On Creating Coherence in Daily Life Communication

冯军+明珠

Abstract：Many linguists in various fields study cohesion and coherence by the means of functional grammar， pragmatics， etc. This paper mainly aims at the coherence by finding and comprehension in daily life communication and creating coherence when offering utterances becomes an interesting and serious issue， in order to explain the essential function of conversation in peoples daily life communication and the importance of coherence in conversation.

Key words：coherence； conversation； communication

1. Introduction

When studying language and discourse analysis， we find that when speakers say something they always want listeners to understand their meanings in the way they expected， and at the same time they will make their sentences logical and orderly. For achieving more agreement and understand from the listeners they sometime will even give the listeners either obvious or subtle clues by using different kinds of devices. Therefore， if listeners want to rightly grasp speakers ideal meaning they also have to know necessary devices. Conversation is the most common style of peoples communication； it happens everywhere in every possible situation and involves every talkative and comprehensible person. By discussing respectively the general conversation and the characteristics of conversation， we will describe the way of finding coherence in conversation. Speaker and listeners different age， sex， background and education will greatly influence their achievements of coherence in conversation； we will also deal with the different situation of participants of conversation， by which to find out ways achieving coherence as possible as we can.

2. Literature review

Mutual trust， respect， and a willingness to listen and risk ones opinions are required for a conversation. Brown（1983） thinks that a powerful regulative ideal can orient our practical and political lives. Habermas（ regards the regulative ideal as an ideal speech situation where each one has an effective equality of chances to take part in conversation； where conversation is unconstrained and not distorted. David Bohm pointed out the definition of the word conversation is “the flow of meaning between or among speakers”. That means conversation is precisely the form of communication we need. To some degree， a conversation could be regarded as a medium for the flow of meaning. Conversation appears to be the way to establish coherent and to share it among us. As a result， the group people will be collecting all these views. Thats to say， each participant now also knows the views of others. Coherence has been used in relation to texts and in relation to mental representation of a text. There is a tradition in text linguistics that claims coherence is a property of an ideal text： pieces of writing that do not conform to the ideals of coherence are supposed to be either sub-optimal texts or non-product at all——what Brown and Yule（1983） called the discourse-as-product point of views. In fact， without some notion of structure ， there would be nothing to distinguish a text from a non-text. Within this tradition， Reinhardt （1980） specifies a coherent text as having three properties. First， connectedness： the clauses of a text should be formally connected， in that each adjacent pair is either referentially linked， or linked by a semantic connector. Secondly， consistency： each sentence has to be logically consistent with the previous sentence. Finally， relevance： each sentence of the discourse must be relevant to an underlying discourse topic and to the context of the utterance. We can also argue that consistency depends upon psychological check for semantic consistency； clauses must be interpreted， and interpretation can be shown to be dependent upon world knowledge and inferences about speaker meaning. Thus， the view is that coherence is better thought of as a result of mental operations on a text. On the one hand， what is interpreted， as coherence should have a basis in the contents of the discourse， that is to say， coherence is reinforced by cohesion. On the other hand， coherence rests on more than textually realized account of discourse coherence needs take into consideration participants， context of situation， world knowledge， linguistic skills， as well as cohesion markers.

3. On creating coherence in conversation

3.1 Discourses participants creating coherence in conversation

Speakers suppose that the judgments they have made about how to express their thoughts are reasonably accurate for their listeners purpose. If they get this wrong in some genres， casual conversation for instance， it may not matter if the listener has a rather confused impression of what it is that the speaker is trying to convey， since relaxed chatty gossip often has no specific outcome in the world. In other genre， where it matters that the listener correctly understands the speaker， such an outcome can have serious consequence. The choice available to speaker about how much detail is required to achieve satisfactory reference always carry some element of risk， if the speaker chooses a strategy of maximal specification， adding a great deal of indemnificatory information， there is a danger that listener may fine the level of detail so boring that they stop paying attention， or if they do try to process all the detail， their processing capacity may be over-loaded. If， on the other hand， the speaker chooses a strategy of minimal specification， which is particularly common among young children， there is a danger that the listener may fail to achieve a correct identification. It is often the case that the minimal strategy works well sufficiently frequently， and is sufficiently readily recouped if it fails， to make it the most effective choice for a speaker.

As we had discussed， language is a social activity， male and female we respectively act their role in our society， and gender differences in language and linguistics had been discussed deeply in pragmatics， social linguistics and some other fields. For example：

A（female）： “What do you like best in your spare time？”

B（male）： “I like to play CS”

A（female）： “CS？ What do you mean？”

In this example， the boy tells the girl that he love to play a kind of computer game named “CS”（counter-strike） but the girl can not understand what “CS” is. Because of the girl and the boys different sex characteristics， they pay attention to different things in their life； there exist a sexual cognition gap between male and female which leads to some misunderstanding that decreases coherence of the conversation.

When people say something， there is maybe some implication behind their sentences， which requires the listener to work out so as to continue the conversation as the speaker expected. If the listener and speaker have the same or similar background， they can share knowledge and easily understand what their co- work means， but if the opposite condition is true their conversation will fall into a comparatively difficult or tricky situation. By discussing above， the speaker and listeners role in the conversation， we had aware that conversation is not a casual activity， is she speaker and listener want to make their conversation successfully understand an understood they must pay attention to several aspects. The negotiation of coherence within these conversations also calls for their attention. Speakers and listeners are rather possible have quite different individual characteristics， they might in different age， have different sex， background， knowledge and education， and some other elements we did not discuss. If we want to build coherence as possible as we can， we should notice the following points： when talk with the different aged people， we must try to use as many as possible their familiar words so that the communication will sounds close an hospitable， especially when adult speak to children， speaker should be patient and kind. Considering the gender difference is another important factor of developing a successful conversation. Male and female utter their sentences according to their own interests and style； speaker should take care of the listeners gender characteristics and utter the proper sentence. Mutual background， knowledge and education is the third point. The issues of whether or not some form of mutual knowledge or background is necessary to communication， and， in particular， to the interpretation of utterance.

3.2 Some problems in negotiating coherence in Conversation

We know that coherence plays a positive， crucial role in standard， successful conversation. In other words， the judgment of coherence is in most cases essential to understanding and comprehending coherence. With regard to misunderstanding， coherence also seems to play a role. Normally， for each turn， more than one interpretation would be suitable and coherent， but the one intended by the speaker must be recognized. If coherence can be a requisite for correct understanding ， in some cases the listener can fail in this task. We are faced with a misunderstanding， which we propose to characterize on the basis of two features： 1） The mismatch between the speakers intended meaning and the listeners interpretation of a given turn. 2） The non-awareness of misunderstanding on the part of the person who has misunderstanding.

4. Conclusion

Conversation is an artwork of our lives； however， if we want to enjoy this artwork we have to grasp the tools of making it smooth and fluent. Studying the ways of comprehending， fining， and creating coherence in conversation is a very essential part for achieving successful conversation. When uttering conversation， speakers and listeners both should know the principles of creating coherence according to their own roles and try to avoid the unnecessary incoherence. When creating coherence， both speakers and listeners should not only pay attention to the basic means of cohering in linguistic factors but also should develop their own responsibility as the participants well. Coherence should exist anywhere which is hardly realized aim in the reality， there are some speakers and listeners ignoring coherence when they have conversation， more study we do more such unsatisfying examples we find. We should admit the existence of the coherences failure.

本文通訊作者为欧颖

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【作者简介】

冯军（1976—），男，汉族，云南曲靖人，硕士研究生学历，云南农业大学讲师，主要研究方向：运用语言学、跨文化。