The a1m of the thesis was to define and describe the system of cohesion in spoken French, working from transcriptions of interviews. This involved a distinction between discourses which are felt to be coherent in the general sense because of the organisation of the material, and the kind of coherence due to the effective use of ties. This kind of coherence I have termed cohesion. It is a purely verbal concept involving anaphora, cataphora and the Use of verbal links. It was necessary to set up a linguistic model of the language, upon which to base the research. As no model was available at the time, I evolved one based on the unit, which is a functional unit involving the U8e of ties; and the unit complex, which i. made up of linked units. It became apparent that certain lexical items with a strong referential meaning and belonging to a nearly closed c1a •• system had to be included under the heading 'cohesive ties'. To a lesser extent, intonation also had to be taken into account in determining the exact nature of the clause or utterance under consideration. It was found necessary to elaborate on the relationship between cohesion and linguistic coherence: hence a summary description of 'the topic', the semantic counterpart of the uni t complex. It was then po •• ible to concentrate on the original purpose of the the.i.1 to describe the ties used in French discourse. Th ••• were found to vary from level to level in that certain type. of coh.sive ties tend to be used at one level rather than another to the near or total exclusion of others. This peralts a more scientific examination of spoken and, potentially, written French beyond the clause. It also facilitates the further stylistic examination of the lanquage: the use of cohesive devices being a major source of stylistic Variation.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:461307 |
| Date | January 1975 |
| Creators | Judge, A. |
| Publisher | Birkbeck (University of London) |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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