On the Linguistic Realization of Coherence in Different Genres of English

Abstract

The paper aims at investigating linguistic realization of coherence in three discourse genres – news report, poster and talk-show. Discourse analysis, conversation analysis and text linguistics form the theoretical framework of the study. The empirical data embrace the following:

· 15 internet news stories from the screen newspaper Newser;
· 10 samples of poster covering the period from the second half of
the 20th c. up to the present day;
· 2 episodes of the talk-show: Variety Studio-Actors on Actors;

The research has shown that in the three genres under discussion all 5 types of cohesive devices (reference, substitution, conjunction, ellipsis and lexical ties) are evidenced, however, the frequency of their usage differ across the genres in question. Reference and lexical ties are of equal importance for news reports, talk-shows and posters. Ellipsis and substitution are poorly represented in news reports, whereas in posters and talk-shows the percentage of their usage is quite high. Conjunction is amply employed in talk-shows and news reports, but hardly encountered in posters. Unlike talk-shows and posters rhetorical cohesion is not evidenced in news reports. Special emphasis is placed on the fact that the peculiarities of the employment of cohesive ties are genre-specific.

The paper also examines some other relevant means of achieving coherence in the genres in question.