The Grammatical Cohesion Study Of Micro-structural Device In English Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis represents progressive results of various European and American linguistic theories and schools of modern linguistics. Zelling Harris(1952) introduced the term “discourse analysis” in an article entitled “Discourse Analysis” for the first time. On the theoretical basis of systemic-functional linguistics, linguists like T. F. Mitchell, J. Sinclair and M. Coulthard, van Dijk, delve into communicative structure, hierarchical classification, critical discourse analysis from the perspective of grammar, semantics, context of situation. Among all the researches, Cohesion in English by M. A. K. Halliday and Ruqaiya Hasan is the most influential one. Domestic scholar Hu Zhuanglin probes into the devices of discourse cohesion and coherence and the reasons. Huang Guowen delves into discourse structure, conversational analysis, cohesion in form and coherence in meaning. Zhang Delu examines such subjects as discourse cohesion and coherence, generic problem and multimodal discourse analysis. Since 1980 s, discourse studies have taken a new trend of being interdisciplinary, involving employment of theories and methods of pedagogy, anthropology, psychology and semiotics, etc.Coherence is the focus of discourse analysis, which falls into two parts: cohesion and coherence. Combined with the classification on discourse analysis by T. Reinhart and van Dijk, discourse coherence refers to coherence on two levels, i.e. coherence at the “micro-structural” level(cohesion) and at the “macro-structural” level(coherence). According to Halliday & Hasan, grammatical cohesion is composed of reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction. Systematic functional linguistics regards language as a collection of meaning. Grammar is a very device to embody meaning. Essentially, discourse analysis is based on the study of grammar and beyond grammar. Based on grammatical cohesion theory by Halliday & Hasan, the thesis, with the integration of grammar and discourse analysis, for one thing, relegates the micro grammatical cohesion devices by Halliday and elaborates grammatical cohesion comprehensively, for another, on the basis of it, makes close study of the cohesion of words so as to reinforce and supplement the grammatical cohesion theory put forward by Halliday and other discourse analysis linguists.The thesis studies eight parts of speech: conjunction, preposition, the definite article, pronoun, noun, verb, adjective and adverb. In accordance with the theoretical completeness of word classes, the thesis classifies grammatical cohesion into traditional grammatical cohesion and discoursal grammatical cohesion. While clarifying their relations, examples and demonstrations, which are selected from the inaugural addresses of the US presidents, are offered for each type of cohesive device. Inaugural addresses possess features of both spoken language and written language. Therefore, they are reliable examples for discourse analysis which is focused on spoken language and written language. With the incorporation of data basis and linguistic knowledge, the thesis lays emphasis on cohesion theory so as to elaborate functional meaning of English word cohesion, providing significant reference to pedagogy, translation, reading and writing.