Lexical Cohesion: Aspects of Collocation Using Halliday and Hasan’s Systemic Model of Cohesion

Abstract

Lexical cohesion has been studied within several frameworks in the past few decades. In this paper we are concerned with the systemic functional approach of cohesion set out by Halliday and Hasan in “Cohesion in English”. According to them, lexical cohesion is a relationship established at the level of lexis, and hence at a lexicogrammatical level. In order to emphasize the differences between this model and other models we considered useful to mention some of the other approaches: Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, Cruse, 1986, Firth, 1957, Sinclair, 2004, Martin, 1992. Lexical cohesion is expressed by a set of lexicogrammatical systems that use specific resources in order to pass across the boundaries of the clause. At the level of reference lexical cohesion is represented by reiterations, and at the level of wording by reiterations and collocations. Reiterations can be expressed by the same word (having the same reference), synonyms or near-synonyms (having an inclusive reference), superordinate (having an exclusive reference) and general word (having unrelated reference).

At the level of wording there have been identified three types of collocations within systemic functional framework: ordered set, activity-related collocations and elaborative collocations. Ordered set collocation is the clearest one of the three categories and the closest to more systematic reiteration. Activity-related collocation is nonsystematic, based only on an association between items and, as a result, it can neither be defined precisely nor classified systematically. Elaborative collocation is a category of collocation which consists of pairs whose relation is impossible to define more specifically than stating that the items can expand on the same topic. However, the relation is created in a frame which are structures evoked by lexical items. In this paper we are going to discuss each type, pointing out the differences among them and exemplifying them with texts.

Keywords: grammatical resources, reference, trigger, associate items