Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse

Until very recently, coherence (unlike cohesion) was widely held to be a ‘rather mystical notion’. However, taking account of new trends representing a considerable shift in orientation, this volume aims at helping relieve coherence of its mystifying aura. The general bibliography which concludes the book bears witness to this intriguing development and the rapidly changing scene in coherence research. Preceding this comprehensive up-to-date Bibliography on Coherence are 13 selected papers from the 1997 International Workshop on Coherence at the University of Augsburg, Germany. They share a number of theoretical and methodoligical assumptions and reflect a trend in text and discourse analysis to move away from reducing coherence to a product of (formally represented) cohesion and/or (semantically established) connectivity. Instead, they start from a user- and context-oriented interpretive understanding and rely on authentic data throughout in relating micro-linguistic to macro-linguistic issues. The first group of papers looks at the (re-)creation of coherence in, inter alia, reported speech, casual conversation, argumentative writing, news reports and conference contributions. The second group describes the negotation of coherence in oral examinations, text summaries and other situations that require special efforts on the part of the recipient to overcome misunderstandings and other disturbances. The third group discusses theoretical approaches to the description of coherence.