Studies On The Semantic Coherence Of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince

The research purpose of this paper is to study the coherence problem of the text Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It adopts a research method of applying the non-structural cohesion theory and cultural context theory to the text analysis, and argues and proves the coherence of the text from the non-structural cohesion and cultural context perspectives.This paper first finds out all the cohesive chains in the first two paragraphs of all the odd number chapters and identifies what non-structural cohesive devices they are. Then it puts all the cohesive devices in one table and finally makes an analysis and statistics to show what non-structural cohesive devices the author often adopts to contribute to the text coherence. As for the research of cultural context factors involved in this text, since the cultural context factors cover the whole text, this paper finds out the frequently appearing cultural context factors in the whole text and makes an in-depth analysis to show how they contribute to the text coherence.Through the study on the non-structural cohesive devices of the text, and based upon the detailed analysis of the adequate data, this paper finds out that the non-structural cohesive devices the author often adopts are repetition, collocation, meronymy and hyponymy, which fully demonstrates the author's characteristics in this regard. As for the cultural context factors that most frequently appear in the text are connected with animals such as owl, phoenix, unicorn and dragon, which have their own cultural connotation and contribute to the text coherence.