An Analysis of Lexical Cohesion in“How Empathy Unfolds”

朱玲霞

【Abstract】This thesis aims to analyze the lexical cohesion in the text “How Empathy Unfolds” in the new standard college English textbook. This paper focuses on four kinds of lexical cohesive devices： repetition， synonymy， hyponymy and collocation. It is expected that these analyses can help readers gain a better and deeper comprehension of the structure and content of the text.

【Key words】lexical cohesion； repetition； synonymy； hyponymy； collocation

1. Types of lexical cohesion

Hu Zhuanglin （1994） expands lexical cohesion scope and divides lexical cohesion into repetition， general words， similarity， classification and collocation. Liu Jingxia divides lexical cohesion into five types： repetition， general word， synonymy/ antonymy， hyponymy and collocation by studying the classification of lexical cohesion of Halliday and Hasan and Hu Zhuanglin. This text will be analyzed from the four kinds of lexical cohesive devices： repetition， synonymy， hyponymy and collocation.

1.1 Repetition

Repetition， including simple repetition and compound repetition， means the same word appears several times in the same discourse. Simple repetition refers to repetition of the original words with the same form and meaning in the same discourse； compound repetition means repetition of the same word meaning but different in the tenses and styles or part of the speech （Hu， 1994）.

In the text， there are many repetitions， for example： “baby” occurs for 4 times； “infants” for 4 times； “children” for 5 times； “distress” for 5 times； “sympathy” for 3 times； “empathy” for 8 times； “imitate” for 3 times. The author uses the word “empathy” 8 times to show its importance in the text. Meanwhile， there are a lot of words that convey the meaning of baby or children. We can see from the date that “baby” occurs for 4 times； “infants” for 4 times； “children” for 5 times.

1.2 Synonymy

Synonyms refer to different words with the same or similar meaning. When the author tries to express the meaning of distress， he uses many synonyms to express the same meaning， such as “distress”， “misery”， “confusion”， “plight”， “upset”， “worries”， etc. “Distress” is a very important word in this text， so the author uses many synonyms to help him express the meaning properly. At the same time， we have just talked about the protagonist of this text， so it is very understandable that the author uses many different words to show the same meaning of “baby”， such as “baby”， “child”， “children”， “infants”， “toddlers”， “one-year-old”， etc.

1.3 Hyponymy

The meaning of hyponymy is “inclusiveness”， namely the general word includes the specific words. The upper term is called superordinate， and the lower terms， the members， hyponyms. A superordinate usually has several hyponyms， for example， tiger， wolf， dog， cat， etc are hyponyms of animal. There are a few hyponyms in this text. We can find “one-year-olds” is the hyponyms of “children” or “infants”. This text is not a narrative one and it gives little information about hyponyms. However， this small hyponymy can still make the text more concrete， vivid， and it also plays a significant role in the discourse coherence.

1.4 Collocation

Nattinger and DeCarrico（1992） define collocation as “strings of words that seem to have certain ‘mutual expectancy， or a greater-than-chance likelihood that they will co-occur in any text.” It refers to word collocation in the same structure of a sentence and co-occurrence of words collocation in different sentences， such as the candle flame， and flower water， etc （Hu， 1994）.

Collocation in this text is showed in many ways， such as “welled up” and “crawled off” in sentence 1； “be traced to” in sentence 4； “exist apart from other people” in sentence 6； “by one year or so” and “seem confused over” in sentence 8； “such motor mimicry， as it is called” in sentence 12； “stemmed from” in sentence 13； “distinct from” in sentence 14； “follows him around” in sentence 18； “pulls away” in sentence 19； “calms down” in sentence 20； “continues to” in sentence 21； “had to do with” in sentence 23； “calling strong attention to” and “instead of” in sentence 24. Due to semantic collocation， these phrases must have the cohesive force to connect sentences into discourse in order to realize discourse cohesion.

2. Conclusion

After analyzing the text， it is found that four kinds of lexical cohesion have all been used in this text. All these devices function cooperatively and lead to the smooth going of the text， cohesion of each individual sentence and paragraph， and the perfect coherence of the discourse.

References：

[1]Halliday，M.A.K.Hasan R.Cohesion in English[M].London：Longman，1976.

[2]Halliday，M.A.K.& Hasan，R.Cohesion in English[M].Beijing：Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press，2001.