The Problem page, Coherence, ideology How an ideological message is conveyed through language, and particularly through the following aspects of textual organisation known as cohesion and coherence, or ‘surface’ and underlying ‘coherence’, or ‘text- text’ coherence and ‘text-world’ coherence.

Surface connections These terms are used to make a distinction between two ways in which we are able to make sense of texts composed of individual propositions. At one level we can do this thanks to formal linkages that join individual propositions and semantic units into a whole that we can identify as a meaningful text. This level of linkage is known as variously cohesion or ‘surface coherence’ or ‘text-text’ cohesion. Conjunctions and linking expressions perform this task within texts. (e.g. additive, adversative, sequential, casual, continuative conjunctions) and link individual propositions together into a unified text.

‘Unseen’ connections ‘Many heterosexual men have a passing curiosity about homosexuality, and that isn’t a bad thing. It compels you to make a choice.

There are two explicit cohesive links: That referring to the whole of the first clause of the first sentence. it links to ‘a passing curiosity about homosexuality’. you, though, seems to have a multiple purpose: You connects with many heterosexual men You connects with the correspondent You could also be a generic ‘you’ and thus it connects with the reader, who is assumed to be a male heterosexual.

Linking through the reader The two sentences are not linked by any formal linguistic element. This is the point where the reader’s complicity is required if the two sentences can stand together and make sense. Effectively the reader provides a causal link for the two propositons. This suggest that something is essentially good because it helps achieve a desired result. The missing link that we need to supply is that heterosexuality and homosexuality are separate sexualities and that an interest in homosexuality is useful inasmuch as it reinforces this separate heterosexual identity. This is an example of ‘underlying coherence’, of text-world coherence’, as opposed to text–text coherence.

Readers’ role in coherence Linguists interested in Critical Language Study, like Gough and Talbot, have become increasingly interested in the way that readers themselves are involved in playing an active role in making texts cohere, both in the absence or presence of ‘surface coherence’. In other words, they are interested in how readers construct meanings by procedures like pre-supposition, automatic-gap filling, and inferencing. They look at how readers supply meanings unreflectively by drawing on certain types of world knowledge, assumptions, and inferences; by drawing on knowledge that lies outside the text and which are largely thought to be a matter of ‘common sense’.

McLouglin explains how to make sense of this part of text the reader has to draw on ‘world knowledge’ and use inference. Although it isn’t explicitly stated, it is clear that the choice the reader made is viewed as the right one and the implication is that homosexual experiences are can be countenanced insofar as they confirm heterosexual identity in the end.

‘The construction of coherence relies heavily on the ability of the reader to fill in details not explicitly provided by textual cues themselves. In other words, the reader must draw upon what is thought of as ‘common sense’.

deixis the use of ‘that’. This is an example of deixis, which plays and important role in surface cohesion. It also makes a significant contribution to coherence and makes the text cohere with a common sense world view. The repeated use of ‘that’, for example confirms the ‘otherness’ of the behaviour in contrast to familiar and ‘nearer’ heterosexual experiences.

Lexical sets Once could also look the text coherence at the level of lexical cohesion, i.e. word sets that combine across the text to create meanings. One such set is found in the letter. Gay Mixed up Screwed up ashamed

This is a set of predicative adjectives (which say something about the subject of the verb to be). In the course of the text, the ameliorative associations of the politically correct term ‘gay’ are reversed in a process of pejoration, which would seem to have strong ideological connotations.

Cohesion and coherence Another example of lexical cohesion working to make the text cohere to a common sense world view is: Lots of, common, vast majority of, the two quantifiers and the adjective combine to create an impression of the normal alternative.

Sequential cohesive devices and coherence Probably the most significant example of cohesion working to achieve ideological coherence is the use of the sequential cohesive devices. In the letter they are as follows: A year ago, my friend and I started kissing (past) We still do it, but we think about boys all the time (present) Will we be gay when we’re older? (future)

This pattern is more or less reiterated in the reply: When we’re young (early stage) When we first get interested in sex (early stage) Don’t go on to be (probable later stage) Instead of sticking a label on yourself now (to early as yet to decide) Time will show whether you prefer boy or girls (future) We can trace the same pattern of an initial instinctive stage, followed by doubt and uncertainty.

Coherence and identity construction In terms of coherence, this text guides the reader to frame the problem as part of a process of growing up, which is ‘normal’ and which will probably result in the emergence of a ‘normal’ heterosexual identity. Thus it is seen as a process from deviant behaviour in the inevitable direction of conformist behaviour. By using such frames, texts like these convey assumptions about the social world in such a way that they are not asserted, instead readers supply meanings and make the text cohere and in the process they also construct their own identities.