Textual Cohesion in Newspaper Articles - Book Report/Review Example

TEXTUAL COHESION IN NEWSPAPER ARTICLES Textual Cohesion: Clarifying the Concept Text refers to any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that forms a unified whole (Koch 2001). Analysing text of any and is very useful in describing language functions and ascertaining the meaning embodied to it. Text possesses a texture, one in which it functions as a unity with respect to its environment (Koch 2001). With this, linguistic features contribute to textual unity, which is described by the concept of cohesion apart form other concepts (Koch 2001). Textual representation is a central task in the understanding of text, requiring a format that allows for the interrelation of texts even if they do not share content words but are dealing with similar topics, nonetheless (Mehler 2002). This paper aims to analyse how textual cohesion is achieved in the newspaper editorials from two national (English) newspapers, with reference to the use of cohesive ties. Cohesion is an acceptable linkage of sentences through surface structure (White 2004). Texture or coherence binds sentences into texts. Cohesion is used in signaling the connectedness of sentences with explicit markers, such as conjunctions, verbal substitutions, and repeated vocabulary as well as arranging the text with an implicit connectedness of thought that can be followed even with the absence of explicit markers (White 2004). The concept of cohesion is a semantic one, which largely refers to the meaning that exists within the text, defining it as such (Koch 2001). Cohesion occurs in the fact that the interpretation of some elements in the discourse is dependent on that of another, implying textual relatedness (Koch 2001). It is hence important to mention that a text is best thought of as a unit of a different kind [a semantic unit] rather than as a grammatical unit. The kind of unity it has is a unity of meaning in context, a texture expressing the fact that it relates as a whole to the environment in which it is placed" (White 2004). Cohesive devices are the surface structure feature linking the different parts of a text and making it flow logically (Ambiyo 2007). Cohesive devices could be attributed to the factors, which depend directly on the type of register chosen for a particular audience or situation (Buitkiene 2005). In order to ensure textual coherence, the newspaper relies on lexical cohesive devices. Buitkiene cites that simple lexical repetition, defined as the most stable way of pointing to a particular referent, is present in newspaper articles, which also leaves more space for other types of cohesive devices. It was found that there exists a clearly observable relationship between the lexical items used in the newspaper headlines as well as the number of repetitions of the same lexemes in the texts themselves, indicating that lexemes with nominative chains used in headlines are considerably longer than any other chains (Buitkiene 2005). This therefore demonstrates that the key information is placed in the headline despite the register type (Buitkiene 2005). It must be remembered that in textual cohesion, the position of information units is usually related to rather vague contextual concepts relating to information flow (Renkema 1996, p, 233). Hence, topic continuity, foreground/background information, and new information are important aspects of textual cohesion. By paying attention to the linguistic resources of cohesion such as reference, ellipsis, and conjunction as ones that help create text, one is able to organize text and experience the experiential coherence of the text (Koch 2001). Textual cohesion would require an understanding of semantic spaces, which have been proposed as a high-dimensional format for representing relations of semantic proximity (Mehler 2002). This is so because a text is far more than a mere concatenation of sentences. Texts contain pertinent information co-referring across sentences and paragraphs, as well as relations between phrases, clauses, and sentences that are often causally linked (McCarthy, et al. 2007, p. 21). Oftentimes, the text depends on relating a series of chronological agents containing temporal features that help the reader to build a coherent representation of the text (McCarthy 2007, p. 19), such as newspaper articles. Cohesive elements are how these textual features are referred to, occurring within paragraphs, across paragraphs, and in forms such as causal, referential, temporal, and structural. However, cohesion is not simply featured in a text as cartoons tend to feature in newspapers since textual cohesion is sometimes indicative of the audience for which the text was written, as it exists on a so-called continuum of presence (McCarthy, et al. 2007, p. 37). Hence, textual analysis is applied to a wide range of texts with their performance always depending on human interventions in defining domain representations or at least in classifying texts. Different tasks such as text classification require recognizing discourse topics as their final purpose or as a step towards their achievement (Ferret and Grau 2003). It must also be noted that a terminology -descriptive or prescriptive - attempts to represent the system of the text as a language in use (Trosborg 2000). There is said to be a particular role that synonymy, hyponymy, paraphrase, repetition, and partial repetition play in textual cohesion. Even authoritative texts often wave their meanings in ways, which are systematically different in which meaning is represented in codified sources, such as terminologies. This is particularly shown in the varied usage of texts for certain subject field, such as economics wherein the use of terms in text by internationally acknowledged experts varies in relation to the codified term-concept relation (Trosborg 2000). This may be found in the textual cohesion of newspapers. The Use of Textual Cohesion in Newspaper Articles Three newspaper articles are used in this paper for the purpose of examining the textual cohesion embodied in them. These are "World News" and two issues of "The Sun," all dated August 27, 2008. The newspapers all tackle the potential declaration of another Cold War by the Russian President. As mentioned, the text used in these articles will be examined according to the usage and presence of textual cohesion. With the incorporation of textual cohesion in newspaper articles, it is important to consider that cohesion is an acceptable linkage of sentences through surface structure (White 2004). Textual cohesion in newspaper articles uses reference in describing or pointing out a word, which holds a connection in the actual world understood by the readers. As Baker (1992) points out, "the term reference is traditionally used in semantics for the relationship which holds between a word and what it points in the real world." A newspaper article titled, "Russia Ready for a New Cold War, Says President," denotes a direct relationship between words and extra-linguistic objects, in which reference is seen in the statement: "Russia put the West on alert for a new Cold War that the Kremlin is ready to fight," its President said yesterday" (World News 2008). In the above statement, the usage of texts is paramount to the condition in which people are set to know or already know, such as the usage of the term Russia in a personified way, indicating a figure already known to the audience. The article needs not use certain specifics in order for the audience to understand the term fully, since it is already a given thing that they are aware of what the term refers to in the first place. The term "President" refers to the Russian president, which the article assumes the audience to be familiar with, thus, not having the necessity to either mention his name in the initial statement where he is not mentioned, nor include his first name in the forgoing statements in order to emphasize that it is President Medvedev, the Russian president, which the newspaper article refers to. The sample articles used in this paper need not also point out what Georgia is and where it lies with the textual cohesion suggesting a given familiarity on the part of the audience [reader] about its location. The newspaper article does not see a compelling necessity to clarify the place, which is also attributed to the character of newspapers being chronological, as mentioned earlier. Thus: Mr. Medvedev, whose troops still occupy positions in Georgia, including in the vital Black Sea port of Poi, said that he did not want a return of Cold War, but that "everything depends on the position of our partners." The article includes the foregoing statements as uttered by the President: President Medvedev set tensions soaring when he recognized the independence of two breakaway republics inside Georgia. 'We are not afraid of anything. Including Cold War,' he said. Hours earlier, he had ordered his Foreign Ministry to start establishing diplomatic ties with the secessionist regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia (World News 2008). The pronoun he points to President Medvedev within the textual world itself. Reference in the textual sense occurs when the reader has to retrieve the identity of what is being talked about by referring to another expression in the immediate context (Baker 1992, p. 181). The resulting cohesion is situated in the continuity of reference. Every language, even those used in the newspaper, includes certain items with the property of reference in the textual sense. These reference items allow a potential text to direct the reader to look elsewhere for their interpretation (Baker 1992). Pronouns are the most common reference in English and a large number of other languages. Third person pronouns, just like how it is used in the sample newspaper article, are frequently used to refer back and even forward, to an entity already introduced (Baker 1992). Thus: "President Saakashvili of Georgia declared that Russia's backing for the separatists was illegal, and accused it of looking for any excuse to provoke Georgia and allow Russia's military machine to roll back into his country" (World News 2008). In much the same manner, items such as the, this, and those are used in order to establish similar links between expressions in a text, such as this statement within the same article: "President Bush appealed to the Kremlin to 'reconsider this irresponsible decision. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that it was unjustifiable and unacceptable " (World News 2008). The most common manner of establishing chains of reference in English and a number of other languages is by mentioning explicitly a participant in the first instance, such as by name or title and then using a pronoun to refer back to the same participant in the immediate context (Baker 1992, p. 182). This is thoroughly exhibited by newspaper articles such as the cited example above. The relationship of reference may be established in a situational manner although a restricted notion of reference as used in textual cohesion is based on text rather than extra-linguistic relations. This may be illustrated in a given pronoun that may refer to an entity, which is present in the context of situation rather than in the surrounding text. The first and second person pronouns do not refer back to a nominal expression in the text, but to the writer and reader respectively. Third-person pronouns may be used to refer to an entity, which is present in the immediate physical or mental context of situation, as well as referring back or forward to a nominal expression in the text (Baker 1992). Patterns of reference called anaphora can vary considerably both with and across languages, including those in newspaper texts. It can be seen in the distribution of pronoun versus full noun phrase, which differ dramatically from one discourse type to the next (Baker 1992, p. 183). Social and Cultural Functions of Textual Cohesion in Newspaper Articles Textual cohesion revolves around certain social and cultural functions to which the newspaper readers are within. Newspapers in general tend to construct an ideal audience of national family units and is seen as the implicit "in" group in the mainstream society (Micollier 2004). It is to this implicitness that textual coherence bases its presence in the newspaper text. Textual coherence, thus, cannot exist totally outside a textual construct or non-relative to the foregoing social or cultural happening. Social and cultural functions of textual cohesion are dominantly seen in newspaper articles as newspapers are characteristically attuned to portraying social and political events and conveying cultural-situational embodiment. Hence, textual meanings are not independent of social and cultural knowledge, but are within it. Textual cohesion is addressed in newspaper articles in that they tend to function in an array of actual events, to which their audience [readers] often have to make a following in order to retract certain given notions that the newspaper needs not clarify over and over. This is because newspapers generally take a social up-to-date function with the construction that readers should keep track of the events repeatedly happening, such as those belonging to the political realm, updating the readers about them. Social and cultural functions of textual cohesion is found in this sample newspaper article (World News, 2008): Russia put the West on alert for a new Cold War that the Kremlin is ready to fight The move brought instant condemnation from the President of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other Western countries. President Bush appealed to the Kremlin government to 'consider this irresponsible decision.' This statement, as well as the entire embodiment of the article, connotes a social inkling directed to a particular event that passed in global history, specifically the Cold War. Readers need not to be given a flashback within the text about what transpired in the Cold War between the USSR and the United States more than fifteen years ago, nor the background of this war. The text consolidates the readers into a certain common unification that leads them towards understanding the text for its totality and as one significant construct that possesses social and cultural relevance. Newspapers, being fundamentally based on current events, live with and among the people, and its use of language in the text is also alongside these events. In one newspaper article titled, "Stand Firm" issued on August 27, 2008, the initial statement held: Russia's saber-rattling escalated alarmingly last night as puppet President Dmitry Medvedev warned of a "new Cold War." In another newspaper article, titled, Russia Cold War Boasts issued also on August 27 2008, a similar context is produced in these statements: Russian bullyboy Dmitry Medvedev last night warned he could plunge the world into a new Cold War. The bolshy president received global condemnation as he backed independence for two states belonging to Georgia. The use of the term 'puppet' in the previous statement has a social construct, not intending to refer to a common puppet used as a children's entrainment or toy, but to a figurehead who uses dictatorship in his governance. Similarly, the term 'bullying' in the second statement has much the same social construction, not indicative of teasing or bullying that bigger children in school undertake, but rather another [political] jargon aligned to the term 'puppet.' There is thus, a shared social and cultural knowledge that is assumed of the readership in newspaper articles and how this social and cultural knowledge contributes to the coherence of the message embodied in the text. It may also be noted that writers of these newspaper articles apparently assume a particular stance commonly held as shared by everyone else, such as the usage of the terms puppet and bullying to mean the kind of leadership pursued by the Russian President. Such is indicative of a textual meaning believed to be shared as a given idea by the majority of its readership, if not all. However, as it is a common knowledge that newspapers, as a general rule, should exhibit unbiased and truthful views with an intent of only to inform (and perhaps provide readers with analysis for which to base their views), newspapers tend to hide certain biased inkling as a safety ground. This is seen in the sample article in which the usage of quotations is employed to mean that it is not the newspaper who says certain words, but the participants depicted in the text. Thus: President Bush appealed to the Kremlin government to "consider this irresponsible decision." Again, the above statement would have generated a different interpretation in the realm of biased-unbiased contestation is it were written this way: President Bush appealed to the Kremlin government to consider this irresponsible decision. Hence, by merely omitting the quotation marks, two different textual meanings are put forward by the same statement. Like what the newspaper articles just examined exhibit, cohesion does not concern what a text means, but rather how the text is constructed as a semantic edifice, helping to create text and the component of the linguistic system (Koch 2001). The manner in which newspaper articles is presented show this fact. Conclusion Textual cohesion is present in newspaper articles, and has a varied way of presentation than other forms of materials. Since newspapers are generally characterised as objective, chronological, and based on actual events, textual cohesion takes a form of social and cultural relatedness allowing the readers to associate the actual message to the existing social condition. The codification of the text in newspaper articles take a somewhat social and cultural stance which can only b understood further with prior knowledge of events and occurrences, normally dwelling in the local or global scenarios. References Ambiyo, S., 2007. A comparative analysis of cohesion in academic and newspaper texts. Journal of Language, Technology, and Entrepreneurship in Africa. Vol. 1. Issue 1, p. 191-195. Baker, Mona, 1992. In other words. Routledge. Buitkiene, Janina, 2005. Variability of cohesive devices across registers. Studies About Languages. No. 7. Ferret, Oliver and Grau, Brigitte, 2003. A thematic segmentation procedure for extracting semantic domains from texts. Orsay, Cedex. France. Retrieved on September 6, 2008 from [http://www.limsi.fr/Individu/bg/articles/ECAI98Final-nonBib.pdf] Koch, Holger, 2001. A functional perspective of cohesion in English. Institute for English Language Sciences. McCarthy, Philip M., Briner, Stephen W., Rus, Vasile, and McNamara, Danielle S., 2007. Textual signatures: Identifying text-types using latent semantic analysis to measure the cohesion of txt structures. Springer London. Mehler, Alexander, 2002. Hierarchical orderings of textual units. University of Tier. Germany. Retrieved on September 6, 2008 from [http://acl.ldc.upenn.edu/C/C02/C02-1063.pdf] Micollier, Evelyne, 2004. Sexual cultures in East Asia. Routledge Curzon. Renkema, Jan., 1996. Cohesion analysis and information: The case of "Because" versus "because." Linguistics in the Netherlands. Trosborg, Anna, 2000. Analysing professional genres. John Benjamin Publishing Co. White, Howard D., 2002. Cross-textual cohesion and coherence. College of Information Science and Technology. Drexel University. Read More