| Since cohesion was proposed in Cohesion in English, many scholars have conducted analyses and discussions on cohesion in discourse deeply and broadly. They found that cohesion was one of the main means to realize coherence of discourse. Nevertheless, the construction and realization of discourse meaning are mainly achieved through the choice of words and their interaction. Thus, lexical cohesion plays a significant role in the organization of discourse. The previous studies focus on the function of lexical cohesion in the understanding of discourse and features of the use of lexical cohesive devices and there are many comparative studies. These comparative studies are mainly conducted in the discourse between different languages, while the comparative studies between different kinds of discourse in the same language are not thorough. Thus, this paper tries to make a further exploration on studies between different kinds of discourse in the same language. Although news reports and academic abstracts belong to different kinds of discourse, they own similar function and features. Therefore, this study tries to explore whether there are differences in the ways in which lexical items are working together to organize these two kinds of discourse with similarities. To be specific, it aims to examine whether there are differences in the frequency of lexical cohesion, types and features.This paper conducts a systematic observation, analysis and comparison on the use of lexical cohesion in 45 news reports published from 2011 to 2013 on Time and 45 academic abstracts extracted from doctoral dissertations published from 2011 to 2013 in the corpus of PQDT. This study adopts quantitative and qualitative methods and it is based on the analytical framework of lexical cohesion developed by Halliday and Hasan(1976, 1984) with Hoey‘s(1991) discussions about lexical cohesion. To be specific, this paper tries to explore the general use of lexical cohesive devices in news reports and academic abstracts including the frequency of lexical cohesive devices, the types and the features of ―reiteration‖ and ―collocation‖ in each corpus and finally unveil the similarities and differences in the use of lexical cohesion between them.Based on the data-based observation and analysis, the results showed that lexical cohesion was used in both news reports and academic abstracts. Contrasted to news reports, academic abstracts used more lexical cohesive devices. In both corpora, lexical cohesion was mainly achieved through reiteration.In terms of frequency, there were differences in the frequency of ―repetition of same word‖, ―synonym/ near-synonym‖, ―superordinate‖, ―general word‖, ―naming‖, ―antonym‖ and ―same ordered series‖. To be specific, ―repetition of same word‖, ―synonym/ near-synonym‖ and ―same ordered series‖ tended to be more frequently applied in academic abstracts; nevertheless, ―superordinate‖, ―general word‖, ―naming‖ and ―antonym‖ were more frequently used in news reports.In terms of realizations of ―reiteration‖ and ―collocation‖, they presented the same result in news reports and academic abstracts. With respect to the realization of ―reiteration‖ in the two corpora, the type that was used most is ―repetition of same word‖ followed by ―synonym/ near-synonym‖, ―superordinate‖, ―general word‖, ―naming‖ and ―semblance‖. With regard to the realization of ―collocation‖, ―antonym‖ was used most and next was ―same ordered series‖.This paper has conducted a systematic analysis and comparison on the use of lexical cohesive devices in news reports and academic abstracts which possess similarities. In this sense, it can help people to learn how lexical items work together in the construction of a discourse and grasp the features in the construction. The findings offer some enlightenment for the construction and comprehension of the textual meaning in news reports and academic abstracts. |
PDF Full Text Request