Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

Final Analysis-Cohesive Devices

Discourse Analysis
MEI Saida Arenas Daz.
Ftima del Roco Martnez Casillas.
Jos Eduardo Aguilar Vega.

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

Introduction
When a little child learns how to read, they are just decoding the letters into sounds
partially together to make sentences. Most of them are not even able to interpret complete
sentences. They do not realize all the hidden important things that make a coherent and
understandable text. We as students of the B. A. are exposed to the tools that would help us
to decode form the tiniest part of a speech to the most complicated discourse. The cohesive
devices are the roots of the speech and they create a type of web that is all over the
discourse. They develop the deepest sense to the reader.
Background
To choose a book, we decided that it has to be very interesting and that it has make
you feel interesting in the text, so we could read and get the main idea that the author
wanted to share. Finally we chose the science fiction novel, so it had to be very descriptive
in order to picture all the background of the story. This novel is mostly set in past
something that helped us to identify the verb form because the story happened in the past
but the girl starts in the present. At the beginning of the book the last living of the tree
protagonists is telling the story about them. They were in a school that was rising clones in
order to done their organs. So the protagonist used a lot of cohesive devices in order to
make it clearer and more understandable for the reader. We chose this book because the
character that is narrating the book describes everything very clear. The novel Never Let
Me Go is a British book that was written by Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese writer. He is the
32nd best British Writer (The Times, 2008). So we are not reading a very common text.
From this we know that the writer knows what he is doing. He has a Master of Arts in
Creative Writing (British Council, 2015). This book was written by a Master of the Creative
writing. The protagonist, she seems to really feel all the events that are happening.

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

This novel talks about a school that raises cloned children. They were cloned with
the purpose to donate some of the vital organs to very sick people. It is held in four parts,
the last one is fatal. The girl that is narrating the book at the beginning of the first chapter is
one of the three protagonists that are in the same school. While she is going through all the
difficult situations, she seems to be very sensitive, and then at the end of the story she just
overcame all problems including the dead of her friends. It is very interesting how the
feelings are involved in this kind of text. We noticed that in the first chapter of the book we
could identify most of the devices. In order to clearly understand the reading we need to
look at features outside the language: at the situation, the people involved, what they know
and what they are doing (Cook, 1989). In order to do that we need take advantage of the
cohesive devices. We commonly use them but without noticing them. Some of the cohesive
devices that we could identify in the text that we chose are Parallelism, Verb form,
Conjunctions, Ellipsis, Referring expressions, Repetition, Lexical chains, Substitution
(Cook, 1989).

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

Analysis
Never Let Me Go
A novel by
Kazuo Ishiguro
To Lorna and Naomi
England, late 1990s
Part One
Chapter One
1

My name is Kathy H. I'm thirty-one years old, and I've been a carer now for over eleven
years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another
eight months, until the end of this year. That'll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I

know my being a carer so long isn't necessarily because they think I'm fantastic at what I
do. There are some really good carers who've been told to stop after just two or three years.
1

And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a
complete waste of space. So I'm not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they've
been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to

do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any
of them have been classified as agitated, even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am
boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit
about my donors staying calm. I've developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know
when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen
to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.
Anyway, I'm not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are
just as good and don't get half the credit. If you're one of them, I can understand how you

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

might get resentfulabout my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose
who I look after. And I'm a Hailsham studentwhich is enough by itself sometimes to get
2

people's backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses
her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she
has a great record. I've heard it said enough, so I'm sure you've heard it plenty more, and

maybe there's something in it. But I'm not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I
doubt if I'll be the last. And anyway, I've done my share of looking after donors brought up
in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I'll have done twelve years of this,
and it's only for the last six they've let me choose.

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

Rationale
In this text we are going to make an analysis about the use of the cohesive devices
seen during the course, focusing on why we should use one specific device and no other,
and how these devices actually work in the text, and help us understand it easier and better.
There are some cases in which the use of these cohesive devices is up to the writer, but
sometimes they are forced to use them since the lack of these devices may not create a
meaningful idea. In my opinion, the use of these devices is more related to the writers style
rather than the knowledge and theory writers may have.
Parallelism
In line fourteen fifteen and sixteen, we identify other cohesive device, which is
parallelism. In this part the writer is using the same structure over and over again, in this
case he is using when + infinitive verb + pronoun them. We think that he used this device to
express that this girl did a lot of things and that she was actually really good at her job, also
that she did all these things for these people, but she never got anything in return. When I
was reading this text this pattern was quite catchy for me and I think that because of that I
got more interested in reading the whole text, because in my mind, I picture a woman that
was professionally successful and helped many other people, but she did not help herself at
all. It is quite interesting how with these devices the writer can get into our heads and help
us guess personality and life of the character and even the plot of the story. In addition, we
can find the word carer in the text five times and even though it does not sound repetitive
he could use lexical chains, for example my co-workers, the people that work here or
caretaker. Also, he could use substitution in line five he could write really good ones
instead of really good carers. We think that he opted for the use of repetition in this part to
make emphasis on the idea that she works as a carer since this is the first chapter and this is

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

the part when we get to know the characteristics and life of the character in order to
understand the whole story. I think that this choice actually worked pretty well because it is
going to be easy for the readers to identify the setting of the book later. If he had use lexical
chains instead, perhaps the idea would not be clearly stated so the reader would need to go
back to this first chapter and re-read the information.
Verb form
In first and second line we have three very good examples of the verb form. The
verbs in a text have to have an agreement. The first verb is and the second m are both in
simple present. They have to match and follow the same pattern of the verb form. It is to
make a coherent and linked sense. The next example at the end of line number 1 and
continues in the beginning of line number two. The verb,ve been, it is still in present
(following the last tenses) because the author is giving a description and the tense now fits
with the next time expression for over eleven years.
Conjunctions
In the text, we can find many conjunctions; most of them are fanboys or coordinator
conjunctions. Reading the first three lines without these connectors can express ideas, but if
we continue we can easily notice that if we do not use these conjunctions the text is lack of
sense, so conjunctions are an essential part of this text to express a meaningful idea and to
have cohesion and coherence, that is why they cannot be omitted.
Ellipsis
In line eight the writer did not omit the word do in the phrase I do know, it is very
common to see or hear I know, but this time he did not omit the word, because he tried to
make a strong emphasis in that the girl could not be more sure that her bosses were really
happy with her job. In the line eleven we consider that the word one was ellipsed because it

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

was not really important in the sentence and this did not affect at all the text because it
remains clear.
Referring expressions
In this text we could identify the use of referring expressions in the line twelve of
the text we found the word it, and it is interesting that the writer makes emphasis on this
part and we think that he is doing it because even though he was using an anaphoric
reference when talking about her skills in her job, the writer used a cataphoric reference
later, making a more direct reference using the comma and then writing what the pronoun it
refers to, it was because when we read the text we did not clearly understand what the
pronoun it was referring to even going back to read the previous text, but then with the
cataphoric it was completely clear that what meant a lot for her was to be able to do her
work well. These little details seem to be not quite important, but they actually are. If he
had not used this device, I would not be able to understand this part and maybe because of
that get lost or even worse lose interest in reading the book due to lack of meaning. On the
other hand, in line fifteen he is using the pronoun them in this case he only used an
anaphoric reference because if we go back we can identify that the pronoun them refers to
donors the same thing happens in line eighteen, but this time this pronoun refers to carers.
In lines, twenty-four and twenty-five we found that he used the pronoun it and he
repeated the word three times this is an anaphoric referring expression because after the
pronoun she mentioned that Kathy has a great record, in this case he could use lexical
chains to avoid the repetition of this pronoun. We think that not only pronouns can be used
as referring expression, for example in line twenty eight he is using a cataphoric expression
again because if we go back to the text this refers to her job. Then, in the same line we have
the pronoun they and what they is referring to is not clearly stated, but we can infer that she

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

is referring to her bosses since a boss is the only one allowed to tell you what you can do
and what you cannot.
Repetition
In the entire first paragraph, from line number 1 to 15, there is a very important
word carer it is one or the key words for the complete character. The author repeats and
repeats the same word 4 times in only 6 lines. The words carer and carers are repeated
because they cannot be placed with any another pronoun because they are very specific.
Lexical chains
The last two cohesive devices, referring expressions and repetition, can be
mentioned as part of lexical chains because they actually link one idea with another or one
word with another. They are tools a writer or a reader can take advantage of in order to
better understand and to follow the same rhythm of the text. Even though, we can still find
some different lexical chains or relations between words. For example in line number five
the writer is saying really good carers then referring to the same she says whove been told
and both are talking about the same. Then another lexical is between two words that are
referring about the same impressive in line 10 and agitated in line 11. These words have a
chain or a link because they are describing the recovery times.
Substitution
This cohesive device is all about changing one word with another. In line seventeen
the word carers is mentioned in the fifth time (then it can seem as an overused word) that is
why in the next part this word is substituted for who are, and as a third time the same word
is changed for them. In line twenty three there is a phrase no wonder she has a great
record. The next sentences make reference to this same phrase but to avoid the repetition

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10
and over use of this word they refer to this phrase as it in the lines twenty four twice and in
line twenty five once.
Conclusion
Now everything makes sense for us. There is a massive relation between each one
of the previous cohesive devices that we already mention. We now know that a text cannot
be complete with the use of only one of two devices. There is a link between all of them
and they are also related. We can now clearly identify the differences and similarities of the
cohesive devices. And also we understand that there is always a reason why a word is in a
specific place. All the single words by themselves mean something for the writer and all
together mean something greater for the reader.

Running head: FINAL ANALYSIS-COHESIVE DEVICES

11

References
The Times. (2008). The 50 greatest British writers since 1945. Retrieved from:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article3127
837.ece
British Council. (2015). Kazuo Ishiguro. Retrieved from:
https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/kazuo-ishiguro
Cook, G. (1989). Discourse. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.