up vote 3 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

Is the following sentence cohesive or coherent? Or both?

Ali loves fish. He lives in the north.

It might be of interest that cities are next to the sea in the north.

link|improve this question
is this question linguistic? – Louis Rhys♦ Feb 18 at 16:45
1  
I think that we should cover semantics under the heading of linguistics, yes. – Mark Beadles Feb 18 at 18:15
But are "cohesive" and "coherent" standard terms in semantics? I've seen both of them used in many different ways. – jlawler Feb 18 at 18:24
1  
@LouisRhys It's Discourse Analysis, which is a field of Linguistics (too). – Alenanno♦ Feb 18 at 20:37
2  
@jlawler They are in Discourse Analysis, as far as I know, which is what the question is about. By the way, this just reminded me to add the tag. – Alenanno♦ Feb 18 at 22:24
feedback

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

The text is cohesive but I don't think it's also coherent.

Cohesion is achieved through some devices, such as the pronouns (you used he in your example)1, so there is cohesion. Both sentences are about Ali.

But the text has no coherence, there is no (necessary) logic correlation between loving fish and living in the North.

1: As also Mark reminded me in the comments below this answer, the text is cohesive if Ali is a man. Since Ali is also a female's name, the text might lose its cohesion if the text talks about an "Ali = woman".

link|improve this answer
I don't think that coherence requires necessary correlation, merely correlation within a certain framework of knowledge. – Mark Beadles Feb 18 at 18:16
@MarkBeadles That last sentence, that the OP added, is not part of the text, therefore how can we take it into account when analyzing the text? Considering only the quoted part (the text), there is no coherence; there is no logic correlation between the first and second sentence. By this I mean: what north? For who? All people in this "north" love fish? Like I told the OP in another place, take 2 people from Sweden and 2 from India: is it obvious/logic that the first two love fish rather than the second two? No, it's not obvious. Where is the "link" between those two sentences? – Alenanno♦ Feb 18 at 20:41
I think we are talking at cross terms. I understand coherence as pertaining to semantic and contextual continuity, and cohesion as pertaining to syntactical and textual continuity. Since coherence involves meaning it depends on contextual knowledge, not just textual knowledge. E.g., "Cohesion alone is not sufficient for the interpretation of the discourse. Comprehenders generate inferences on the basis of background knowledge and discourse constraints." (Strazny's encyclopedia of linguistics). It may be that you are using the term differently. – Mark Beadles Feb 19 at 1:12
I'm not using them differently. Actually what you said explains my answer: This text has continuity (it is cohesive "Ali > he"), but, using your words, there is no contextual continuity. There is no logical link between Ali that loves fish and him living in the north. Those are both things related to Ali (cohesion), but they have nothing to do with each other (coherence). You could say there might be some other info, but this is the text we must analyse. The OP asked about that text, not that plus something else that we can imagine. – Alenanno♦ Feb 19 at 1:30
1  
@MarkBeadles Ahah yes! When talking about this topic to someone else, I was told that same thing! It is indeed ambiguous. I'll point the OP to the comments. – Alenanno♦ Feb 19 at 1:39
show 1 more comment
feedback
up vote 3 down vote

Without understanding the universe of discourse we can't make determination if sentences are coherent.

In your question, you give some context about this universe. This context could be seen as giving coherence to the sentences. In particular, if we regard "the North" as exophoric in relation to the cities near the sea, then the text is coherent.

In a different universe, or in a universe constisting only of the two sentences and no other text or knowledge, then we cannot say they are coherent, rather merely cohesive.

link|improve this answer
I'd need to post the same comment I posted under my answer but well, I don't want to repeat it. :) – Alenanno♦ Feb 18 at 21:28
For example, giving contextual knowledge surrounding the discourse, we might say the second sentence stands in an explanatory relation to the first. Yes, we can only say this using extra-textual knowledge. Absent such knowledge we cannot say if the sentences are coherent. But we are presented with such knowledge. – Mark Beadles Feb 19 at 1:14
Given additional info, they might make more sense, maybe. But we must analyze the text as is, otherwise it's not discourse analysis, it's guessing/hypothesizing. There is not logical correlation between the two statements. As you said in the comment above too, cohesion alone is not sufficient, and indeed, this text is not clear. Its meaning is not 100% clear and logic, that's why I said it lacked coherence. If it didn't, you'd understand it clearly, but now we're guessing. – Alenanno♦ Feb 19 at 1:26
I suspect that this may be homework relating to essay evaluation. If that suspicion is correct, then you probably are right since the writer would be expected to link the sentences with a smooth transition or endophora. More generally, though, I think that context and shared knowledge is fair game. – Mark Beadles Feb 19 at 1:35
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.