Free «Cohesion in English» Essay Sample

b. a). “He doesn’t drink”

In the dialogue with Elsie, she says ‘he does not drink’. Considering this phrase beyond the context just examining the state of the words or the first lexical meaning interpretation, this phrase may be understood as the fact of somebody’s physical drinking inability, which may be caused by some disease, operation or critical state of health. But it is too pragmatic and will not give logical result. That is why I use deductive inference understanding that, in this situation the word ‘drink’ has another contextual meaning, which comes from the contextual dependence of this phrase and not alcohol drinking. I discussed with Elsie a birthday present for my mutual friend and syntactic analysis of her answer may be interpreted as ‘he does not drink’. In that sense, the pragmatic meaning according to any listener would be that ‘he doesn’t drink wine’. Because I told Elsie I wanted to buy a fine wine for Jim. Then, Elsie said ‘he doesn’t drink’. But deductive inference with linguistically encoded meaning comes to the mind through the cognitive processing procedures, which are typically subconscious and impossible to be described by people and in my situation they lead to the assumption that he does not drink alcohol at all. According to logical assumption in other case, Elsie might utter like ‘he prefers cognac to wine’, ‘he is allergenic to red wine’ or ‘better buy beer’. But Elsie had just said ‘he does not drink’, without any proposition of another kind of alcohol present buying, which completely eliminated alcohol drinks as a present for my friend. Saying ‘he does not drink’ Elsie implied that even some fine wine will not be a useful present, therefore, it is not worth to buy it, because she did not led any further explanations putting the dot over the alcohol present discussion. Nevertheless, her message could have various interpretations in my eyes. The first is that such kind of the present will be useless for my friend; the second is that I should think about another birthday present and the third is that my friend leads a healthy way of life and the present should be related to it

b)The original sentence ‘he doesn’t drink’ leads to deductive inference that ‘he does not drink alcohol at all’, because Elsie omitted the word wine. Consequently, from Elsie’s utterances, I might have misunderstood that Jim has medical problems and this present will not be appropriate now such as she did not explained the reasons of his non-drinking, which might be too private. Moreover, he might organize a non-alcohol party, because he would drive home after it or just aimed at quite harmony evening spend in the friends surrounding without any tipsy faces and I can spoil everything with a wine-present, because it is known that after the one bottle another will follow.. Another wrong assumption I could have made is that my friend used to have alcohol dependency, but has treated from it and the bottle of wine will unpleased and seduce him. More over it might remind about past problems and surviving and make him upset. One more reason of my friends non-drinking may be caused by the past memories. Someone of his relatives could abuse alcohol and now he could feel disgust to everything and everyone connected with alcohol even when it is a bottle of good wine.

2. Read this text (which was made up just for this exercise):

PROTECT OUR LOCAL LIBRARIES

Incredibly, Kinraddie Council have said they’re going to close half our libraries this year even though the Mearns Library, which is one of them, has been there for 150 years and everybody loves it.

Michael Rosen says books are a key part of education but our council doesn’t seem to agree. Mearns Library is run by friendly and helpful staff, used by lots of children and older people, and an important meeting place for all of you. What would we do without it?

If you care about education and our community, come to a meeting on:

TUESDAY 8TH NOVEMBER

at 7 o’clock in Mearns Library and we’ll discuss what we can do to protect your local libraries.

Please spread the word and come along with ideas and offer your support.

a). The aim of the author of this text is to interest people in the issue and he does this in an appealing and stimulating manner, through the argumentative and expository prose. He uses hyperboles ‘everybody loves it’, ‘friendly and helpful staff’ to make the problem sounding more gravely and draw people’s attention and interest about the message entailed. For better psychological motivation of every reader, imperative mood is used: ‘protect’, ‘if you care … come’. In other words, the poster does not only inform, but also leads to the libraries protective actions. The author implies that a description or further explanation is needed to ascertain the exact libraries and the reason why they must be protected. The heading of the poster directly points out the context of the passage. To underline the main problems, periodic sentences, in which the most informative and important part in placed at the end, are used; ‘…are going to close the half of our libraries’, ‘……council does not seem to agree’ are phrases placed in the middle and at the end of the sentences. The metaphor “books are a key part of education” contrasts the utterance “the council doesn’t agree”, underlying the oppositional position to the half of libraries closing. Rhetorical question “what would we do without it?” points out how important the Mearns Library is and symbols despair in the case of its closing.

b)Good decision: The good part of work is that the author brings out how important the Mearns Library is, pointing not only at the subjective attitude, but also leads up to the facts, such as the years of library existence and its role in the community life. The author clearly indicates that people must realize that they cannot live without this library. This result is achieved through the hyperboles, such as ‘everybody loves’ of course there were some people, who did not care , ‘books are a key part of education but our council doesn’t seem to agree.’ He surely understands the importance of the book in everyone’s life and in education itself, but supports the decision of the library closing, ‘important meeting place for all of you’ there would be someone, who will not agree with this statement; rhetorical questions, which does not need the answer ‘What would we do without it?, library’s significance and non-replacement is clear through the didactical inference of the whole text; and metaphor usage ‘books are a key part’, semantic meaning of the ‘key’ lexeme transfers on the books underlying their significance and leading role.

Bad decision: The weak point of the poster is its subjectivity, which is counterproductive and may be accepted like a private person request and interest but not the all inhabitants matter. This subjectivity is expressed by the word ‘incredibly’, at the very beginning of the poster. It is seen through the irrational sentences order and the plot significance. The author writes about kind and helpful staff, which is not so important in the poster, such as not staff discharging is discussed, but the library books access closure. Thus, the library workers erudition and kindness may be mentioned as a prerogative during the meeting, but in the poster it leads to subjectivity and bores the readers. As a result, they may even not read the poster to the end, where one more personal request through the ‘please’ lexeme is expended. This polite word gets some begging connotation in this context and sounds like a desperate help request in the supported by nobody case and frustrates the warlike spirit of the text. The author’s excessive subjectivity provides no cohesion within the sentences and one can easily notice that there is some information that is missing and some that is unnecessary

c)PROTECT OUR LOCAL LIBRARIES!

Half of our libraries are going to be closed this year. Operational for the past 150 years, the Mearns Library is in the list too. It has been serving both the elderly and children and played the role of the city’s meeting place. The council seems to deny the key part of the books in the education and inhabitants’ erudition. What will we do without it? How can we allow this?

TUESDAY 8TH NOVEMBER at 7 o’clock in Mearns Library

If you really care about education and the community, come to a meeting.

DO NOT STAY ASIDE!

DO NOT BE INDIFFERENT TO YOUR FUTURE!

d.I omitted the word ‘incredibly’ to draw the readers’ attention to the problem itself, but not to my emotional perception of it. I also shortened the text to make it more productive, such as most of the reader hardly read few first lines of advertisements and announcements, because of the constant lack of time and over information. Going from this I may conclude that short announcement has more chances to be read and cared that a longer one. Then I altered the order of sentences in order to create transition and cohesion. The problem and the Mearns Library significance are described in the first sentences to pay the readers’ attention on the gravity of the issue. The government’s treating of the problem is presented to show that the desired decision needs folks’ support. The questions to think about and the time and place of the problem discussion are written at the end of the poster. The firsts aim at last hesitations of not participating dissipating. The seconds are organizational requirements. Changing the text, I have left the sentence with the council oppositional thoughts to strengthen the ambiguity of the issue. I also added one more rhetorical question to force people contemplate over the issue and come to the meeting. I did not ask the receivers to come, but I have written at once the time and place of the meeting, eliminating even the reader’s thought of indifference. To strengthen the readers’ motivation, I made their care about education and community accented. Exclamatory and full of agitation sentences finish the changed poster for hesitation’s complete elimination.