An Integrative Model Of Discourse Coherence

Coherence is one of the most important and complex topics in discourse analysis. It has become one of the main problems in discourse analysis in the recent two decades. The research on it is in the ascendant now.As we know, Halliday's cohesion theory includes lexical cohesion and structural cohesion. This method views coherence as static product. However, discourse understanding is also a dynamic process, i.e. it cannot take place without the interaction between speaker and listener or between writer and reader. The major points of the Cognitive Grammar theory of Langacker includes continuum of lexicon and grammar in a text, dynamic analysis and discourse expectations. It can describe and explain the process of the coherence. However, the cognitive grammar theory is still too abstract to be highly operative, so the author proposes a integrative model, based on the proposition that coherence is not only a property of text itself but also a property of the mind that produces and interprets text. Sample analyses were used to testify this new framework.In this study, 47 English majors in Taiyuan University of Technology were asked to write a 300-to-450-words composition on the topic of"Power, wealth, beauty, truth and wisdom are the five choices among which I must choose two"in the first senior year. Finally, 20 essays were analyzed. In this paper, I focus on two ways of accessing of text coherence: explicit cohesion and cognitive coherence.The results show that a good essay should be the one containing abundant cohesive devices which were used accurately.The author points out that in order to promise the coherence in a text, the participants of the whole text must have the consciousness of dynamic analysis during understanding the text. The coherence is based on continuum in the language units of the whole text, the same salience in the text, in this situation, the participants of the text mutual understand well of cognition. The author of the present study hopes that this integrative model will play a positive part on the language teaching.