Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse: How to create it and how to describe it. Selected papers from the International Workshop on Coherence, Augsburg, 24-27 April 1997(63 Pragmatics & Beyond New Series)

Until very recently, coherence (unlike cohesion) was widely held to be a ‘rather mystical notion’. However, taking account of new trends representing a considerable shift in orientation, this volume aims at helping relieve coherence of its mystifying aura. The general bibliography which concludes the book bears witness to this intriguing development and the rapidly changing scene in coherence research. Preceding this comprehensive up-to-date Bibliography on Coherence are 13 selected papers from the 1997 International Workshop on Coherence at the University of Augsburg, Germany. They share a number of theoretical and methodoligical assumptions and reflect a trend in text and discourse analysis to move away from reducing coherence to a product of (formally represented) cohesion and/or (semantically established) connectivity. Instead, they start from a user- and context-oriented interpretive understanding and rely on authentic data throughout in relating micro-linguistic to macro-linguistic issues. The first group of papers looks at the (re-)creation of coherence in, inter alia, reported speech, casual conversation, argumentative writing, news reports and conference contributions. The second group describes the negotation of coherence in oral examinations, text summaries and other situations that require special efforts on the part of the recipient to overcome misunderstandings and other disturbances. The third group discusses theoretical approaches to the description of coherence.

Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgements; 2. About the Authors; 3. Introduction: Views of Coherence (by Bublitz, Wolfram); 4. Part I: How to (Re-)Create Coherence: Means of Coherence; 5. Coherent Voicing: On Prosody in Conversational Reported Speech (by Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth); 6. It Takes Two to Cohere: The Collaborative Dimension of Topical Coherence in Conversation (by Geluykens, Ronald); 7. Learning to Cohere: Causal Links in Native vs. Non-Native Argumentative Writing (by Lorenz, Gunter); 8. Coherence through Understanding through Discourse Patterns: Focus on News Reports (by Ostman, Jan-Ola); 9. Semiotic Spanning at Conferences: Cohesion and Coherence in and across Conference Papers and their Discussions (by Ventola, Eija); 10. Coherent Keying in Conversational Humour: Contextualising Joint Fictionalisation (by Kotthoff, Helga); 11. Part II: How to Negotiate Coherence: Degrees of Coherence; 12. Disturbed Coherence: 'Fill me in' (by Bublitz, Wolfram); 13. Coherence and Misunderstanding in Everyday Conversations (by Bazzanella, Carla); 14. The Effect of Context in the Definition and Negotiation of Coherence (by Ciliberti, Anna); 15. Coherence in Summary: The Contexts of Appropriate Discourse (by Seidlhofer, Barbara); 16. Coherence in Hypertext (by Fritz, Gerd); 17. Part III: How to describe Coherence: Views of Coherence; 18. Communicative Intentions and Coherence Relations (by Sanders, Ted); 19. If Coherence Is Achieved, Then Where Doth Meaning Lie? (by Edmondson, Willis J.); 20. A Bibliography of Coherence and Cohesion (by Lenk, Uta); 21. Index