Referential Cohesion Research Articles

Referential Coherence of Academic Texts: A Corpus-Based Analysis of L2 Research Papers in Management

This paper focuses on referential coherence, which is seen as a crucial attribute of effective academic writing. Findings are reported from a corpus study of Russian students’ research proposals. The learners’ use of anaphoric expressions is compared with a reference corpus, which comprises research articles published in peer-reviewed journals. It was hypothesised that learners use anaphora less frequently than professional writers and face some difficulties when using anaphoric expressions. The results of the analysis partly confirmed the hypothesis and allowed the identification of particular problems connected with the students’ use of anaphoric expressions, which were then classified into several groups. Examples of exercises aimed at dealing with the identified problems are also provided. It is hoped that the reported findings, as well as the author’s suggested reasons for the problems and possible ways of dealing with them, will be useful for EAP practitioners, researchers, and students writing their research papers in English.

Referenzielle Kohärenz: Diskrepanz zwischen Theorie und Vermittlung.

Secondary school graduates are expected to write coherent texts for their respective occupations and other purposes later in life. Schooling should therefore prepare them adequately for this. It is thus paradoxical that textbooks for German provide pupils with very few explicit didactic instructions on how to write coherent texts. This applies in particular to referential coherence.
 Our article aims to contribute to the appropriate teaching of referential coherence in its complexity. To this end, first, the functions and the actual forms of referential means are examined in detail, from which the requirements for classroom instruction are derived. Next, textbook excerpts are examined to see whether and to what extent they meet these requirements.
 Our analysis shows that the way coherence is dealt with in textbooks is far from matching either linguistic or didactic demands. Very little attention is paid to form-function relationships. In some cases, tasks are even designed in such a manner that they lead pupils in the wrong direction and are thus counterproductive for the development of suitable writing or text skills.

Piecing together fragments: Linguistic cohesion mediates the relationship between executive function and metacognition in schizophrenia

Speech disturbances are prevalent in psychosis. These may arise in part from executive function impairment, as research suggests that inhibition and monitoring are associated with production of cohesive discourse. However, it is not yet understood how linguistic and executive function impairments in psychosis interact with disrupted metacognition, or deficits in the ability to integrate information to form a complex sense of oneself and others and use that synthesis to respond to psychosocial challenges. Whereas discourse studies have historically employed manual hand-coding techniques, automated computational tools can characterize deep semantic structures that may be closely linked with metacognition. In the present study, we examined whether higher executive functioning promotes metacognition by way of altering linguistic cohesion. Ninety-four individuals with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders provided illness narratives and completed an executive function task battery (Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System). We assessed the narratives for linguistic cohesion (Coh-Metrix 3.0) and metacognitive capacity (Metacognition Assessment Scale – Abbreviated). Selected linguistic indices measured the frequency of connections between causal and intentional content (deep cohesion), word and theme overlap (referential cohesion), and unique word usage (lexical diversity). In path analyses using bootstrapped confidence intervals, we found that deep cohesion and lexical diversity independently mediated the relationship between executive functioning and metacognitive capacity. Findings suggest that executive control abilities support integration of mental experiences by way of increasing causal, goal-driven speech and word expression in individuals with schizophrenia. Metacognitive-based therapeutic interventions for psychosis may promote insight and recovery in part by scaffolding use of language that links ideas together.

A coesão referencial em textos traduzidos do inglês para o português: a questão dos sujeitos nulos

Understanding and writing a text arise from several factors. Among them, coreference relations, which allow for the identification of the referents of linguistic expressions, are of particular importance, since they ensure referential cohesion and, thus, contribute to text cohesion. One context in which recognizing referential relations is crucial involves reference chains with anaphoric pronouns. Although all languages exhibit coreference relations, the linguistic means to establish them may vary. Thus, in the context of translation, maintaining reference chains often implies the use of adaptation strategies: when working with non-null subject source languages, such as English, and null subject target languages, such as Portuguese, translators should recognize the contexts in which, in the latter, they may or must omit the subject, without affecting interpretation nor creating vagueness, conflict of interpretations or referential ambiguity. In this work, some data about reference chains in the context of English to Portuguese translation is discussed. We identify the main mismatches in translations done by university students and present clues to help train students in translation, promoting their mastering of the grammatical and textual conditions that determine the omission vs. the realization of the subject. The results show that the main problems result either from calque of the source language properties or from the overgeneralization of null subject contexts in the target language.

Improving children’s textual cohesion and writing attitude in a game-based writing environment

This study describes the use of a game-based writing environment (GWE) to increase textual cohesion in students’ writing and improve their writing attitude. The participants were 113 third-grade students in Taiwan; the study was conducted over two semesters. A GWE was used for the experimental group (n = 56), and a conventional writing environment was used for the control group (n = 57). Both environments were constructed using the Reading for Creating and Talking for Revising writing model, which has helped students overcome writing difficulties. The GWE provided management-related game elements and a game-based feedback mechanism in the form of peer response and created a setting in which students could engage in more writing activity, pay more attention to their writing, and improve their writing skills. The results indicated that the experimental group performed better than the control group in referential cohesion and in terms of their affective, challenge, and qualified attitudes. We speculate that the GWE strengthens students’ textual cohesion and writing attitude.

A theoretically motivated method for automatically evaluating texts for gist inferences.

We developed a method to automatically assess texts for features that help readers produce gist inferences. Following fuzzy-trace theory, we used a procedure in which participants recalled events under gist or verbatim instructions. Applying Coh-Metrix, we analyzed written responses in order to create gist inference scores (GISs), or seven variables converted to Z scores and averaged, which assess the potential for readers to form gist inferences from observable text characteristics. Coh-Metrix measures reflect referential cohesion and deep cohesion, which increase GIS because they facilitate coherent mental representations. Conversely, word concreteness, hypernymy for nouns and verbs (specificity), and imageability decrease GIS, because they promote verbatim representations. Also, the difference between abstract verb overlap among sentences (using latent semantic analysis) and more concrete verb overlap (using WordNet) should enhance coherent gist inferences, rather than verbatim memory for specific verbs. In the first study, gist condition responses scored nearly two standard deviations higher on GIS than did the verbatim condition responses. Predictions based on GIS were confirmed in two text analysis studies of 50 scientific journal article texts and 50 news articles and editorials. Texts from the Discussion sections of psychology journal articles scored significantly higher on GIS than did texts from the Method sections of the same journal articles. News reports also scored significantly lower than editorials on the same topics from the same news outlets. GIS proved better at discriminating among texts than did alternative formulae. In a behavioral experiment with closely matched text pairs, people randomly assigned to high-GIS versions scored significantly higher on knowledge and comprehension.

Beyond first grade: examining word, sentence, and discourse text factors associated with oral reading rate in informational text in second grade

Text complexity in elementary classrooms is typically measured by traditional readability tools, which rely on surface-level measures of word and sentence complexity. Theoretical and empirical work on text complexity, however, indicates that additional measures of semantics, syntax, and discourse structure may be equally important for understanding how young children process texts. This study evaluated the components of two available text analysis tools representing different generations of readability: the Lexile Framework and the Coh-Metrix Text Easability Assessor. Using multilevel modeling, informational passage readings were nested in 5133 second-grade children in 459 schools to identify text variables that predicted changes in oral reading rate. Coh-Metrix dimensions of word concreteness, referential cohesion, and deep cohesion were uniquely associated with oral reading rate after controlling for traditional readability components. A full model including both the Lexile components and three Coh-Metrix dimensions provided the best fit to the data. Results suggest that measures of semantic complexity and text cohesion are needed to improve prediction of text difficulty for young readers and better inform text selection in the early grades. Implications for policy and practice under the Common Core State Standards, which emphasize reading complex texts across the gradespan, are discussed.

Conversation in Aphasia Across Communication Partners: Exploring Stability of Microlinguistic Measures and Communicative Success.

Purpose The aim of this study was to determine if people with aphasia demonstrate differences in microlinguistic skills and communicative success in unstructured, nontherapeutic conversations with a home communication partner (Home-P) as compared to a speech-language pathologist communication partner (SLP-P). Method Eight persons with aphasia participated in 2 unstructured, nontherapeutic 15-minute conversations, 1 each with an unfamiliar SLP-P and a Home-P. Utterance-level analysis evaluated communicative success. Two narrow measures of lexical relevance and sentence frame were used to evaluate independent clauses. Two broad lexical and morphosyntactic measures were used to evaluate elliptical and dependent clauses and to evaluate independent clauses for errors beyond lexical relevance and sentence frame (such as phonological and morphosyntactic errors). Utterances were further evaluated for presence of behaviors indicating lexical retrieval difficulty (pauses, repetitions, and false starts) and for referential cohesion. Results No statistical differences occurred for communicative success or for any of the microlinguistic measures between the SLP-P and Home-P conversation conditions. Four measures (2 of lexical retrieval and 1 each of communicative success and grammaticality) showed high correlations across the 2 conversation samples. Individuals showed variation of no more than 10 percentage points between the 2 conversation conditions for 46 of 56 data points. Variation greater than 10 percentage points tended to occur for the measure of referential cohesion and primarily for 1 participant. Conclusions Preliminary findings suggest that these microlinguistic measures and communicative success have potential for reliable comparison across Home-P and SLP-P conversations, with the possible exception of referential cohesion. However, further research is needed with a larger, more diverse sample. These findings suggest future assessment and treatment implications for clinical and research needs. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.7616312.

Referential Cohesion in the Narratives of Bilingual and Monolingual Children With Typically Developing Language and With Specific Language Impairment.

Purpose The study explores referential cohesion in the narratives of bilingual preschool children with typical language development (TLD) and with specific language impairment (SLI). Referential cohesion requires integration of multiple discourse factors and is expected to pose a challenge for children with bilingual SLI due to weak proficiency in both languages. Method Narratives were elicited from 45 bilinguals speaking Russian as the home language (L1) and Hebrew as the societal language (L2; 15 with SLI), 20 Hebrew-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI), and 20 Russian-speaking monolinguals (10 with SLI) using a story retelling procedure. Bilinguals were tested in both languages. Analyses examined the effect of impairment (SLI vs. TLD) in bilinguals and monolinguals. Language effects were examined in cross-language comparisons of bilinguals (L1 vs. L2) and in differences between monolingual groups (Russian vs. Hebrew speakers) for the use of referential expressions. Results Bilingual children with SLI used a higher proportion of pronouns for character introduction and had fewer pronouns, which have been described as "adequate" ( Colozzo & Whitely, 2014 ) than bilingual children with TLD. No language effect emerged for bilinguals, who performed similarly in their L1 and L2, but a significant cross-linguistic difference emerged in the monolingual data: Russian-speaking children mainly used nouns to introduce and maintain characters, whereas Hebrew-speaking children mainly used pronouns for introduction and maintenance of characters. Conclusion The difficulty of children with SLI in creating a referential connection between a pronoun and a noun phrase is discussed in light of the interaction of local and global processes in narratives, which is shown to be weaker in children with SLI.

Coh-Metrix를 통한 2017-2018 수능 영어 독해 지문 비교: 기초 산출치, 이독성, 용이성을 중심으로

Since the introduction of criterion-referenced evaluation into the English Section of the 2018 College Scholastic Aptitude Test (CSAT), it has become more important than ever to maintain the same level of its difficulty each year. This study was designed to examine whether 2017 and 2018 CSAT reading passages do not differ in terms of text difficulty. Both unidimensional and multidimensional indices Coh-Metrix (Version 3.0) provides were used in this study. Descriptive indices involved the respective count and length of sentences and words. As unidimensional indices, the Coh-Metrix L2 Readability score as well as the Flesch Reading Ease and Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level scores was measured. Indices for text easibility at different discourse levels (the surface structure, the textbase, the situation model, and the genre and rhetorical structure) were also included. Results showed that there were no significant differences between 2017 and 2018 passages. Compared with other easibility components (narrativity, syntactic simplicity, word concreteness, and deep cohesion), referential cohesion was rather low in both 2017 and 2018. Some pedagogical implications are also provided.

Els mecanismes de referència en la interfície gramàtica-discurs. Cohesió, coherència i cognició

La cohesió referencial integra una sèrie de mecanismes gramaticals i lèxics de tipus fòric que estableixen lligams de caràcter sintàctic i semàntic entre les entitats discursives. Mitjançant la referència, els significats textuals s’entreteixeixen, de manera que es creen una sèrie de xarxes correferencials i de sentit a través de les quals s’encadenen els mots per contribuir a la cohesió textual. Com a fenomen que inclou la pronominalització, l’el·lipsi o anàfora zero, la dixi textual (que es concreta bàsicament en l’ús no exofòric de demostratius) i una varietat de mecanismes de cohesió lèxica (relacions de repetició, reiteració i associació), la cohesió referencial se situa en la interfície entre el nivell gramatical i el pragmaticodiscursiu. D’una banda, explicita relacions sintacticosemàntiques de tipus estructural i jeràrquic entre els constituents oracionals; d’altra banda, palesa el grau d’activació de les entitats discursives en la memòria dels interlocutors i constitueix una evidència de l’organització discursiva, que permet interpretar la progressió temàtica i la coherència. Així doncs, la diversitat de mecanismes de referència es vincula a la cohesió textual, en el nivell microestructural; esdevé una empremta, palesa i palpable, de les relacions de coherència, en el nivell de la macroestructura, i permet resseguir els processos cognitius en què interactuen els interlocutors per tal de fer efectiva la comunicació –l’objectiu definitori del discurs– en el nivell contextual i pragmàtic.

Li-per-els[i] o la despronominalització del clític datiu en català: un fenomen incipient

L’objectiu d’aquesta contribució és estudiar un fenomen d’aparició recent en llengua catalana que, a priori, sembla contradir els fonaments de la cohesió referencial. Es tracta del sorgiment, en català, d’un fenomen paral·lel al que en la tradició lingüística de l’espanyol s’ha convingut a anomenar le-por-les, i que en català anomenem li-per-els[i]. Es tracta de l’ús del clític datiu singular en la duplicació d’un objecte indirecte plural, com en Li[sg.] he donat el llibre als nens[pl.]. Veurem que aquest fenomen, cada cop més present en parlars com els valencians i els de l’àrea de Barcelona, es pot caracteritzar com un cas de despronominalització del pronom feble de datiu, fruit de la generalització de la duplicació de clític datiu que s’ha produït, justament, en aquestes àrees. A mesura que la duplicació esdevé sistemàtica, li perd el seu estatus de pronom anafòric i, desproveït de qualsevol traça de concordança, esdevé un mer marcador gramatical en el verb, una mena d’afix que assenyala la presència d’un argument prominent, l’objecte indirecte. Presentem una varietat de factors que poden crear les condicions en les quals aquest afix verbal (el clític datiu no concordant) esdevé necessari. Finalment, proporcionem una anàlisi formal basada en l’assumpció que els clítics duplicadors són la realització d’un nucli aplicatiu, responsable d’introduir l’OI en l’estructura.

A Method for Automatically Analyzing Intelligent Tutoring System Dialogues with Coh-Metrix


 
 
 We developed a method for using Coh-Metrix to automatically analyze tutorial dialogues. Coh-Metrix, a web-based tool for automatically evaluating text, is freely available to researchers. We applied the method to 190 tutorial dialogues between women and BRCA Gist from two experiments. BRCA Gist is an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to help women make decisions about genetic testing for breast cancer risk. Tutorial dialogues scored high on measures of textual cohesion (deep cohesion, referential cohesion, and the composite variable formality). They also scored high on measures of the situation model (LSA verb overlap and causal verb and causal particle). However, there was mixed support for the hypothesis that higher scores on Coh-Metrix variables would predict subsequent comprehension. A Coh-Metrix principle is that the observable cohesion of a text is a reliable guide to the coherence of the reader’s mental representation of that text. Thus it appears that interacting with BRCA Gist helped people form coherent mental representations of complex medical materials. We conclude that Coh-Metrix can be used to reliably assess tutorial dialogues and make inferences about the mental representations of people engaged in conversation with an ITS based on observable characteristics of the statements people make.
 
 

Paradigmatic Possibilities as Perspective for Absolute Constructions

AbstractCompared to Greek genitive absolutes, Latin ablative absolutes are of two types. The first have agents that are non-coreferential with the subject of the main clause. The second have agents thatarecoreferential with the subject of the main clause. The first type strongly resemble Greek genitive absolutes because of their high frequency of animate subject complements and the similar way in which they articulate referential coherence. The second type, which always contains a perfect passive participle, from a comparative perspective can be seen as a paradigmatic filler, which is a Latin alternative to an anterior active participle. Their subject complements are less frequently animate and in the word order (iconically) placed close to the subject of the main clause that is also the agent of the ablative absolute. However, paradigmatic differences have only minor consequences for the preferred sentence position of the absolute constructions and their internal complexity.

Interactions between reader and text: Contributions of cognitive processes, strategy use, and text cohesion to comprehension of expository science text

Emerging evidence suggests that characteristics of text demonstrate differential recruitment of specific cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension. The aim of this study was to examine the relations among important reader and text characteristics and their contributions to comprehension of expository science text. Specifically, we examined whether text that varied in referential cohesion required differential use of specific executive functions, metacognitive monitoring of performance, and strategy use among adult readers. The results indicated that shifting, but not updating or inhibition, differentially predicted comprehension of text that was lower in referential cohesion, while updating, but not inhibition or shifting, predicted comprehension of text that was higher in referential cohesion. Metacognitive monitoring and reading strategy use predicted comprehension independent of the level of referential cohesion of text. The findings provide additional evidence for the important and interactive roles of key reader and text characteristics in understanding of expository text, and suggest important areas of future study.

Malaysian Children Storybooks as ESL Reading Materials

English as a Second Language (ESL) reading materials for children are important in second language development. It is believed that language cannot be taught in a vacuum context as language functions within a culture. Even though learning a language requires learning about the culture unconsciously, learners’ culture should be taken into consideration as well. The study aimed to identify the difference between Malaysian picture storybooks and Malaysian chapter storybooks in terms of readability by using a computational tool, Coh-Metrix TERA. This study also aimed to discuss the suitability of the samples’ readability in relation to the second language comprehension and cognitive development theories. The study collected 10 locally published picture storybooks and chapter storybooks each. The narrative texts from the books were extracted and assessed by Coh-Metrix TERA. It was found that picture storybooks are different from chapter storybooks in terms of the amount of concrete words, referential cohesion devices, and familiar words in the texts. In general, the samples’ readability is in line with the cognitive development theory. However, they can be improved in terms of cohesive devices and familiar words. In brief, Malaysian picture storybooks and chapter storybooks are suitable to be used as reading materials to learn English for Malaysian children. Nevertheless, weak readers may require adult assistance in certain parts of the books.

Referential cohesion in Swedish preschool children's narratives

Referential cohesion is an important part of discourse, as speakers use referring expressions to glue utterances together. Choosing an appropriate expression requires the speaker to continuously keep track of the salience of referents in the discourse. Because this is cognitively challenging, children are expected to have problems creating referential cohesion. Yet, research has also shown that young children are sensitive to discourse factors in choosing referring expressions. To shed more light on how and when children learn to use referential expressions to create a cohesive discourse, we analyzed oral narratives by monolingual Swedish-speaking children aged 4;0–6;10, elicited with the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). We hypothesized that children would base their choice of referring expressions to a large extent on discourse factors for which no detailed mental model of the discourse is required, such as animacy. Our results show that the children indeed relied heavily on animacy as a cue for pronominalization. At the same time, they were sensitive to fine-grained levels of local discourse salience. We propose that, like adults, children use a combination of global and local discourse factors for choosing referring expressions, but that the relative weights of these factors may vary with cognitive capacity.

Electrophysiological evidence for an independent effect of memory retrieval on referential processing

Abstract In this study, we show that the difficulty of re-activating and retrieving the representations of potential referents from memory (retrieval difficulty) influences referential processing, and that this effect is independent of the number of potential referents for a pronoun or the probability of possible referential interpretations (referential coherence). In two experiments, we varied retrieval difficulty by manipulating whether two referential candidates were modified by extra semantic information or not, creating representationally rich (modified) or bare (unmodified) referential candidates, respectively, and we measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) on following pronouns. We observed a sustained frontal negative shift (the Nref effect) on pronouns following bare, and therefore difficult-to-retrieve, referential candidates relative to those following representationally rich candidates, regardless of the ambiguity of pronouns and the probability of either referential interpretation. Since referential coherence was held constant across the conditions, the results suggest that retrieval difficulty affects referential processing independently of coherence. We discuss the implications for memory-based theories of language processing.

Which linguistic features predict quality of argumentative writing for college basic writers, and how do those features change with instruction?

The study developed a model of linguistic constructs to predict writing quality for college basic writers and analyzed how those constructs changed following instruction. Analysis used a corpus of argumentative essays from a quasi-experimental, instructional study with 252 students (MacArthur, Philippakos, & Ianetta, 2015) that found large effects (ES = 1.22) on quality of argumentative writing. Coh-Metrix (McNamara, Graesser, McCarthy, & Cai, 2014) was used to analyze the essays for lexical and syntactic complexity and cohesion. Structural equation modeling found that referential cohesion (p < .001) and lexical complexity (p < .01) positively predicted quality on posttest essays while syntactic complexity (p < .001) was negatively related to quality. Length explained 30% of variance in quality; the full model explained 48.7%. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to impute factor scores for pretest and posttest essays. Analysis of covariance using these factors found that the treatment group wrote posttest essays with greater lexical complexity (p < .01) and referential cohesion (p < .01) and less use of connectives (p < .05) than a business-as-usual control group.

Referential Cohesion in Donald Trump`s Speech Transcript

Cohesion establishes the text or sentences and gives their meaning by the grammatical and lexical linking. Halliday and Hasan (1976) In Cohesion in English, identify five general categories of cohesive devices that are possibly implemented in texts: reference, ellipsis, substitution, lexical cohesion and conjunction. One of the cohesion meanings is reference. Reference is one of cohesive devices, and it contains the specific nature of the information needed to be retrieved for the comprehensive information. The problems discussed in this study are the type of reference applied in the speech transcripts and referential meaning presented in the speech transcripts of Donald Trump`s Speech. The aims of the study were to find out the reference applied in the speech transcripts and referential meaning of the reference presented in the speech transcripts. The main theory used was Theory of Cohesion proposed by Halliday and Hasan (1976). The data in this study were taken from the website of Washington Post in form of transcripts. The data were collected using observation method and analyzed using qualitative method. There were two kinds of reference found in the speech; which were personal reference and demonstrative reference. The personal reference that occurred in the speech transcript included I, you, we, he, she, they, and it. Meanwhile, the demonstrative references that appeared in the speech transcript were this, these, there, here, now and the. These references were presented as endophoric, whether anaphoric or cataphoric. The comparative reference was absent. From this study, it can be concluded that referential cohesion takes an important role in a text or in this case speech transcripts, since the function of reference is to hold a text together and give its meaning.