A Discourse Analysis Of Oliver Twist From The Perspective Of Cohesion And Coherence Theory

In the study of textual discourse,cohesion and coherence are two vital terms.A lot of linguists both at home and abroad have already widely studied these two concepts and their relationship from different angles.However,there is no common consensus has been reached on them so far even there exits many understandings and interpretations of these two concepts and the theories frameworks for their relationships.Oliver Twist created by Charles Dickens is a significant masterpiece in English literature development.The author Charles Dickens enjoys a high reputation and popularity in Victoria period.His masterpiece Oliver Twist is an important reflection of the hard and cruel reality in society,which has contributed a lot to the development in the literature of English critical realism.The subject of the thesis is the cohesion and coherence in the discourse analysis of Oliver Twist.The reasons of choosing this subject are as follows: firstly,cohesion and coherence are two central concepts and also the important problems to be solved in the discourse analysis.Secondly,in the analysis and appreciation of literary works,cohesion and coherence play the vital role and gradually become the key tool to have a new understanding of these works.Last but not least,seldom have linguists reviewed the function and application of cohesive devices in analyzing the whole textual discourse.There are two research questions in the present thesis: the first question is in what way that can make sense the cohesive function and forces by the analysis of specific plot and case in discourse? The second question is in what way that can appreciate the internal structure and deep meaning implied in the literary work from a coherence perspective? The present thesis is from the perspective of cohesion and coherence theory.The research method is based on discourse-analysis approach.There are two findings in the present thesis.The first finding is that by applying both lexical and grammatical cohesive devices that are implied in the novel can have a good sense of the cohesive function and forces.The second finding is that by applying the coherence conditions in the literary work can not only help to understand thecontent and inter-structure of the novel,but also help to the readers experience the study of the theme the writer offers.The thesis is made up with an introduction,the body and a conclusion.The first is the introduction part that mainly introduces Halliday and Hasan's great initiative contributions on the discourse development.In the field of discourse analysis,Halliday and Hasan make a significant contribution to the study of cohesive coherence in English discourse.Coherence is considered to be an important prerequisite for the unity of the discourse.And then it introduces the profile of Charles Dickens and also his masterpiece Oliver Twist which reflects the complicated social phenomena at that era.It has made a significant contribution to the development and exploration of English critical realism literature.And it also introduces the research background,research aim and significance of this thesis.The second is the main body part that is composed of three chapters as follows:Chapter One involves the literature review of cohesion and coherence theory and discourse.It respectively describes the progress in study on cohesion and coherence and their definitions.Furthermore,it discusses the relationship between cohesion and coherence on the basic study of a coherent discourse: they are different but connected with each other.Cohesion is the crucial method to realize textual coherence but cohesion is not the exclusive one for coherence.Secondly,this chapter discusses the definition of discourse and the different development periods of discourse from different points of view,and discusses whether a group of continuous sentences can constitute an important factor in a coherent discourse.Chapter Two is a discourse analysis from the perspective of cohesion.That is the realization of cohesive devices in Oliver Twist,including grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion.In this chapter,many examples from this novel are chosen and analyzed by means of cohesive devices including reference,ellipsis,substitution,conjunction and lexical cohesion.This thesis aims to analyze the internal structure of the novel by discussing the application of the two types of cohesion of grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion,and to analyze how the author is using the cohesion devices to reflect the theme of the work.The application of cohesive devices in OliverTwist not only promotes a better understanding of the content of the novel,but also understands their function through specific episodes and cases in the work.Chapter Three is a discourse analysis from the perspective of coherence including the context of situation and the context of culture.In his book Cohesion in English,Halliday and Hassan argue that discourse coherence refers to the fact that the sentences that make up the discourse belong to the same context,that is,the discourse is in the same context which includes field,mode and tenor.Both can effectively determine a discourse.The discourse is coherent in two respects: in the context of the situation and in the context of culture.The last is the conclusion part that sums up the previous statement.The thesis has a deep insight into the appreciation of Dickens' famous novel Oliver Twist by using the cohesive devices and coherent conditions.Applying both lexical and grammatical cohesive devices that are implied in the novel can not only help to understand the inter-structure,but also help to the readers experience the study of the theme the writer offers.It further study the meaning and value of cohesive and coherent theories in analyzing literary work,that is to say,a fully new method to interpret and appreciate the literary works from the linguistic perspective and the further research in analyzing the works.