the relation
between an item and another one that presupposes it could be explained as a structural
relation.
Only certain instances of cohesion could be treated structurally, and only when the two
items, and presupposing and the presupposed, happened to occur within the same
sentence.
Certain kinds of cohesive relation must be signalled by a reference item. Cohesion that is
expressed through substitution and ellipsis is unaffected by the sentence structure; and so is
lexical cohesion. In the case of conjunction, there are special forms to express the various
conjunctive relations where these are associated with grammatical structure.
Regardless of the presence or absence of a structural link, the semantic relation that
provides cohesion, namely that of cause, is the same in both.

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For these reasons cohesion within the sentence need not be regarded as essentially a
distinct phenomenon. Cohesion is a general text-forming relation, or set of such relations,
certain of which, when incorporated within a sentence structure, are subject to certain
restrictions - no doubt because the grammatical condition of ‘being a sentence’ ensures that
the parts go together to form a text anyway.
Cohesive ties between sentences stand out more clearly because they are the ONLY source
of texture, whereas within the sentence there are the structural relations as well. In the
description of a text, it is the intersentece cohesion that is significant, because that
represents the variable aspect of cohesion, distinguishing one text from another. But this
should not obscure the fact that cohesion is not, strictly speaking, a relation ‘above the
sentence’. It is a relation to which the sentence, or any other form of grammatical structure,
is simply irrelevant.

1.2.3 Cohesion and discourse structure

Discourse structure is, as the name implies, a type of structure; the term is used to refer to
the structure of some postulated unit higher than the sentence, for example the paragraph,
or some larger entity such as episode or topic unit.
The concept of cohesion is set up to account for relations in discourse without the implication
that there is some structural unit that is above the sentence. Cohesion refers to the range of
possibilities that exist for linking something with what has gone before. Since this linking is
achieved through relations in MEANING, what is in question is the set of meaning relations
which function in this way: the semantic resources which are drawn on for the purpose of
creating a text. And since, as we have stressed, it is the sentence that is the pivotal entity
here we can interpret cohesion, in practice, as the set of semantic resources for linking a
SENTENCE with what has gone before.
It is doubtful whether it is possible to demonstrate generalized structural relationships into
which sentences enter as the realization of functions in some higher unit, as can be done for
all units below the sentence. We have to show how sentences, which are structurally
independent of one another, may be linked together through particular features of their
interpretation; and it is for this that the concept of cohesion is required.

1.2.4 Cohesion as a semantic relation

To say that two sentences cohere by virtue of relations in their meaning is not by itself very
precise. Practically any two sentences might be shown to have something to do with each
other as far as their meaning is concerned.
But there is one specific kind of meaning relation that is critical for the creation of texture:
that in which ONE ELEMENT IS INTERPRETED BY REFERENCE TO ANOTHER. What
cohesion has to do with is the way in which the meaning of the elements is interpreted.
Where the interpretation of any item in the discourse requires making reference to some
other item in the discourse, there is cohesion.
Consider the example ​He said so. T ​ his sentence is perfectly intelligible as it stands. But it is
UNINTERPRETABLE, because we do not know who ‘he’ is or what he said. For this we
have to refer elsewhere, to its ‘context’ in the sense of what has gone before.
Now it is also true that given the sentence ​John said everything​ we do not know who ‘John’
is, or what he said, either. But there is an important difference between both examples. In
the first one, the items ​he​ and s​ o​ contain in their meaning an explicit signal that the means of

4
their interpretation is available somewhere in the environment. Hearing or reading​ t​ his
sentence, we know that it links up with some other passage in which there is an indication of
who ‘he’ is and what he said. This is not the case with ​John​ or ​everything,​ neither of which
necessarily presupposes any such source of further interpretation.
It is easy enough to show that ​he​ and s​ o​ are cohesive; there is no means of interpreting
them in their own right, and we are immediately aware of the need to recover an
interpretation from elsewhere.
This shows that cohesion is a relational concept; it is not the presence of a particular class of
item that is cohesive, but the relation between one item and another.
This point emerges very clearly with another type of cohesion, which would otherwise be
difficult to explain. We said with reference to the second example that there is nothing
presupposing about the item ​John​; the sentence J​ ohn said everything​ does not in itself
confer the automatic right to ask for an interpretation of ​John,​ as ​he said everything​ does
with regard to ​he​.
In the case of a longer sequence, where ​John​ is reiterated, the item will have a cohesive
function. This form of cohesion is lexical; it consists in selecting the same lexical item twice,
or selecting two that are closely related. The two instances may or may not have the same
referent; but in the interpretation of the second will be referable in some way to that of the
first.
This illustrates the force of cohesion; and it also illustrates the fact that cohesion depends
not on the presence of explicitly anaphoric items like ​so​ and ​he,​ but on the establishment of
a semantic relation which may take any one of various forms.
One another form it may take is that of a conjunction, expressed by means of items such as
but, later on, in that case.​ Here the cohesion resides in an abstract relation between one
proposition and another. This may be a matter of the CONTENT of the propositions, how
they are related to each other as phenomena.
Or it may be a matter of their role in the discourse, how they are related in the perspective of
the speaker or writer.
A very large number of different words and phrases occur as expressions of conjunction; but
they all fall into a few sets representing very general types of logical relation.
Thus the concept of cohesion accounts for the essential semantic relations whereby any
passage of speech or writing is enabled to function as text. We can systematize this concept
by classifying it into distinct categories - reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and
lexical cohesion; categories which have a theoretical basis as distinct TYPES of cohesive
relation. Each of these categories is represented in the text by particular features -
repetitions, omissions, occurrences of certain words and constructions - which have in
common the property of signalling that the interpretation of the passage in question depends
on something else. If that ‘something else’ is verbally explicit, then there is cohesion.

1.3 Cohesion and linguistic context

1.3.1 The domain of cohesive relations

The simplest form of cohesion is that in which the presupposed element is verbally explicit
and is found in the immediately preceding sentence.

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We shall treat this as the norm for purposes of illustration and discussion; not only because it
is simpler in practice but also because it is the paradigm case of cohesion from a theoretical
point of view.
There are two kinds of departure from this norm. First, the presupposed element may be
located elsewhere, in an earlier sentence, perhaps, or in the following one; secondly, it may
not be found in the text at all.
Cohesion as we have said is not a structural relation; hence it is unrestricted by sentence
boundaries, and in its most normal form it is simply the presupposition of something that has
gone before, whether in the preceding sentence or not. This form of presupposition, pointing
BACK to some previous item, is known as ANAPHORA.
As might be expected, the tendency is different with different types of cohesion. Where the
cohesive element is something like ​he​ or ​one,​ which cohers by direct reference to, or
substitution for, another item, the presupposed element is typically a specific item in the
immediately preceding sentence. This is the most usual pattern in the case of reference and
substitution. Characteristically these instances also tend to form COHESIVE CHAINS,
sequences in which ​it​, for example, refers back to the immediately preceding sentence - but
to another​ it​ in that sentence, and it is necessary to go back three, four or more sentences,
stepping across a whole sequence of ​its​, before finding the substantial element.
Where the cohesion takes the form of conjunction, with expressions like ​but, so, in that case,
later on​, the presupposition typically involves a passage longer than a single sentence.
Lexical cohesion differs again, in that it regularly leaps over a number of sentences to pick
up an element that has not figured in the intervening text.
So far we have considered cohesion purely as an anaphoric relation, with a presupposing
item presupposing something that has gone before it. But the presupposition may go in the
opposite direction, with the presupposed element following. This we shall refer to as
CATAPHORA.
If the cohesion is lexical, with the same lexical item occuring twice over, then obviously the
second occurence must take its interpretation from the first; the first can never be said to
point forward to the second. If ​John​ follows J​ ohn,​ there is no possible contrast between
anaphora and cataphora. But an item such as ​this​ and ​here​ CAN point forward, deriving its
interpretation from something that follows.
The presupposed element may, and often does, consist of more than one sentence. Where
it does not, the cataphoric reference is often signalled in writing with a colon: but although
this has the effect of uniting the two parts into a single orthographic sentence, it does not
imply any kind of structural relation between them. The colon is used solely to signal the
cataphora, this being one of its principal functions.
There remains one further possibility, namely that the information required for interpreting
some element in the text is not to be found in the text at all, but in the situation.
It is possible that an item such as those refers back to the preceding text, but it is also
possible that it refers to the environment in which the dialogue is taking place - to the
‘context of situation’.
This type of reference we shall call EXOPHORA, since it takes us outside the text altogether.
Exophoric reference is NOT COHESIVE, since it does not bind the two elements together
into a text.

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The line between exophoric and anaphoric reference is not always very sharp. In dramatic
dialogue, for example, the mere presence of absence of a stage direction would change the
picture.
The significance of exophoric potential is that, in instances where the key to the
interpretation is not ready to hand, in text or situation, the hearer or reader CONSTRUCTS a
context of situation in order to supply it for himself.
It may be helpful here to draw attention to the distinction between cohesion as a relation in
the system, and cohesion as a process in the text. ‘Cohesion’ is defined as the set of
possibilities that exist in the language for making a text hang together: the potential that the
speaker or writer has at his disposal. This is a purely relational concept, and directionality
comes into it only if one of the elements in the cohesive relation is BY ITS NATURE
cohesive, in that it is inherently ‘pointing to’ something else; in this case there is a logical
dependence, and hence a significant opposition IN THE SYSTEM between pointing back
(anaphora) and pointing forwards (cataphora). But cohesion is also a process, in the sense
that it is the instantiation of this relation in a text.
In the text it is natural for the element occuring second to depend for its interpretation on the
one occurring first; hence, anaphora is the unmarked and cataphora is the marked term in
the opposition. Cataphora occurs only as an EXPLICIT relation, with the first element always
being one that is inherently presupposing. Thus cohesion as a process always involves one
item pointing to another; whereas the significant property of the cohesive relation is the fact
that one item provides the source for the interpretation of another.

1.3.2 Text and situation

We should now say a little more about the nature of a text, and its relation to a context of
situation.
Example: ​Although the light was on he went to sleep. Although the house was unfurnished
the rent was very high. Although he was paid a high salary he refused to stay in the job.
What these three sentences have in common is a certain degree of grammatical similarity:
parallel structures, with repetition of the item ​although​. Whatever it is that gives unity to this
‘text’ it does not depend on the order in which the sentences are arranged.
This sort of grammatical parallelism is not irrelevant to internal cohesion. But by itself it does
not make a string of sentences into a text. The sentences in the previous example form a
text; a text about language, in which the sentences are CITATION FORMS - that is, items
introduced for the purpose of saying something about them. A set of citation forms that are
related ONLY by their grammatical parallelism is a familiar feature of texts about language
and the example is in fact taken from a textbook of Chinese for English-speaking students.
The passage illustrates, in an extreme form, a general principle concerning decisions about
what is and what is not a text. We do not, in fact, evaluate any specimen of language without
knowing something about its context of situation. It is the context of situation of this passage,
the fact that it is part of a language textbook, that enables us to accept it as a text.
Citation forms illustrate the general principle that the hearer or reader, when he is
determining, consciously or unconsciously, the status of a specimen of language, invokes
two kinds of evidence, the external as well as the internal: he uses not only linguistic clues
but also situational ones.
The internal and external aspects of ‘texture’ are not wholly separable, and the reader, or
listener, does not separate them when responding unconsciously to a passage of speech or

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writing. But when the linguist seeks to make explicit the basis on which these judgements
are formed, he is bound to make observations of two rather different kinds. The one
concerns relations within the language, patterns of meaning realized by grammar and
vocabulary; the other concerns the relations BETWEEN the language and the relevant
features of the speaker’s and hearer’s material, social and ideological environment. Both
these aspects of a text fall within the domain of linguistics. The linguistic patterns make it
possible to identify what features of the environment are relevant to linguistic behaviour and
so form part of the context of situation. But there are two sets of phenomena here, and in
this book we are concerned with the LINGUISTIC factors that are characteristic of texts in
English.
The term SITUATION meaning the ‘context of situation’ in which a text is embedded, refers
to all those extra-linguistic factors which have some bearing on the text itself. The question
is, what are the external factors affecting the linguistic choices that the speaker or writer
makes. These are likely to be the nature of the audience, the medium, the purpose of the
communication and so on. There are types of discourse in which the state of the weather
would form part of the context of situation, for example, language-in-action in
mountaineering or sailing; but writing a book about language is not one of them.
As a rule, the features of the situation are relevant at a rather general level. Many of the
features of a text can be explained by reference to generalized situation types.

1.3.3 Components of the context of situation, and register

The concept of CONTEXT OF SITUATION was formulated by Malinowski in 1923, and
subsequently elaborated by Firth in 1950. It has been worked over and extended by a
number of linguists, the best-known treatment being perhaps that of Hymes in ‘Models of
interaction of language and social setting’. Hymes categorizes the speech situation in terms
of eight components which we may summarize as: form and content of text, setting,
participants, ends (intent and effect), key, medium, genre and interactional norms. It will be
noted that, in this view of the matter, the text itself forms part of the speech situation.
A more abstract interpretation, intended as a basis for DERIVING the features of the text
from the features of the situation, had been offered by Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens in
The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching​. They had proposed the three headings
FIELD, MODE and TENOR. The FIELD is the total event, in which the text is functioning,
together with the purposive activity of the speaker or writer; it thus includes the
subject-matter as one element in it. The MODE is the function of the text in the event,
including therefore both the channel taken by the language - spoken or written, extempore or
prepared - and its genre, or rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive, ‘phatic
communion’ and so on. The TENOR refers to the type of role interaction, the set of relevant
social relations, permanent and temporary, among the participants involved. Field, mode and
tenor collectively define the context of situation of a text.
The linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational
features - with particular values of the field, mode and tenor - constitute a REGISTER. The
more specifically we can characterize the context of situation, the more specifically we can
predict the properties of a text in that situation. When we give some information about all
three categories of field, mode and tenor, we begin to be able to make some useful
observations.

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The register is the set of meanings, the configuration of semantic patterns, that are typically
drawn upon under the specified conditions, along with the words and structures that are
used in the realization of these meanings.
In general, if a passage hangs together as a text, it will display a consistency of register. In
other words, the texture involves more than the presence of semantic relations of the kind
we refer to as cohesive, the dependence of one element on another for its interpretation.
The concept of COHESION can therefore be usefully supplemented by that of REGISTER,
since the two together effectively define a TEXT. A text is a passage of discourse which is
coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation, and
therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore
cohesive. Neither of these two conditions is sufficient without the other, nor does the one by
necessity entail the other. The hearer, or reader, reacts to both of these things in his
judgement of texture.
Texture is a matter of degree. It is almost impossible to construct a verbal sequence which
has no texture at all. The nearest we get to non-text in actual life, is probably in the speech
of young children and in bad translations.
Two further points are worth making, in connection with the text and its context of situation.
One is that the relation of text to situation is very variable, in terms of relative weight which
the text has to bear. There are certain types of situation in which the non-linguistic factors
clearly dominate and the language plays an ancillary role: for example, a non verbal game,
like football. Here it is impossible to interpret what is said or what is written without any
situational information; one must know what is going on. At the other end of the scale are
types of activity in which the language is the whole story, as in most formal or informal
discussion on abstract themes, such as those of business, politics and intellectual life. The
quality of texture, and the forms of cohesion which provide it, differ very much as between
these two poles.
The second point concerns what Ellis calls DELICACY OF FOCUS in situational analysis.
We obviously cannot draw a clear line between ‘the same situation’ and ‘different situations’;
any two contexts of situation will be alike in some respects and not in others, and the amount
of detail needed to characterize the situation will vary according to what we are interested in;
we can only ask in what respects the texts, and the situations, are alike and in what respects
they differ. This affects our notion of a text. We are not required in practice to decide where a
text begins and ends. But in fact there are degrees of texture, and if we are examining
language from this point of view, especially spoken language, we shall at times be uncertain
as to whether a particular point marks a continuation of the same textor the beginning of a
new one. This is because texture is really a ‘more-or-less’ affair. A partial shift in the context
of situation is likely to be reflected in some way in the texture of the discourse.
It is worth pointing out in this connection that continuity of subject-matter is neither a
necessary nor a sufficient condition for the creation of texture. Subject-matter is simply one
of the factors that enters into the picture. Where there is continuity of subject-matter within a
text, the texture is not necessarily the result of this.
A text, then, can be thought of as the basic unit of meaning in language. It is aunit of
situational-semantic organization: a continuum of meaning-in-context, constructed around
the semantic relation of cohesion. According to the particular situational semantic
configuration, or REGISTER, of the text, so the forms taken by the cohesive relation will
differ: texture in informal conversation is quite unlike that in formal written language. A text

9
therefore normally has continuity of register; it ‘fits’ a given set of situational features, a
pattern formed by the nature of the communicative event (field), the place assigned to
language acts within the event (mode) and the role-relationships of those who are
participating (tenor). This fit does not by itself ensure the kind of continuity we associate with
texts. This reveals the existence of the other aspect of texture, which is cohesion. The
meaning relations which constitute cohesion are a property of text as such, and hence they
are general to texts of all types.
Texture results from the combination of semantic configurations of two kinds: those of
register, and those of cohesion. The register is the set of semantic configurations that is
typically associated with a particular CLASS of contexts of situations, and defines the
substance of the text: WHAT IT MEANS, in the broadest sense, including all components of
its meaning, social, expressive, communicative and so on as well as representational.
Cohesion is the set of meaning relations that is general to ALL CLASSES of text, that
distinguishes text from ‘non-text’ and interrelates the substantive meanings of the text with
each other. Cohesion concerns how the text is constructed as a semantic edifice.

1.3.4 The place of cohesion in the linguistic system

There are three major functional-semantic components, the IDEATIONAL, the
INTERPERSONAL and the TEXTUAL. The IDEATIONAL component is that part of the
linguistic system which is concerned with the expression of ‘content’, with the function that
language has of being ABOUT something. It has two parts to it, the experiential and the
logical, the former being more directly concerned with the presentation of experience, of the
‘context of culture’, while the latter expresses the abstract logical relations which derive only
indirectly from experience. The INTERPERSONAL component is concerned with the social,
expressive and conative functions of language, with expressing the speaker’s ‘angle’. We
can summarize these by saying that the ideational component represents the speaker in his
role as observer, while the interpersonal component represents the speaker in his role as
intruder.
The TEXTUAL component is the text-forming component in the linguistic system. This
comprises the resources that language has for creating a text, in the same sense in which
we have been using the term all along: for being operationally relevant, and cohering within
itself and with the context of situation.
In part, the textual component operates like the other two, through systems associated with
particular ranks in the grammar. For example, every clause makes a selection in the system
of THEME. But the textual component also incorporates patterns of meaning which are
realized outside the hierarchical organization of the system. One of these is INFORMATION
structure, which is the ordering of the text, independently of its construction in terms of
sentences, clauses and the like, into units of information on the basis of the distinction into
GIVEN and NEW: what the speaker is treating as information that is recoverabble to the
hearer (given) and what he is treating as non-recoverable (new). This aspect of the meaning
of the text is realized in English by intonation, the information unit being expressed as one
TONE GROUP.
The remaining part of the textual component is that which is concerned with cohesion.
Cohesion is closely related to information structure, and indeed the two overlap at one point;
but information structure is a form of structure, in which the entire text is blocked out into
elements having one or other function in the total configuration - every - thing in the texte

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has some status in the ‘given-new’ framework. Cohesion, on the other hand, is a potential for
relating one element in the text to another, wherever they are and without any implication
that everything in the text has some part in it. The information unit is a structural unit….; but
there are no structural units defined by the cohesive relation.
Cohesion, therefore, is part of the text-forming component in the linguistic system.

1.3.5 The meaning of cohesion

The simplest and most general forms of the cohesive relation are ‘equals’ and ‘and’: identity
of reference, and conjoining. The means of expressing these various types of cohesion are,
as we have seen, drawn from a number of areas of the lexicogrammatical system, which
have in common merely the fact that they contribute to the realization of cohesion. A
sentence displaying any of these features is an invitation to a text. If the invitation is taken up
- if there is in the environment another sentence containing the required key to the
interpretation - the text comes into being.
We have noted the significance of the sentence, as the highest structural unit in the
grammar. The relation among the elements within the sentence, together with the order in
which the elements occur, is determined by the structure. Between sentences, however,
there are no such structural relations; and there are no grammatical restrictions on the
sequence in which sentences are put together.
The sentences of a text, however, are related to each other both substantively and by
cohesion; and it is characteristic of a text that the sequence of the sentences cannot be
disturbed without destroying or radically altering the meaning. A text has meaning as a text,
whereas a passage consisting of more than one text has no meaning as a whole; it is simply
the sum of its parts. Within a text the meaning of each sentence depends on its
environment, including its cohesive relations with other sentences. When we consider
cohesion, therefore, we are investigating the linguistic means whereby a text is enabled to
function as a single meaningful unit.

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