Cognitive Studies On Discourse Coherence

Coherence has been being an important term and research topic in rhetoric. Since the publication of the book Cohesion in English written by Halliday and Hasan, cohesion and coherence have been explored by people. Discourse coherence is a complex phenomenon which involves the semantics, pragmatics and cognition. This paper will try to present and explain the main coherence theories. Altogether there are 5 chapters in it. Chapter one is the introduction in which the purpose of writing this paper is presented, that is to generalize the coherence theories from different point of view, especially the cognitive approaches to the discourse coherence. The second chapter discusses the cohesion and coherence. In this chapter the concept of cohesion and coherence are introduced respectively, and then introduce their relationship. The third chapter presents the coherence theories from different point of view. It will be introduced from the perspective of semantics, in this part local coherence and global coherence are explained. From the perspective of pragmatics, illocutionary speech act and relevance theory can contribute to the construction of coherence. Coherence can also be investigated from the perspective of psychology; here coherence is a mental representation. The construction of the coherence can be built on the knowledge of the world. In Chapter four cognitive approaches will be used to explain the coherence, in this part conceptual blending theory and the speaker involvement are introduced. The last chapter is the conclusion.