Cohesion: making connections between speech and writing For more English tutorials, please visit: https://www.thelecturette.com

1. Cohesion: Making
Connections in Speech and
Writing

2. Cohesion
When you speak or write, you usually need to
make some connection with other things that
you are saying or writing. The most common
way of doing this is by referring back to
something that has already been mentioned.

3. Cohesion
One way of referring back to something is to
use a personal pronoun such as ‘she’, ‘it’, or
‘them’, or a possessive pronoun such as
‘mine’ or ‘hers’.
My father is fat. He weighs over 100 kilos.
‘Have you ever been to London?’ - ‘Yes, it
was very crowded.’

4. Cohesion
You can also use a specific determiner such
as ‘the’ or ‘his’ in front of a noun to refer back
to something.
A man and a woman were walking up the hill.
The man wore shorts, a T-shirt, and
basketball sneakers. The woman wore a print
dress.

5. Cohesion
‘Thanks,’ said Brody. He put the telephone
down, turned out the light in his office, and
walked out to his car.

6. Cohesion
The demonstratives ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘these’ and
‘those’ are also used to refer back to a thing
or fact that has just been mentioned.
In 1973 he went on a caravan holiday. At the
beginning of this holiday he began to
experience pain in his chest.

7. Cohesion
The following general determiners can also be
used to refer back to something.
another each every
other both either
neither

8. Cohesion
Five officials were sacked. Another four were
arrested.
There are more than two hundred and fifty
species of shark, and every one is different.

9. Cohesion
Another common way of making connections
in spoken or written English is by using one of
the following coordinating conjunctions:
and but nor
or so then
yet

10. Cohesion
Anna had to go into town and she wanted to
go to Bridge Street.
I asked if I could borrow her bicycle but she
refused.
He was only a boy then, yet he was not
afraid.

11. Cohesion
You can use a coordinating conjunction to link
clauses that have the same subject. When
you link clauses that have the same subject
you do not always need to repeat the subject
in the second clause.

12. Cohesion
She was born in born in Budapest and raised
in Manhattan.
He didn’t yell or scream.
When she saw Morris she went pale, then
blushed.

13. Cohesion
Most subordinating conjunctions can also be
used to link sentences together, rather than to
link a subordinate clause with a main clause
in the same sentence.
‘When will you do it?’ - ‘When I get time.’
‘Can I borrow your car?’ - ‘So long as you
drive carefully.’

14. Cohesion
When people are speaking or writing, they
often use words that refer back to similar
words, or words that refer back to a whole
sentence or paragraph.

15. Cohesion
Everything was quiet. Everywhere there was
the silence of the winter night.
‘What are you going to do?’ - ‘That’s a good
question.’

16. Questions?
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