A Multidimensional Study Of Textual Coherence Within The Framework Of ECM

Coherence, as one of the most important and complicated subjects in text analysis, involves many aspects of language such as formal, semantic, pragmatic and cognitive factors, etc., so linguists concern this issue from different perspectives like cohesive devices, theme structure, pragmatics and cognition. The previous studies which usually give more emphasis to one aspect without concerning others, however, fail to provide a consistent interpretation for textual coherence. Therefore, coherence, as a multidimensional concept, should be explored in a comprehensive way, at multiple levels and from different perspectives. This thesis, based on the previous studies of coherence and the relevant cognitive principles, by using"Event-domain Cognitive Model (ECM)"developed by Wang Yin, a famous cognitive linguist in China, carries out a multidimensional study of textual coherence from the inner mechanism of text, i.e. linguistic-formal structure, and the outer mechanism of text, i.e. extra-linguistic factors such as cognition, psychology and social culture, etc.Currently, ECM theory has not been widely used, and there haven't appeared many relevant literatures. Most of them merely focus on the lexical level; even Professor Wang Yin concerns more about conversion of word class, variation of word meaning and denomination of Beings, etc., rather than provide a detailed account of how text analysis is carried out within the framework of ECM. In order to complete the overall picture, this thesis applies ECM model to textual coherence for the purpose of providing a relatively comprehensive and consistent explanation for coherence within one cognitive model, which is consistent with the objective of cognitive linguistics, i.e. several cognitive models are adopted to provide a unified explanation for all levels of language, as well as accords with the characteristics of coherence and human normal cognitive rules. It is expected that this study should not only develop ECM theory, but offer a valuable reference for the research on textual coherence.In the chapter of literature review, the thesis makes an overview of textual coherence research, where the conditions for coherence are defined and the major approaches to coherence, i.e. linguistic-formal approach, pragmatic approach and cognitive approach, are briefly introduced. From the overview we can find it necessary to conduct a multidimensional study of textual coherence. And then the theoretical framework of the thesis is set up. The central part of the thesis gives specific accounts of how textual coherence is realized within the framework of ECM. Firstly, the linguistic-formal means like cohesive devices, theme structure and topic within ECM and their contributions to coherence are specifically discussed. Secondly, extra-linguistic factors like cognition, psychology and social culture, etc. play crucial parts in the creation of coherence, so the thesis profoundly explores the relationship between the main cognitive principles of ECM (gestalt, typicality, salience, interrelation, metonymy and metaphor) and textual coherence, as well as takes into account other factors like socio-cultural background and individual cognitive psychology that may affect the realization of coherence. Finally, the thesis draws a conclusion that ECM can offer a multidimensional analysis of textual coherence.