Oficina de Redação em Língua Inglesa - Aula 08 - Slides and Summary

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Coherence and cohesion 
Coherence: The property of unity in a written text 
that stems from the relationship between its underlying ideas, and from the 
logical organisation and development of these ideas. 
Cohesion: The property of flow and connection in a written text that stems 
from the linguistic links among its surface elements. 
A paragraph has good cohesion when each sentence is clearly linked to the 
next. Coherence and Cohesion mean that all of the parts are connected 
logically and linguistically to form a whole. 
Coherent Order 
Paragraphs may be organized according to a sequence of time (chronological 
order), space (describing something from top to bottom or foreground to 
background) or arranging information in order of importance. Another 
common way of ordering information in a paragraph is to present the most 
general information first and then move on to focus on the more detailed, 
specific information. 
Cohesive devices 
Individual sentences can have connections within them. A word that connects 
parts of a sentence is called a conjunction. The common coordinating 
conjunctions are: 'and', 'but', 'or', 'yet', 'nor'. There are also subordinating 
conjunctions. These establish the relationship between a dependent clause and 
the rest of the sentence. A few common examples are: 'as', ‘because’ ‘whereas’ 
'in order that', 'since', 'although'. 
Sentences within a paragraph are also linked together. There are various ways 
of linking one. 
sentence to another: 
repetition of important words, 
substitution of pronouns (e.g. 'it', 'this', 'these'), 
substitution by synonyms (words with nearly the same meaning) 
using linking words or phrases which show the relationship between ideas, e.g. 
'however' indicates a contrast, 'in addition' gives more information (see below 
for more examples), using grammatical words, especially articles, e.g. 'the' may 
refer back to a specific noun previously mentioned. 
The linking words such as 'however', 'moreover', 'nevertheless', 'consequently', 
'as a result' are used to express complex relationships between ideas. 
Discourse Markers 
- Discourse markers (words like 'however', 'although' and 'Nevertheless') are 
referred to more commonly as 'linking words' and 'linking phrases', or 
'sentence connectors'. They may be described as the 'glue' that binds together 
a piece of writing, making the different parts of the text 'stick together'. They 
are used less frequently in speech, unless the speech is very formal. - Without 
sufficient discourse markers in a piece of writing, a text would not seem 
logically constructed and the connections between the different sentences and 
paragraphs would not be obvious. 
Care must also be taken, however, to avoid over- use of discourse markers. 
Using too many of them, or using them unnecessarily, can make a piece of 
writing sound too heavy and 'artificial'. There are many discourse markers that 
express different relationships between ideas. The most common types of 
relationship between ideas. The discourse markers in the table are generally 
used at the start of a phrase or clause. Sentence connectors do not always 
begin a completely new sentence; they may be separated from the previous 
idea with a semi-colon. 
There are two particular features of the sentence connectors: 
Sentence connectors can be used to begin a new sentence or a new clause that 
follows a semi-colon. 
Some sentence connectors can be placed in different positions within the 
sentence: initial position (e.g. Because he is ill, he needs to rest.) and 'mid-way 
position' at the start of another clause (e.g. He must rest, because he is ill). 
Use conjunctions as well as/instead of sentence connectors. A conjunction is 
a word like and, but, etc., which is used to join two ideas together into a 
complex sentence. 
Unlike sentence connectors such as 'However', etc., a conjunction cannot be 
used at the beginning of a sentence and must come at a mid-point, at the end 
of one clause and the beginning of another. It is usually possible to rephrase a 
pair of sentences that use a sentence connector by using a conjunction instead. 
For example, instead of saying 'He studied French; however, his wife studied 
Physics', it might actually be more natural to say 'He studied English but his 
wife studied Physics'. 
Use conjunctions at least some of the time. Words like "and" and "but" may 
seem boring, but they help to lighten the style of your writing. This in turn 
helps the writing to sound less pompous and formal. And in any case, in 
writing, it is often helpful to use a variety of structures rather than just saying 
things in one way. 
It can also be helpful to omit discourse markers if they do not serve any useful 
purpose. Knowing when to omit the discourse marker is a subtle aspect of 
language use and comes with more practice and wider Reading. 
Try joining two clauses together by making one subordinate to the other. If we 
go back to the sentence 'He studied English but his wife studied Physics', we 
can rephrase this as follows: 'He studied English whereas his wife studied 
Physics', or 'He studied English while his wife studied Physics.’ The clause 
beginning with while/whereas is subordinate. This means that it is used to 
qualify/add extra information to the sentence, but cannot stand on its own. - 
Remember, it can be tedious to read a piece of writing which has too many 
discourse markers. The writing can seem pedantic, heavy and over-pompous. 
You are ideally seeking a light, flowing style, not a heavy or forced one. 
In much the same way that ideas within a paragraph are linked, a new 
paragraph must be linked in some way with the previous one. This, too, 
necessitates the use of discourse markers. Here are some different ways in 
which the opening of a paragraph can link back to what has happened before. 
The three basic types of paragraph-paragraph relationship are: reinforcement 
of idea; contrast of idea; and concession. Indicating these relationships builds 
a 'bridge' between paragraphs and makes reading the text easier. 
In your own writing, it is useful to consider the following points: 
• Do my paragraphs serve a definite purpose? What is the exact link 
between the paragraph I have written and the previous paragraph? Is 
that link clear? 
• Are my paragraphs laid out strategically, in order to help me to organise 
my materials to best effect? 
• Do my paragraphs help me to build up my ideas in a logical and gradual 
fashion? 
 
Modal verbs 
Modals (also called modal verbs, modal auxiliary verbs, modal auxiliaries) are 
special verbs which behave irregularly in English. They are different from 
normal verbs like "work, play, visit..." They give additional information about 
the function of the main verb that follows it. They have a great variety of 
communicative functions. 
Here are some characteristics of modal verbs: 
They never change their form. You can't add "s", "ed", "ing"... - They are 
always followed by an infinitive without "to" (e.i. the bare infinitive.) 
They are used to indicate modality allow speakers to express certainty, 
possibility, willingness, obligation, necessity, ability. 
 
Use of modal verbs: 
• Modal verbs are used to express functions such as: 
• Permission 
• Ability 
• Obligation 
• Prohibition 
• Lack of necessity 
• Advice 
• Possibility 
• Probability 
 
Prefixes and suffixes 
Words with a different grammatical form or meaning can be derived from a 
base word using prefixes and suffixes. By understanding how these prefixes 
and suffixes work, it is often easier to deal with unknown vocabulary. You can 
sometimes see what part of speech a word is (verb, noun, adjective etc.), or 
additional information that a prefix may give. 
Changes in grammatical form. 
• The noun 'power' can be used as an adjective by adding the suffix ~ful 
(powerful). The adverbialform is made by adding the suffix-ly to the 
adjective (powerfully). 
• The verb 'to improve' becomes a noun by adding the suffix ~ment 
(improvement). The same root word can also become a verb (improvise) 
• The noun 'nation' changes into an adjective with the suffix ~al 
(national), and by adding another. 
• suffix ~ize the word changes from an adjective to a verb (nationalize) 
• The adjective 'special' can change to a verb (specialize) or a noun 
(speciality) 
Changes in meaning. 
Prefixes and suffixes can also change the meaning of a word. The meaning of 
'possible' is reversed with the addition of the prefix im~ (impossible). To 
'overeat' means to eat too much and if food is undercooked, it is not cooked 
enough. Some suffixes commonly denote an occupation. Eg. The verb 'to 
teach' is transformed into the occupation with the suffix ~er (teacher). Both 
grammatical changes and changes in meaning can be applied to the same base 
word. Eg. The noun 'interest' can be made an adjective and given opposite 
meaning by adding a prefix and a suffix-un....~ing (uninteresting). 
Changes in pronunciation. 
When prefixes and suffixes are added to root words, the word stress 
sometimes changes. Eg. Noun & verb: 'photograph'. Adjective: 
'photographic'. Opposite: 'unphotographic'. Person: 'photographer'. In 
English the word stress is often on the third syllable from the end. 
SUMMMARY: 
Coherence and Cohesion: 
• Coherence: Unity in a text from logical organization and development of 
ideas. 
• Cohesion: Flow and connection from linguistic links among surface 
elements. 
 
Coherent Order: 
• Organize paragraphs by time, space, importance, or general-to-specific. 
 
Cohesive Devices: 
• Conjunctions link sentences, while repetition and pronouns enhance 
cohesion. 
 
Discourse Markers: 
• Linking words aid in logical construction; overuse can sound heavy. 
 
Modal Verbs: 
• Express certainty, possibility, willingness, obligation, ability, etc. 
 
Prefixes and Suffixes 
• Modify words' grammatical form, meaning, and pronunciation.