On cohesion and coherence in timbral text analysis

Abstract

In modern linguistics, many disciplines offer their methodologies for comprehending meanings in the process of communication, but none of them provides more or less clear parameters for their identification and assessment of the interaction levels between the elements within a completed work. 

The aim of this paper is to develop a hierarchy of semantic-syntactical bonds that can be applied in timbral analysis of a text, minimizing the degree of subjectivity in the study of a work. Using the term ‘text energy’, the authors aim to describe the dynamic relationship of text units to each other in the reading process. 

Within the framework of this study, the authors propose a scale of text element cohesion for analyzing written works of speech, consisting of three levels — explicit grammatical-syntactic, anaphoric, and implicit bonds. The effectiveness of applying this scale is demonstrated on the example of analyzing the text belonging to artistic styles — the most complicated in terms of semantics. 

In order to objectively determine the degree of cohesion of elements within the text, the authors propose a list of cohesion levels correlated with the universal scale of cohesion, which can be applied to texts belonging to any functional styles of speech.

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