Understanding Discourse Linguistics: Cohesion, Coherence, Power, and Mediated Analysis

Introduction to Cohesion and Halliday & Hassan's Framework

Cohesion has to do with the relationships between text and syntax, and it occurs when one element cannot be successfully interpreted unless you resort to another element in the same discourse. Since some forms of cohesion can be analyzed through grammar and others through vocabulary, Halliday & Hassan account for two primary types of cohesion: grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion, which in turn are divided into five sub-types:

• Reference: (grammatical), has to do with the resources for referring to an element that can be recovered from the text, e.g., pronouns, comparatives, etc. Where is Joan? She has gone home.
• Substitution: (grammatical), refers to a set of placeholders that are used to signal an omission, e.g., "do" for verbal groups or "so" for clauses. I don’t like her hairstyle. I do (like her hairstyle).
• Ellipsis: (grammatical), refers to resources for omitting a clause or part of a clause when this is possible. Louis is going camping, but I can’t.
• Conjunction: (grammatical/lexical), refers to the large inventory of connectors which link clauses in discourse, e.g., I like that dress but it’s very expensive.
• Lexical cohesion: (lexical), the complement of grammatical cohesion, involving the repetition of lexical items, synonymy, hyponymy, and collocation.

According to Halliday & Hassan, some types of grammatical cohesion can also be expressed through the intonation system, e.g., "Sorry to call so late, I lost my telephone" (adversative meaning expressed by tone).

A cohesive tie is the term that refers to the relationship between a cohesive item and the item it presupposes in a text. It is an important issue for discourse analysts because it helps identify and distinguish different discourse types, genres, or registers.

Martin reformulated the notion of cohesion as “a set of discourse semantic systems at a more abstract level than lexicogrammar.” These semantic systems are:

• Identification: It considers the ways in which participants are introduced and followed once introduced.
• Negotiation: Concerned with resources for the exchange of information and of goods and services in dialogue.
• Conjunction: Concerned with resources for linking messages via addition, comparison, temporality, and causality.
• Ideation: Gives importance to the semantics of lexical relations because they are set up to interpret institutional activity.

In this model, the author parallels the above systems with metafunctions in the following way:

• Identification / Textual meaning
• Negotiation / Interpersonal meaning
• Conjunction / Logical meaning
• Ideation / Experiential meaning

Cohesion and Coherence in Text and Discourse

Cohesion and coherence are fundamental semantic concepts in linguistics:

• Cohesion has to do with the relationships between text and syntax, occurring when an element depends on another within the same discourse.
• Coherence has to do with the knowledge or cognitive structures understood by language users that contribute to the whole meaning of a given discourse.

Cohesive devices can be conjunctions, reference, substitution (placeholders like do and so), lexical cohesion (synonymy, hyponymy), and ellipsis. For example: "I like ice cream but they are fattening" or "She is falling asleep."

Coherence is a discourse property connected to the overall meaning of the text. When a text lacks continuity, we refer to it as incoherent, for example: "I like sunbathing. But I eat porridge in the morning."

According to Green, coherence isn’t just about the properties of the text alone, but also about the receiver's ability to make the required inferences to associate the content of individual sentences. Thus, coherence cannot be found in a text isolated from interpretation because it is not the text that coheres, but its participants.

Participants in a discourse achieve coherence and cohesion through discourse/pragmatic markers (DMs), which provide information about linguistic properties and the cognitive, expressive, and social competence of their users. Fraser classifies DMs as a subtype of pragmatic marker—together with basic, commentary, and parallel markers—and divides them into semantic categories: contrastive, elaborative, implicative, and temporal. These are crucial for creating cohesive and coherent discourse, e.g., "I like travelling. Nevertheless, I am terrified of flying."

The Variable of Power in Discourse

According to Van Dijk, social power is defined in terms of control. Depending on the type of resource used to exercise power, we can identify different forms, such as military power. However, power is seldom absolute and is only exerted under specific circumstances. Groups may resist power, accept it, or even legitimate it. Since the exercise of power is sometimes normalized, the dominance of powerful groups becomes incorporated into laws, rules, and habits, often being taken for granted.

Althusser viewed power as an ideological phenomenon, heavily influencing early work in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). Critical discourse analysts assume that:

• Access to specific forms of discourse, like politics, is itself a power resource.
• Influencing people's minds through power indirectly controls their actions.
• Groups that control influential discourse have a higher chance of controlling the minds and actions of others.

The purpose of CDA is to help distinguish power abuse from legitimate forms of power. The term hegemony describes situations where members of a group abuse power and others accept it, acting in the interest of the powerful. Hegemonic groups constitute power elites, whose symbolic power is measured by their discursive and communicative resources.

Mechanisms of Context Control and Dominance

One way elites enact power is by controlling the context of discourse (time, place, participants). CDA focuses on morally or legally unacceptable context control, such as exclusion based on gender or race.

• Syntactic/Phonological Level: Slight manifestations of dominance (intonation, rhetorical figures).
• Discourse Structure Level: Modes of context control and discrimination that lead to the "silencing" of less powerful groups.
• Pragmatic Level: Turn-taking and politeness strategies that overtly or covertly impose power.

People in power often feel entitled to be impolite toward subordinates through intonation, irony, or impoliteness markers. Other linguistic strategies for expressing power include hesitations, hedges (e.g., maybe), interruptions, and laughter. The powerful group also decides the topic and when it changes, which directly influences the addressees' mindset.

Theoretical Principles and Methods of Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA)

Mediated Discourse Analysis (MDA) bases its analysis of language on the socio-cultural worlds of language users rather than abstract structural characteristics. In MDA, all discourse is mediated and all mediations are discursive.

Central Concepts in MDA

• Mediated action: The basic unit of analysis. Analysts focus on social actors acting in real time using meditational means.
• Site of engagement: The social space in which mediated action occurs.
• Meditational means: Material resources (body, movements, clothing) through which mediated action is carried out.
• Practice: Mediated action is only interpretable within practices (e.g., having lunch at home differs from having lunch at a bar).
• Nexus of practice: Interrelated practices forming a complex network (e.g., an Italian restaurant includes ordering, eating, and discursive practices).

Principles and Methods in MDA

The core principle is social action, viewing discourse as a theme of social action. MDA utilizes methods from Interactional Sociolinguistics, such as playback, transcription, and tape-recording, to identify and analyze key mediated actions. Data types include:

• Ethnography of communication surveys: Focus on participants, meditational means, scenes, and social changes.
• Issue-based surveys of public discourse: Provide independent analysis of topics and actions to cross-check ethnographies.
• Public opinion and focus group surveys: Determine socio-political issues central to the public.

Data can be analyzed from four perspectives: members' generalizations, individual experience, "neutral/objective data," and playback responses.

Indexicality: Icons, Indexes, and Symbols

The key to analyzing any human action is indexicality—the meaning of signs based on their material location. All language derives a major part of its meaning from how and where it is placed. Signs, icons, body messages, and symbols achieve their meaning through indexicality. For example, the phrase "In the above paragraphs this question is argued" uses indexicality to point to specific parts of the same text.

MDA is particularly interested in the indexable world, examining how the sign systems of language index other semiotic systems. Meaning is communicated through three main types of signs:

• Icons: Signs that resemble what they represent (e.g., a telephone receiver icon indicating a phone).
• Indexes: Signs that point to or are physically attached to an object (e.g., a directional arrow).
• Symbols: Arbitrary signs that have acquired conventional significance, often starting as icons (e.g., an eye inside a triangle representing the all-seeing eye, or stars indicating a hotel category).

Multiple sign types can coexist in a single sign, such as a restroom sign combining the figures of a man and a woman (icon/symbol), the word "toilets," and an arrow pointing the way (index).