Abstract
Cohesion, or the connectedness of discourse, has been recognized as playing a crucial role in both language production and comprehension processes. Researchers have debated about the ‘right’ number and classification of cohesive devices, as well as about their interaction with coherence and/or genre. The present study proposes an integrative model of lexical cohesion that extends previous models and argues for the difference between ‘associative cohesion’ and ‘(lexical) collocation’. Its evaluation against a corpus of 14 conversations, 7 broadcast discussions and 7 phone calls, reports the former to show almost six times as many instances of lexical ties as the latter, a difference that is attributed to the divergent features of these two genres. Apart from quantitative findings supported by statistical significance tests, qualitative analyses also show that lexical cohesion is involved in turn-taking behaviors and topic management patterns, thereby contributing to the establishment of interpersonal relationships and the expansion of generic stages in these two kinds of spoken interactions.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
