DISCURSO Discourse Analysis and the Art of Coherence

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Discourse Analysis and the Art of CoherenceAuthor(s): George Goodin and Kyle PerkinsSource: College English, Vol. 44, No. 1 (Jan., 1982), pp. 57-63Published by: National Council of Teachers of EnglishStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/377199

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George Goodin and Kyle PerkinsDiscourse n a l y s i s a n d t h r t o

oherence

If we may brieflydefine composition,in manyarts, as the arrangement f infor-mation, then rhetorical composition is preeminently the arrangement andsequencingof sentences, and the art of coherence, or bondingthose sentencestogether, forms much of the art of rhetoric. Yet most of us have experiencedsome difficultyin teachingcoherence, and the help available in textbooks oftenamountsto little more than a list of transitionwords. To be sure, we have ourconventionalwisdom on the subject. For the invention stage of prewritingwemay urge studentsto make coherence easier for themselves by planningto usethe naturalordersof descriptionor narration.Forwriting tself, the actualstring-ing together of sentences, we can smooth their paths by suggestingthat theyconcentrate on what they are saying and not permitthemselves to worry overspelling, punctuation,and other mattersbest taken care of later. We mightin-voke Hemingwayand advise them that when they stop and wonder what to saynext they shouldlook at their previoussentences, instead of out the windoworat the ceiling. For the postwriting stages of proofreadingand revision, we canadaptAristotle'smethod for testing literaryworks, tellingthem to be suspiciousof sentences which can be removed or relocated withoutany effect on the com-positionas a whole.It was in the hope of enlarging,howevermodestly,on such conventionalwis-dom that we began to investigate coherence in the light of modern discourseanalysis, which is the study of grammaticalprinciplesoperatingbeyondthe sen-itence.Discourseanalysishas drawnfroma numberof disciplines,as we can seein some of the more familiarbooks in the field: Teun A. van Dijk's Text andContext (1977) draws heavily on semantics and logic, James L. Kinneavy'sATheoryof Discourse (1971) on rhetoric, and M. A. K. Hallidayand RuqaiyaHasan's Cohesion in English (1976)on linguistics.Discourse analysis has been

George Goodin is an associate professor of English at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Aformer director of the composition program, he teaches courses in composition, Victorian fiction,and linguistics. Among his publications is an article on literary criticism which appeared in CollegeEnglish in December 1967.Kyle Perkins is an associate professor of linguistics at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.Among other courses he teaches EFL composition and grammar. He is a former chairperson of thelinguistics department and has published in the field of language testing.A version of this essay was presented at the 1981 CCCC meeting in Dallas.

College English,Volume44, Number 1, January198257


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58 CollegeEnglishused to study not only writtentexts but spoken monologuesand conversationsas well. It has studied how rhetorical orm or macrostructure overns the writ-er's syntacticoptions, and how these in turnhelp the readerto grasprhetoricalformand to understandcompositionsas wholes. It has studied how the reader'shabits of informationprocessingconstrainthe writer's selection and orderingofdetails. It has studiedhow fictionalnarrativesmove from one given episode toanotherwith considerableregularity.Althoughdiscourse analysis must by its naturedeal with coherence, this factby no means makes it all equallyuseful to teachersof composition.A typicalbitof discourse analysis cites a coherent passage and explains in some detail thebonds amongits sentences, just as a typical bit of grammaticalanalysiscites awell-formedsentence and explains its internalbonds. Unfortunately,discourseanalysis, unlike the grammarof the sentence, does not have a large body ofwell-specified and obligatoryrules which utterances not well formed may beseen as violating. Thus compositionteachers may well be disappointed.Theymay feel quitecomfortablealreadyon the subjectof coherence, particularlybe-cause the poetics of the last forty years has used it as the primarystandard orjudging iteraryworks. Whatthey morelikelywant is a betterhandleon incoher-ence.For this purpose the most helpful work in discourse analysis that we havefound is Herbert H. Clark and Susan E. Haviland's Comprehensionand theGiven-New Contract (in Roy O. Freedle, ed., Discourse Productionand Com-prehension, [Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing,1977],pp. 1-40).We can hardlydo justice here to their very rich, rewarding, and-we are happy to say-readable article, but briefly their argumentgoes as follows. Each declarativesentence containsboth given informationand new information.The giveninformation s that which the speakerbelieves the listeneralreadyknows, eitherfrom the surroundingsor from previous sentences, and the new information sthat whichthe speakerbelieves the listener does not know and needs to be told.An implicit agreementbetween speakerand listener, which Clarkand Havilandcall the given-new contract, governs how each of these is manifested in asentence. Essentially the given information s manifestedby unstressedintona-tion and/or sentence position, and the new informationby stressed intonationand/orsentence position. Perhapswe can assist understanding nd still not getboggeddown in a difficult anddisputedmatterby suggestingthatthe unstressedpositionfor given information s in the logical (not necessarilythe grammatical)subject, and the stressed position in the logical predicate. Those familiarwithlinguisticswill thus recognizethat Clarkand Haviland'sdistinctionis analogousto a whole batteryof previousdistinctions between topic andcomment,presup-positionandfocus, theme andrheme,andold information nd new information.As to sentence sequences, the rule is that once informationhas appearedasnew information, t becomes for subsequentsentences availableto be used asgiven information.For each subsequent sentence, then, the speaker observeswhat Clarkand Haviland call the maximof antecedence, which they state asfollows: Tryto constructyourutterance such thatthe listenerhas one andonly[one] direct antecedentfor any given informationand that is the intendedan-


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Discourse Analysis and the Art of Coherence 59tecedent (p. 4). When this maxim is violated, two results may occur. One isunacceptability,which they illustrate with the second of the following pair ofsentences: Two men were watchingthe dog. The one watchingit laughedoutloud (p. 16).The other is awkwardness,whichthey illustratewith the second ofthe following pair: Agnes saw somebody. It was Agnes who saw Maxine (p.14). The difference between unacceptabilityand awkwardnessis that listenerscan often comprehend awkward sentences by making them conform to themaxim of antecedence, using processes of inferentialbridging,addition,or re-structuring.The last example, if restructured o remove its awkwardness,canbecome Agnes saw somebody. It was Maxinewhom Agnes saw.Now, how can we use this very interestingdiscussion of faulty sentence se-quences? We can begin by notingthat all sequences which Clark and Havilandfind unacceptableor awkwardmay also be called incoherent. As a result, wehave a good diagnosisof incoherence which violates the maxim of antecedence.For example, the following sequence from student writingrequires inferentialbridgingby the reader: In the past ten years many more young people haverealizedthat their future in this advancedtechnological society lies in attendingcollege. Amongthis growingmass of test takers are three times as manystudentsfrom generally low-scoring groups. Some sequences, however, observe themaximof antecedence and are incoherentnonetheless, as in the followingpair,used to open a studentpaper: Manypeople have never takenthe opportunity oplay a card game. Cardgames seem easy after learningthe rules. To processthe second of these, the reader must also provide inferentialbridging,to theeffect thatmanyof the people who have never takenthe opportunity o playcardgames may have been deterredby thinkingthem difficult.Notwithstandinghis problem,we thinkClarkand Haviland'sworkvery help-ful for analyzing ncoherence.It suggests that we look for rules of coherentdis-course which are obligatoryand therefore permit us not only to diagnose in-coherence, but also to specify more exactly than we have in the past thesentence which violates coherence. By showing that discourse develops bymeans of a serial or recursive process-converting new information nto giveninformation hat forms the base for predicatingadditionalnew information-italso suggests that the art of coherence may lie in such acts of conversion.If discourseworks in the way we have described,there are two obvious waysin which it can go wrong. A sentence may have little or no information hat isreally new, but may simply repeat or rephrasewhat has preceded. Discoursegreatlymarkedby this defect is called by our students bullshit, and many ofthem can fill blue book after blue book with it. On the other hand, a sentencemay be deficient in given information.If so it is incoherent with its context.Discourse greatlymarkedby this defect may leave us wonderingwhat is beingtalkedabout, or it may sound like a collection of topic sentences. In describingincoherencein this way, we have greatlybroadenedthe maximof antecedence,and admittedlyour reformulationacks the precisionand elegance of ClarkandHaviland'srule. Nevertheless, we think it does point in the rightdirection.We wish we could providefromdiscourseanalysis a morehelpfulanalysisofincoherence.Perhaps people workingin the field will some day create one, but


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60 College Englishwe must be realistic and not get our hopes too high. After all, discourse analysishas been going on for centuries in the work of logicians and rhetoricians, and theentry into it of linguistics and other disciplines cannot be expected to banishmuddle. Just as we cannot get students to write consistently grammatical sen-tences by teaching them any system of grammar, we do not expect to get themall to write consistently coherent prose by teaching them any system of dis-course grammar or rhetoric. We want to suggest not that composition teachersstudy a great deal of discourse analysis, and certainly not that they wait for it tosolve their problems, but rather that, with a minimum of terminological baggage,they do discourse analysis (or continue to do it) with their students.In our classes we have treated the grammar of the sentence unsystematicallyby presenting students with their own ungrammatical sentences, relying onwhatever level of competence they already have to spot the parts that sound oddand to correct them. Similarly, we have presented them with copies of theirparagraphs containing sentences which violate discourse coherence, relying onthe competence they have to sense that something is wrong and to suggest pos-sible revisions. Some of this material can be found in the writing samples whichwe want to consider now, much in the way that we did with our students.Here is the first sample:

1. Thereare several differencesbetween Perrault'sversionof the storyCinderella,and the newer version of the story by Walt Disney. This paragraph,however,will discuss only one of them. This differenceis the fact that in Perrault'sver-sion, Cinderella s resignedto the fact that she cannot go to the Prince'sballbecause of her position in society. She felt, as her sisters did, that it would notbe acceptableto the people giving or attending he ball. However in WaltDis-ney's version of Cinderella,Cinderella elt that she should be able to go to theball if she wanted to, and she was angry at her sisters and stepmother or notallowingher to go. I feel this differencewas probablybroughtaboutby people'schangingattitudes towardbeing caughtup in social classes. Back in Perrault'sday, people felt confinedby their class fromthe day they were born. (I realizeCinderellawas not borninto the class of a servant,but her stepmotherreducedherto thatlevel in the way she had herfamilytreatCinderella.) n WaltDisney'smore recent writingof Cinderellathough, there is shown the differencein thatpeople today do not feel confinedto their social class. Peoplefromlower socialclasses feel they may go almost anywherewithoutfeeling unaccepted.This isone difference I found between Perrault'sCinderella and Walt Disney's Cin-derella .

Our first sample is a quite coherent paragraph. In fact it inclines toward theopposite error of repeating old information too much: many phrases and perhapsa sentence or two can be omitted without much damage. Nevertheless, the para-graph is quite good. After the first sentence we can see many instances of thediscourse attaining movement and coherence by treating what is new informationin one sentence as given information in a subsequent sentence. The severaldifferences and so forth of sentence one is new information, but in sentencetwo, where it is referred to by them, it is given information. The new informa-tion of sentence two, that this paragraph . . . will discuss only one, containsin the word one new information which will be treated as given information inthe expression this difference of the following sentence. Further analysiswould be tedious. As we said before, showing that coherent writing is coherent


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Discourse Analysis and the Art of Coherenceis not the main problem, and this writer is conscious enough of coherence andknowledgeable enough of convention to put into parentheses an entire sentencewhich would have violated coherence if not marked as an aside.

Such consciousness does not prevail in our second sample:2. I think most people watch soap operas to take themselves away from reality.Whenyou really get interested n a soap opera,you get involvedin the worldofcharacters. You relax for awhileand enjoy the story. *Soap operasarejust ex-aggerated tories. It is easy to forgetyourproblems or one-halfto two hoursofthe day watchingthe characterswiththeir innumerable roblems.These charac-ters are portrayed ike real people. Some of their problemscould possibly bereal.

In the second sample the asterisked fourth sentence is an aside which is un-marked and therefore violates coherence. If speaking it the student might verywell mark it as an aside by lowering pitch and increasing speed, but he or she hasno equivalent graphic symbols. (If we may interject an aside of our own, manywriting problems are similar-not caused by ignorance of language itself but ofits limitations in certain circumstances.) In any case, the fourth sentence doesnot violate the maxim of antecedence, but it introduces incoherence because itrequires the reader to make an inferential bridge to the effect that the exaggera-tion in soap operas is a source or the source of the pleasure some people receivefrom them.We continue the discussion of unmarked asides with our third and fourthsamples:3. The cardgameThirty-Ones played with a card deck containing ifty-twocards.*For an interestingand challenginggame the numberof players can rangefromtwo to six. The cards have face value with face cards equallingten and acesequallingeitherone or eleven. Each player is holdingthree cards at the end ofeach turn. The object of the game is to have the sum of the values of the threecardsequalto thirty-oneor lower thanthirty-onewithoutever goingover.4. Waris a card game set up for two or more players. All fifty-twocardsfrom astandarddeck are dealt evenly to each player. The playerwith all the cards atthe endof the gameis the winner. *Thisgameis played mostlyby youngpeople.

In the third sample the asterisked second sentence is also an unmarked aside.If it is removed the paragraph becomes coherent enough. We are not suggestingthat it should be removed, or marked as an aside. Instead, its essential informa-tion should be embedded in the previous sentence, which might then read, Thecard game Thirty-one is played, ideally by two to six people, with a deck contain-ing fifty-two cards. Similarly in the fourth sample, the first sentence can incor-porate the information contained in the last sentence if revised to read, War is acard game set up for two or more players-usually young.The problem is more serious in the fifth sample:5. One uniquedifferenceof the versions of Cinderella is the length of the story.

*WaltDisney's object of the story was to simplify the understanding or chil-dren. Perrault's orm of Cinderellaexplaineddetailedinformation hatwas con-structed in a more advanced and detailed manner. The styles of the writingscontrastedgreatlyin this type of formality.Even thoughWalt Disney wrote in abrief style, the story still revealed the same plot as Perraultdescribedin hisversion.

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62 College EnglishHere the offending sentence is by no means an aside. The first sentenceshould make the reader expect soon information as to what the versions areand which is longer or shorter. The next two sentences identify the versions,

fairly well satisfying the maxim of antecedence, but they fail to deliver the in-formation about length that is necessary to understand any assertion about thepurpose or object of each version. This deficiency in given information wouldnever have arisen if the first sentence had read, One difference between WaltDisney's Cinderella and Perrault's is that Walt Disney's is shorter. Thus revi-sion to eliminate incoherence can address itself either to the offending sentenceor to the sentence setting up the unmet expectation. In this respect coherenceproblems, like many grammatical problems within sentences, are matters of con-cord.

Concord also is the issue in the sixth sample:6. WhenAlice met the pigeon;the pigeon thoughtshe was a serpent.One reasonfor this identityproblem s because there are manyways to perceivean object.*Alicetriedto explainto the pigeonthat she was a girl, but the pigeonhadseenmany girls, and none had such a long neck. When Alice told him that she ateeggs, the pigeonwas convincedthat she was a serpent.Anythingthateats eggswas a serpent as far as the pigeon was concerned. The same object viewedthroughdifferenteyes, can be perceivedin manydifferentways, therefore,whatmay be a sweet littlegirl to some, maybea serpentto others.

In sample six the asterisked third sentence does, after a fashion, begin todevelop the idea in the second, but not clearly. Notice, however, that the para-graph becomes quite coherent if the second sentence is removed. The generalobservation it makes is also in the last sentence, which is made intelligible andcoherent by what precedes it. By then, we can recognize that the same objectis in this case Alice, and the different eyes those of Alice and the pigeon.Removing the second sentence makes the paragraph a simple narrative with itspoint at the end.Here is the final sample we wish to discuss:

7. The finally, Japaneserespectthe Americanpeople in somepointsbutnot at all. Iknow some crazyAmericanpeople as same as Japanese.If the Americanpeoplewant to come to Japan,act carefully.It is a cause of misunderstanding.

This passage obviously was written by a student of English as a second lan-guage. Its individual sentences, except for the last, are so incoherent internallythat bonds between them have become difficult to make. They must be repro-cessed by the reader. The first sentence must have at subtracted. The secondmust be restructured. The third must have Americans substituted for theAmerican people and must be restructured to remove the shift from third per-son to second. Only then will the discourse problems of the paragraphcome intoview. These problems, unlike those of the preceding samples, are with whatHalliday and Hasan call cohesion. Before the student can deal with coherenceproper, he or she must recognize the unnecessary shift of subject from the firstto the second sentence, and the semantic and cohesive properties of the definitearticle in English.


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Discourse Analysis and the Art of CoherenceThese samples and many others have suggested to us some tentative com-ments or generalizationswhich others may wish to consider as they work withdiscourse coherence.First, structurewithin the sentence obviouslyhas a greatimpacton coherencebetween sentences. In samplestwo through our, the offendingsentenceoughttohave been embeddedin anothersentence insteadof beingallowedto standinde-pendently.The coherence problems,therefore,may have originated roma lackof syntactical maturityin the writers, which is much in evidence throughoutthese samples. The sentences which introduce incoherencemay in these casesbe thoughtof as semanticanaloguesof those sentence fragmentsreferredto bycompositiontextbooks as afterthoughtmodifiers.A second observationalso suggests an analogywith afterthoughtmodifiers.By far, the most commonlocation we have found for the offendingsentence issecond in a paragraph,particularly he second sentence of the first paragraph.The first sentence is often a thesis or topic sentence almostinevitablydominatedby new information,and it may quicklybecome so meaty as to tax the writer'ssyntacticalcompetence. If so, he or she may simplyadd as an independentsen-tence material hat shouldhave been embedded,andtherebyviolate coherence.The next most common location for improperlybonded sentences is the lastsentence in a paragraph, ndhereagainmaterialwhich neededembeddingearlieris often simplystuck in.Lest these remarkson syntactical immaturity eem to implythat exhaustiveworkon sentence-combining houldprecedeany serious instructionon intersen-tential coherence, we hasten to a thirdobservation. Macrostructure, he para-graph or the composition as a whole, also has a great impact on coherence.Many of our samples show that the writerhas formedno definite idea of whatpurposea paragraphs to serve or what means will be used to develop it. Thesixth sample, the paragraphon Alice, as we have seen, suggests in the secondsentence that developmentwill be by analysis; then it shifts to narrative. Thewriterseems to thinkthata paragraph ught to have an earlytopic sentence butseems to be unawarethat most topic sentences, particularly arly ones, createthe expectationof development by analysis-the most difficultmeans of devel-

opmentthat could possiblybe used.Our last observation, which we think is amply warrantedby the differenceswhichour samples show between native and non-native speakers, is that nativespeakers-fortunately for those who teach them-already know a great dealaboutcoherence. For the last twenty years or so at least, composition teachershave been outragedby the methodologicalassumption of linguisticsthat nativespeakers alreadyhave grammatical ompetence, and they can certainly point toa greatdeal of incompetence.But the fact is that native studentsdo have a greatdeal of grammatical ompetence, and we would do well to buildon it, pointing tout to themas somethingto be proudof, ratherthan assuming hat we are work-ing with a tabularasa. Andjust as we can use their grammatical ompetence asour startingpointfor tryingto increase it, so their discourse competenceshouldbe our starting point for extendingand deepening their knowledge of the art ofcoherence.

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DISCURSO Discourse Analysis and the Art of Coherence

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