Voice Convergence To Build A Coherent Discourse Function

Halliday holds that text is coherent as long as it is cohesive in form and consistent in register. National scholars, Zhu Yongsheng and Yan Shiqing, in Reflections on Systemic-Functional Linguistics supplement and perfect this text coherence criterion, asserting that consistence in register mainly refers to two aspects: (1) The whole context conforms to the usual organization pattern of this sort of text. Inspecting basis is to see whether the generic structure is normal or not; (2) There is a main topic in the whole text. Inspecting basis is to see if there is a topic in the whole text in which all sub-topics could be included and this topic is the very cognitive frame into which readers could put the whole text. Thus, Halliday's text coherence criterion is comprehensive and authoritative. By this coherence criterion the paper demonstrates that phonological system can not only cohere a text in micro-panels (intonation cohesion, rhyme cohesion, weak phonological shift cohesion), but also function indirectly when generic structure and text topic cohere a text. Hence, phonological system coheres and constructs a cohesive text in macro-panels, that is in generic structure and text topic. It fully proves that phonological cohesion functions in the two text coherence criterion which Halliday mentions, actually it contributes a lot to text coherence. In addition, the paper focuses on the practical application of the theory in English listening texts. It is helpful to improve our listening comprehension skills. So, this theory is very instructive in practice.