Cohesion and the Textuality of Comics

Abstract

This chapter explores the third major metafunction of comics, the textual function. It situates this function in relation to the other two, the ideational and the interpersonal, and draws parallels and contrasts with other approaches to the application of cohesion, in particular, to graphic narrative visual texts. The textual function breaks down into patterns of information structure, on the one hand, and cohesion on the other; the chapter will especially dwell on patterns and resources for cohesion, subcategorising and exemplifying these with a range of comics extracts. I propose an approach which integrates visual and verbal narrative resources and identifies forms specific to graphic narrative, taking into account both verbal and visual means of cohesion, ways in which these interact and the interrelation of these means to the work of the other metafunctions in Halliday’s model of language.