Cohesion deals with the ways in which the components of the surface text are mutually connected within a sequence. We are going to give the definitions and text-based examples of some cohesive devices:
Recurrence is the direct repetition of elements:
Violence against women
Victim
Sexual assault
Abuse
Police
Partial recurrence entails using the same basic word components but shifting them to a different word class:
Violence – violent
Society – societal
Training – trainer
Parallelism entails re-using surface formats but filling them with different expressions:
......... an attitude of “don’t ask, don’t tell” seems to prevail.
Some addressed the men who commit abuse, others the women who are victims of abuse, and still others addressed employees ................
They need to know what the medical is about, what it means to have a statement taken.
Ellipsis functions via sharing structural components among clauses of the surface text:
“We thought we were doing something good”, he said, pausing. “Maybe not, if this violence reoccurs...” (“ we are ........ doing something good” is missing)
They need to know what the medical is about, what it means to have a statement taken. (“they need to know” is missing before the underlined item)
Some addressed the men who commit abuse, others the women who are victims of abuse, and still others addressed employees ................ (“addressed” is missing)
This is also why women don’t come and complain. (“don’t” is missing before the underlined item)
Conjunction links things which have the same status:
The victims in these cases blame themselves and feel terribly responsible ............
........... the aim of the training was to strengthen the background knowledge and improve the response ..................
Disjunction links things which have alternative status:
........... domestic violence, whether sexual, physical, or psychological.
Moreover, whether true or not, they shared ..........................
Contrajunction links things having the same status but appearing incongruous or incompatible in the textual world:
.......... as if it were the only place in the world that had these problems. But the evaluation showed that that wasn’t the message, ...................................
.................... the victims in these cases blame themselves and feel terribly responsible, but the person who is responsible is the perpetrator.
Subordination links things when the status of one depends on the other:
A multi-agency approach is essential, she adds, because these campaigns will generate more cries for help.
“This is extremely important”, says McGill, “because it’s really scary to people when they come into a police environment and are reporting these very sensitive crimes.”
Proforms are economical, short words empty of their own particular content which can stand in the surface text, in place of more determinate, content-activating expressions:
If police officers don’t deal with the victim fairly and in a balanced way, what they are doing is making it very easy for the perpetrators of these crimes.
As one participant explained, before the workshop, if a woman came to the police station complaining of abuse by her husband, he and his colleagues would try to get her to return home.
............. one of the main problems in combatting domestic violence is that society as a whole find ways of justifying it.
Paraphrase is the recurrence of content with a change of expression:
............. the most sensitive subject encountered by the police – and by society – namely; violence against women.
According to Kolaycýoðlu, one of several Turkish presenters at the training ...............
............ an effective way of raising the awareness of at least one segment of society, namely, the police.
Coherence is the continuity of senses in a text. In this text, we can see some concepts that are related to the main topic, and thus, creating continuity:
Objects and situations: Violence, sexual assault, abuse, victim, responsible, perpetrator, women, children, sensitive, awareness, police, societal perception, shame, fear, reprisal.
Events and actions: to organise training sessions, to organise public educations, to be cast out, to gain awareness.
Agent: Laurie Bristow, Jane McGill, Sibel Kolaycýoðlu, Jill Radford, police officers.
Location: Ankara, Edinburgh, London, Cleveland, Britain.
Time: May
The heading is “Zero Tolerance”. This doesn’t ring a bell in the text receivers’ minds at first glance. Further reading is needed to understand what it really refers to by saying “zero tolerance”. Therefore, we can say that this is third order informativity. When we go on reading, we understand that it refers to standing against violence: “How much violence is a society willing to tolerate?” The meaning of the heading becomes clearer though, when one of the public education campaigns’ slogan is mentioned during the text: “Zero Tolerance of Violence Against Women and Children”. Now that there are no obscure points, we can talk about a downgrading from the third order to the second order. Since we wait to consider later occurences, it is called forward downgrading.
Definiteness is the status of text world entities which are identifiable, accessible and recoverable (definite article “the”):
.......... the Turkish general Directorate of Security and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.......... (they are unique)
........... the Sociology Department at Middle east Technical University confirms this perception. (It is unique)
..................... attending a training workshop .............. (this is indefinite because it is mentioned the first time) ......................................the aim of the training was to strengthen .................... (previously mentioned)
Beliefs are the facts which a person or group consider to be generally applicable to some real or recoverable situations or events:
Police often have the misperception that people make false allegations of sexual assaults, which says mcGill, is very rarely the case. (This is her idea)
Police are too interested in their own agenda of prosecution and gathering facts and actually don’t give the victims the opportunity to tell their story. (This is again McGill’s idea)
The text producer intends to inform people about a training session which was organized to raise the awareness of the police on the subject “violence against women”.
Illocutionary acts are conventional activites accomplished by discourse:
........ these campaigns will generate more cries for help. (promise)
Perlocutionary acts achieve effect on text receivers:
Police forces have done their own leafleting to explain women and children how the police process works when they make a report. “This is extremely important”, says McGill, “because it’s really scary to people when they come into a police environment and are reporting these very sensitive crimes.” (convincing)
Maxim of quantity:
With the phone lines in Cleveland that were put in place around the campaign, we received 20.000 new calls over four or five years. (It gives new and unpredictable knowledge)
Maxim of quality:
As one participant explained, before the workshop, if a woman came to the police station complaining of abuse by her husband, he and his colleagues would try to get her to return home. (It gives true information)
Maxim of relation: The information given in the text is enough to achieve the aim of the text producer, we can say that it is relevant.
Maxim of manner: Everything is stated clearly, there aren’t any obscure or ambiguous expressions in the text.
Acceptibility deals with the ways how the text receivers perceive the text. If they can understand what the text producer intends to say, then we can say that acceptibility is achieved. However, acceptibility greatly depends on another factor, that is situationality. In order to say whether a text is accepted or not, we should first know the situation of the text receivers. This is an English text, so for someone who doesn’t speak English, it won’t mean anything. Therefore speaking English must be the first step to achive acceptibility for this text. Another point is that the country where the text receivers live plays a significant role on acceptibility. A democratic country respects the human rights – men and women equally – and people in such a country can easily get the message, however, in a country where women are seen as lower class people, where they are treated like goods, this text doesn’t function at all.
If the text has some items that depend on the text receivers’ knowledge of other texts, we can talk about intertextuality. By this way, the previous texts in our minds and the current text can be linked with each other. The following are such examples found in this text:
When it comes to violence against women .................. (We know there exists violence against women in some places. This is our knowledge from previous texts)
Police forces have done their own leafleting to explain women and children how the police process works when they make a report. (We know from the previous texts that at the police stations, they make a report, and a process is carried out)
Addressing the misperceptions and societal taboos that surround the subject is a key to any solution. (Living in the society we are aware of these misperceptions and societal taboos)
By Cem ÖZIÞIK
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