Cohesion and coherence

Standards of Textuality.

LECTURE 16

Contextual relationships.

We have assumed that messages “operate” within three types of contexts mentioned above or, to be more precise, communicative and macro contexts “surround” each

particular message in space and in time. Therefore, elements of meaning of each message have to be related to these surrounding contexts in some way. It is generally assumed that such contextual relationships of messages may be of three kinds:

a) anaphoric or “backward” relationships, when the meaning of an element becomes clear through the reference to the preceding elements of the micro or communicative context,

e. g.:

China’s President continues his visit to former Soviet republics - this time to Ukraine.

It’s the first official visit by China’s leader to the independent Republic.

(Euro News),

where the meaning of the independent Republic is determined by the lexical element Ukraine in the previous sentence.

b) cataphoric or “forward” relationships, when the meaning of an element becomes clear through the reference to the oncoming, “expected” elements of the micro or communicative context, e. g.:

Russian and American troops have been taking part in “Peacekeeper-94” - the first Russian-American joint military exercise

(Euro News),

where the meaning of “Peacekeeper-94” become clear from the rest of the utterance.

c) exophoric or “outward” relationships, when the meaning of an element becomes clear through the reference to the macro context, i. e. to the background knowledge, cultural and subject field competence of the addressee and to the knowledge about “the world”, e.g.:

Veteran Nazi hunter Simon Weisenthal has been awarded one of Poland’s top decorations by President Walesa. The 85-year old Auschwitz death camp survivor is in Poland at Walesa’s invitation

(Euro News),

where general cultural competence will help to translate Auschwitz death camp as табір смерті Освенцім.

Main points:

1. Cohesion and coherence.

2. Intentionality and acceptability.

3. Informativity, relevance and intertextuality.

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We shall be presenting seven difining characteristics of text; the set of standards which applies to all texts that possess communicative value. Each of the seven is essential and failure to comply with any one of them constitutes failure overall; the “text” which lacks any one of these characteristics is not a text but merely an aggregate /´ægrigit/(сполучення) of words, sounds or letters.

The “standards” have been proposed in order to answer a number of key questions which the reader (and translator) will need to ask about a text:

¨ How do the clauses hold together? (cohesion) (зчеплення).

¨ How do the propositions hold together? (coherence) (послідовність, узгодження).

¨ Why did the speaker (writer) produce this? (intentionality) (навмисність).

¨ How does the reader take it? (acceptability) (допустимість).

¨ What does it tell us? (informativity).

¨ What is the text for? (relevance) (доречність).

¨ What other texts does this one resemble? (intertextuality) (той, який відноситься до тексту, текстовий, буквальний).

(Admondson, 1981).

The first two standards - cohesion and coherence - are distinct from each other but share one crucial characteristic; they both have the function of binding the text together by creating sequence of meaning.

Cohesion consists of the mutual connection of components of Surface Text within a sentence or clauses (sentences); the process being signalled by lexico-syntactic means (Mood system; Subject, Predicate, etc.). Coherence, in contrast, consists of the configuration of sequencing of the Concept and Relation of the Textual World which underlie and are realized by the surface text. (Actor, Process, Goal, Circumstances).

2. Intentionality and acceptability are oriented to notions of the “real world” and inhabitants of that world. Even if a text is cohesive and coherent it “must be intended to be a text and accepted as such. A producer and a receiver”. (de Beaugrande).

The two are the converse of each other, intentionality being sender-oriented, and acceptability being receiver oriented.

3. Informativity, relevance and intertextuality are concerned with information structure, the relevant of the text to its situation or occurrence and the relationship of the text to other texts.

Texts contain information and a measure of that is the informativity of the text. A text is seen as the realization of choices made from among sets of options. The less probable and predictable a choice is the more interesting it is conversely, choices which are wholly predictable are informative and uninteresting. However, too much information renders the text unreadable, while the converse - too little information renders it readable but not worth reading.

Texts not only contain information, they possess a degree of relevant or situationality in so far as they exist for a particular communicative purpose and link communicative acts (discourse) to the situation in which they occur. Indeed, it is crucially important for the assessment (оцінка) of the appropriateness of a text to know where it occurred and what its function was in that situation.

All seven of the standards of textuality have been implicit in the model of the process of translation and in the knowledge and skills the translator possesses which allow him to translate.

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