On The Criteria Of Text Coherence

Of all the issues in the general theory of linguistics, text coherence, used as thecriterion of judging the integrity and consistency of text, has aroused the widespreadinterests. And due to the important role of text linguistics and systemic functionallinguistics in modern linguistics, coherence studies become more and moreremarkable.Coherence studies can be dated back to the 1960s. The modern usage of the termcoherence is attributable to the German text linguist Harweg (1968), who is concernedto start coherence studies through analyzing the relations between coherence andcohesive devices. But until the publication of Halliday and Hasan's collaborationCohesion in English (1976) in which the criteria of text coherence is first mentioned,coherence study as an important theoretical concept becomes noteworthy, especiallyin systemic functional linguistics, for the important role it has played in recognitionand interpretation of texts. Till now, coherence studies have almost experienced 40years of journey. Some linguists and scholars home and abroad have made some greatachievements;in the meantime, we should see some shortcomings coexist.Coherence studies mainly comprise two aspects: the studies of the concept ofcoherence and the studies of the criteria of text coherence. As regards the concept ofcoherence, there are many versions: some are defined from the semantic angle;whereas some are defined from the pragmatic angle. The strong version is apparentlyheld by Widdowson (1978) who for the first time bestows the concept of coherencewith a theoretical frame;though the theory is systemic and clear, the theoretical frameisn't concrete enough for its implementation and application. Until now, the conceptof coherence is under construction. The problem lies partly in the fact that the conceptlacks theorization and systematization, for some scholars take it a presupposed knownconcept for granted, so they can't categorize it and define it an appropriate position inthe whole coherence theory.The main impetus to the development of the whole coherence theory is thestudies on the criteria of text coherence, on which there appear many articles andbooks home and abroad, and some satisfactory achievements have been made that thecriteria of text coherence almost spread throughout all layers of texts.However, the weaknesses are, unfortunately, equally clear, for linguists andscholars focus their studies on one or several elements of all the criteria of textcoherence from their own perspectives. So, though their studies are valid in one ortwo aspects, none of them is comprehensive, subjective and systemic enough forserious and detailed investigation, especially none of them concerning the relationsbetween form, meaning and context, nor concerning interpretation of the concept ofcoherence (Zhang Delu, 1999).In order to settle this problem, on the basis of retrospection of related studies oncriteria of text coherence and an analysis of functions of every criterion in the integraltext coherence and relations among all criteria of text coherence, the author attemptsto build an integrative and systemic model of the criteria of text coherence in thisthesis, for factors influencing text coherence are so many and in some cases are sonecessary that any factor possibly may make text incoherent under the condition thattext is coherent in other aspects.The model aims at pushing forward the development of linguistics especiallysystemic functional linguistics in the studies of text coherence, sociolinguistics andpsycholinguistics on the one hand;on the other hand, improving our foreign languageteaching---writing, reading, listening, translation, discourse analysis, and stylistics,etc.