A Cohesive Analysis Of TED Education Speeches

Speech is a social activity based on language which happens in a certain situation with the help of verbal language and non-verbal language, aiming at conveying information and idea to the audience in public. TED(Technology,Entertainment, Design) is a collection of excellent speakers’ speeches in different field in recent years. Now it is a famous website that shares knowledge, and a platform which expands brilliant minds.As Halliday points out, grammatical analysis is essential in discourse analysis(Halliday,1994; 2001). As an indispensable part of the internal structure of the discourse, cohesion plays a significance role in the coherence of discourse. The publication of Cohesion in English by Halliday and Hasan in 1976 has attracted widely attention on discourse cohesion and coherence among the scholars. However,few researches were conducted to analyze cohesion and coherence patterns of the public speeches. Based on the cohesion theory, this dissertation analyzes how the TED speakers use cohesive devices to create coherent and effective speeches through quantitative and qualitative methods.Taking the cohesion theory as the theoretical framework, this dissertation analyzes 13 TED education speeches, aiming to answer the following two questions:First, what are the cohesive devices used in these selected TED education speeches and what are the distribution and frequency of each type of cohesive devices. Second,how the speakers used cohesive devices to construct a cohesive and coherent speech.Through quantitative and qualitative researches of the selected TED education speeches, this dissertation has drawn several conclusions:First, person, place and distance are indispensable components for successful speeches, therefore reference ranked the highest frequency, among which the personalreference is used most frequently. The use of the reference is the key to indicate the relations of person, time and space in the discourse, it plays a vital role in the coherence of a discourse. Through the use of reference, the speaker explains the relation and logic clearly in a simple form. At the same time, it is convenient for the audience to understand the speech content better by using reference. Besides, the uses of references make the discourse compact in structure and coherent in meaning and logic.Second, the use of substitution and ellipsis in TED speeches are rare. In order to avoid of being redundant and make the speech concise, the speaker will use some ellipsis and substitution. However, as a formal kind of public speech, the use of ellipsis and ellipsis is not frequently.Third, conjunction is also frequently used by the speakers. Conjunction has a transitional effect, which can make the different elements relate together. The use of the conjunction helps us make clear the logic relation between different parts so that we can have a coherent speech.At last, although the frequency of lexical cohesion is not very high, it plays an essential role in discourse coherence.The cohesive analysis of successful speeches may shed some new light on English language teaching and learning. The implication of this study for English language teaching and learning will be offered. At the same time, the results of this study can help students improve their skills in English writing. Finally, the author hope that this study would help those people who love TED speeches have a better understanding of TED speeches and strengthen their awareness to use the cohesive devices when they are presenting a public speech, and in turn lay a foundation for making successful speeches and language teaching in the future.