Cohesion in news articles: A discourse analysis approach

Abstract

Cohesion is deemed to be outside of the structure of text because structure in text is provided by grammar. The design of cohesion in text is connected to semantic ties or “relations of meanings that exist within the text, and that define it as a text” (Halliday and Hasan, 1976). The study discusses an analysis done on two Malaysian newspaper articles from the New Straits Times. The study investigates the discourses apparent in the texts and the methods in which discourses are represented through particular linguistic choices. The purpose of the study is to identify discourses that stand for universally held assumptions about how different texts are created and how these discourses signify connection of specific practices and/or encompass a policy for change. Halliday & Hasan (1976) convey texture to the method in which diverse fundamentals in a text are connected or attached jointly to shape a cohesive unity, which also conveys the fact that the texts express completely to the setting in which it is located. Both articles project several connections in the field, in the theme and in the method of writing which are reflected in their corresponding ritual of structural and lexicogrammatical resources.