TEXT COHESION


Text cohesion refers to the way in which the different ideas in a reading passage fit together in a logical progression in which there is no unnecessary repetition.

This series of activities will help you understand three ways in which reference is used to avoid repetition.

 

1. Using Pronouns
These include words such as he, him, her, it, its, this, that, etc.

Example

Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and prescribed by doctors for coughs, colds and tuberculosis (a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).

They is used instead of repeating the word cigarettes.

2. Lexical Variation
Lexical variation is the way in which writers use different vocabulary to refer to the same thing in a text.

Example

Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and prescribed by doctors for coughs, colds and tuberculosis (a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).

The word, disease, is used to avoid repetition of tuberculosis. The word, tobacco, is used as a superordinate to include cigarettes. Another example would be the use of the word, vehicle, to refer to car.

3. Ellipsis
Ellipsis refers to the practice of omitting rather than repeating certain kinds of information which the reader’s common sense can supply from the surrounding text.

Example

Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and ^ prescribed by doctors for coughs, ^ colds and ^ tuberculosis (^ a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).

If we insert words into the above text that have been omitted, the text would look like this.

Cigarettes were in fact promoted as beneficial for health. They were listed in pharmaceutical encyclopaedias until 1906 and they were prescribed by doctors for coughs, they were prescribed by doctors for colds and they were prescribed by doctors for tuberculosis (tuberculosis is a disease which the World Health Organization now links with tobacco).

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