MA Literature Review - Other Resources Facilitating Cohesion and Coherence

Conjunctions

Conjunctions act as a logical connection between clauses, that they are used to add information, compare and contrast (support or countering arguments), sequencing events and give cause and effect. The four logics of conjunctions are summarised in Table 5 with examples of the basic options (Martin & Rose, 2003, p. 119).

Logical relation	Meaning	Examples
addition	addition	and, in addition, besides, moreover
	alternation	or, if, otherwise, alternatively
comparison	similarity	like, as if, similarly
	contrast	but, however, whereas, on the other hands
time	successive	then, after, subsequently, next
	simultaneous	while, meanwhile, at the same time
consequence	cause	so, because, since, as, therefore
	means	by, thus, by this means
	purpose	so as to, in order to, for, lest
	condition	if, provided that, given, unless

Table 5. Basic options for conjunctions

Apart from connecting events and experience, conjunctions are used to organise discourse with the logical relations mentioned above. Consider the following excerpt in Table 6 of the observation section of a literature review, and identify the ways the events and arguments connected.

The use of discourse markers (DMs) is a natural feature of the 1st language English speaker's conversational repertoire. They give spoken discourse a grammatical structure and a semantic richness. Scripted conversations that students encounter in Hong Kong tend not to include DMs, rather they project an idealised version of the English language, but a version that is somewhat unnatural, contrived and indeed lifeless. Take for example the following text which I introduced to a form 5 class.

(Text sample omitted)

We see that although the text is obviously contrived, it does present a comical situation. However, when the dialogue was recreated by the students, unfortunately, much of the humour was negated by the unnatural chunking of the text. Interpersonal conversation involves switching between rapid interactive chat and longer monologue segments (Eggins 2000). We see that above extract lacks authenticity because it relies too heavily on large chunks of monologue. It lacks the natural punctuation, or even interruptions, that we would expect to be part of this exchange. Such the students’ reproduction of the text lacked emotional insight and therefore the full meaning of the text could not be realised.

Table 6. Conjunctions showing the logical relations between clauses

In the beginning, the writer described the advantages of the use of discourse markers in teaching spoken discourse. Then, the writer turned to counter such an expectation with the notion about Hong Kong’s situation that the scripted conversations leave out discourse markers. Meanwhile, in the second paragraph, the writer first presented the unexpected consequence that the script is comical, countering the expectation that the deliberately created script would not be very amusing. Then, he depicted the contrasting situation that the recreation of the dialogue by students turned out to lack humour and authenticity, with causes explained. Finally, he drew conclusion at the end of the paragraph, signalled with the use of therefore.

The example above presents only some of the instances of the use of conjunctions, that often function as cohesive chains when the relations between clauses are “discontinued”, that is, countering one another. Without these conjunctions, texts would look fragmented, lack logical connection or coherence, or even incomprehensible.

Grammatical metaphor

(For detailed explanation of grammatical metaphor, please see the separate section Grammatical Metaphor)

Using grammatical metaphor, the packaging of information from congruent, sequential events to incongruent construal of abstract ideas and knowledge, is one of the strategies to employ academic literacy.

Grammatical metaphor also contributes to the flow of information in phases of discourse. At the higher level Themes and News, where more information is predicted and distilled respectively than the lower level ones, there are a higher density of information packed. The example in Table 7 shows how the “gradient” of information flows from the high level Themes and News to the lower ones, with the highlighting of the grammatical metaphors.

The use of SFL in second language learning classrooms is supported by Coffin (Burns and Coffin, 2001). She states that the advantage of using SFL for analysis in the classroom is its focus on “semantics” and “functionality”. (Burns and Coffin, 2001, p.96) Its benefit is that language is seen as a system, whereby participants make choices for a variety of intended meanings rather than following a set of rules. This means that analysis of the structure and grammar of discourse and how it functions socially and culturally offers more to second language teaching classrooms, than either of these aspects separately.

Table 7. Grammatical metaphor contributing to the texture

While field-specific lexis (“SFL”, “semantics” and “functionality”) is in itself compacted in information to unfold and interpret, the highlighted grammatical metaphors can also be unpacked into separate congruent alternatives (See Table 8, where || indicates the clause boundary).

Grammatical metaphor in a clause	Congruent alternatives in multiple clauses
The use of SFL in second language learning classrooms is supported by Coffin (Burns and Coffin, 2001).	Coffin (Burns and Coffin, 2001) supports \|\| that [teachers] should use SFL \|\| to teach the second language in the classroom.
She states that the advantage of using SFL for analysis in the classroom is its focus on “semantics” and “functionality”.	She states \|\| that it is advantageous \|\| to use SFL to analyse [the second language] in the classroom \|\| because “semantics” and “functionality” are focussed.
Its benefit being that language is seen as a system, whereby participants make choices for a variety of intended meanings rather than following a set of rules.	Its benefit being \|\|that language is seen as a system, \|\|whereby participants make choices rather than following a set of rules, \|\| as the meanings they tend to make vary,
This means that analysis of the structure and grammar of discourse and how it functions socially and culturally offers more to second language teaching classrooms, than either of these aspects separately.	This means \|\| that how the structure and grammar of discourse are analysed and how it functions socially and culturally offers more to classrooms that \|\| teach second language, than either of these aspects separately.

Table 8. Grammatical metaphor and its congruent alternatives

Initiated at the hyperTheme that predicts what entails it, the reasons for the support of the use of SFL in L2 learning classrooms are elaborated in the body of the text, and distilled as being advantageous at the hyperNew. As mentioned, levels of Theme and New provide scaffolding of argument throughout phases of discourse; here grammatical metaphor acts as a “catalyst” (Martin and Rose, 2003, p. 196) of such scaffolding.

Conclusion

Textual organisation of a literature review involves more than the generic structure of the text, which outlines the parts and signals the shift of genres at certain stages. The hierarchy of periodicity structured by the explicit scaffolding of multiple layers of Themes and News creates an internal connection between phases of discourse in the text, along with various strategies such as the use of conjunctions facilitating the logical connections within the text, and packaging information with grammatical metaphor that establishes an information gradient that flows to the lower level Themes and News.

To end of this chapter on textual organisation, the analysis of the orchestration of information through different levels of Theme and New in a sample literature review can be viewed via the link provided here, where we can see a “combination of the resources for phasing information into digestible chunks” (Martin and Rose, 2003, p. 201).

Other resources that facilitate the cohesion and coherence of literature reviews