Textual Properties: Coherence, Cohesion, and Markers

The Concept of Text and Its Properties

A text is an upper unit consisting of statements, oral or written, that maintain a relationship. Every text is produced with an intention and within a specific communicative situation. The text presents two primary properties: coherence and cohesion.

Coherence and Cohesion

Coherence gives the text a unit of meaning; the information conforms to a topic, is relevant, and is organized. Cohesion is a relationship between the parts of a text using linguistic elements. To achieve this, you can use different resources:

• Recurrence: The repetition of an item of text within the text itself. The elements that achieve the cohesion of the text are lexical recurrence and synonymy.
• Replacement: The repetition of an item using more general forms. It may be lexical, pronouns, or adverbs.
• Ellipsis: To omit elements that are obvious by the context. There are three types: nominal, verbal, and comparative.

Discourse Markers and Sentence Adverbs

Discourse markers are lexical items that mark suprasentential relations; they are a set of morphologically heterogeneous and unchanging character. There are two types of markers: sentence-modifying adverbs and textual markers.

Sentence-modifying adverbs do not only complement the verb of the sentence but affect all content. They may relate to the speaker's attitude about the content of the statement or the enunciation. They may also be comments concerning the speech or text alone, of which there are three types: metatextual, thematic, and those expressing logical order or relationship.

Textual Markers and Discursive Operators

Textual markers have the ability to express different relationships within the text. Their main uses include:

• Temporary connection with sequences upstream or downstream.
• Connection of space and contrast ratios.
• Addition, cause and effect, explanation, and exemplification.
• The abstract, precision, continuation, and consent.

There are also elements that provide guidance for the interpretation of the text. Discursive operators are those that tell us who is responsible for the information, the perspective, and the spatial or temporal context. Other units serve to organize the different paragraphs of the text.