《 A Days Wait 》— Cohesion

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作者简介：马春亚，贵州师范大学外语学院2010级英语语言文学专业研究生。

摘 要：韩礼德建构的系统功能语法为语篇分析提供了新的理论框架，而作为系统功能语之一的语篇功能主要通过主位结构和衔接手段等方面体现。本文拟从语篇功能的角度入手，从衔接出发，以海明威的《一天的等待》为例，揭示语篇际功在小说语篇分析和小说人物性格特征及情节分析中的作用。

关键词：语篇功能；衔接；连贯；《一天的等待》

1.Introduction

Micheal Alexander Kirkwood Halliday developed his systemic grammar from the 1950s to 1960s and he worked on the functional aspect of grammar.Halliday’s systemic-functional grammar is a sociologically oriented functional linguistic theory in the 20th century，exerting a strong impact on various discipline related to language.

Functional grammar plays a critical role in Systematic Functional Grammar.It can be used in textual analysis and provides efficiently help for teaching and learning of literature works.Since 1960s，many researchers of applied linguistics have begun doing researches into discourse coherence and coherence has become an important concept in discourse analysis.Halliday and Hasan（1985）discusses coherence in terms of the relationship between text and its context of situation.In this thesis，the author will take a text-based approach to coherence based on Halliday’s functional grammar.The reason is that discourse coherence，as an important study of field of discourse analysis，focuses on how discourse constructs meaning and fulfills its communication.In this thesis，the author tends to let the readers appropriately take in the writer’s opinions and understand the special settings of the discourse based on A Day’s wait.

2.Concepts

The textual function refers to the fact that language has mechanisms to make any stretch of spoken and written discourse into a coherent and unified text and make a living message different from a random list of sentences.Although two sentences may have exactly the same ideational and interpersonal functions，they may be different in terms of textual coherence.Coherence and cohesion is a pair of indispensable concepts.According to Thompson（1996/2000：147），cohesion is the language mechanism used by speakers to express the coherence of experiential meaning and interpersonal meaning in a discourse Cohesion is realized by reference，ellipsis，and replacement etc.

3.An Analysis on the discourse A Day’s Wait

3.1.Cohesion

Cohesion is the linking up of words； the way of linking up all parts of discourse.It may exist inter-paragraph or inter-sentence，and may exist within a sentence between different parts.It is the tangible network of a text.And it has five types including reference，substitution，ellipsis conjunction and lexical cohesion.

Reference is the most important means to express semantic relationships.According to Halliday and Hasan（1976），it can be divided as personal reference，demonstrative reference and comparative reference.Personal reference is fulfilled through the Subjective Case，the Objective Case and Subordinate case these forms of personal pronouns.Demonstrative reference is through demonstrative pronouns，articles and indicative parative reference is through adjective and adverb’s comparative degree and some other more meaningful words.From “direction” perspective，reference is divided into reference in and reference out.Endophoric refers to objects which can be found in the discourse.And exophoric means people or things directly depending on physical situation outside of the discourse.There is personal reference such as I，you and we in the novel.Besides，there is comparative reference.And most of them exist in the dialogue between father and son.

“Don t think，” I said，“Just take it easy.”

“ I’m taking it easy，” he said.

Here “it” father said refers to “cold” belonging to anaphora but “it” in son’s words is “death”，which belongs to exophoric to a certain degree.

‘“You don’t have to stay in here with me，papa，if it bothers you.”’ is also

an example of exophoric.By this way，the writer creates a kind of misunderstanding context.Moreover，it shows the son Schatz’s attitude to death.He is classified as an antagonist in this story.He fought to prevent himself from overcoming his illness.

3.2.Distribution of Theme and Rheme

The author tries to analyze the text mentioned above in light of thematic interpretation in order to see how Themes create the textual meaning and how they help the text to fulfill its social purpose.

Thematic structure is made up of theme and rheme.According to Halliday（1994），“…the theme functions in the structure of the CLAUSE AS A MESSAGE.A clause has meaning as a message，a quantum of information； the Theme is the point of departure for the message.It is the element the speaker selects for ‘grounding’ what he is going to say”（p.34）.“Theme represents ‘This is what I’m talking about’”（Gerot & Wignell，1994，p.103）.It provides a kind of frame for the interpretation of the rest of the message.The thematic status is signaled in English by initial position in the clause or clause complex.Thematic structures are very complex with wonderfully fine distinctions to help us highlight the important parts of our message.This paper pays attention to marked and unmarked theme especially marked theme.Marked theme are those that are unusual and theme and subject of the clause donot conflate in the case； whereas the unmarked ones are those that are expected.（Halliday，1994：39-60）

The use of the marked themes can not only stress，connect the preceding and following text and adjust the balance of the clause but also make the language of the text more lively and expressive.What is more，it can mould the image of the heroes much better.In the novel，some marked theme conveys more important information.

Downstairs，the doctor left three different medicines in different colored capsules with instructions for giving them.

Back in the roomI wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.

At the housethey said the boy had refused to let anyone come into the room.

Marked Theme Rheme

These marked themes not only have an effect connecting the preceding and the following but also foreshadows the development of the following.Therefore，son gets a context of the misunderstanding of temperature and continues.

3.3.Lexical Cohesion

To Halliday，‘lexical cohesion comes about through the selection of [lexical]items that are related in some way to those that have gone before’（p.310，330）.More specifically，lexical cohesion can be achieved through one of these means below：repetition，synonym or near synonym，superordinate，general words.In the novel，lexical reiteration mainly manifests on the synonym.For example，“ill，sick； see，state，gaze； slip，slither，slide，icy，glassy，relax，slack”.Besides，there are many words to express father’s inside feeling：“thought，see，know，look”.In this way，the discourse is coherent to be a unified entity.The writer of the novel shows the topic by simple and plain words，clear structure so that the novel is regarded as a great works.

4.Conclusion

Form the above analysis，we find that how the writer chooses the mode of the language must be subjected to the context and what the topic the writer wants to say in the discourse A Day’s Wait.If we observe，analyze and grasp the language feature of the discourse from textual aspect，it will help us a lot on the reading.It helps to find the clue of the context consciously in order to get more information and know what is the writer wants to stand out.And then we can connect them with the main idea.（作者单位：贵州师范大学）

Bibliography

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[2] Gerot，L.，& Wignell，P.Making sense of functional grammar.Gerd Stabler：Antipodean Educational Enterprises（AEE），1994

[3] Halliday，M.A.K.An Introductin to Functional Grammer [M].London：Oxford University Pr，2004.

[4] Halliday，M.A.K.Hasan.Cohesion in English [M].上海：上海外语教育出版社，2002.

[5] Thompson，G.Introducing Functional Grammar [M].London：Arnold，1996.

[6] 胡壮麟.语篇的衔接与连贯[M]上海：上海外语教育出版社，1994.

[7] 邹溱：《一天的等待》赏析，名作欣赏，1999 年第六期.