Cohesion as a Text Analysis Framework: Reeling in an Imam as a Case

By: Jamel Abdenacer ALIMI e-mail: jamel_alimi@yahoo.com

Date: 23 April, 2005

The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which those forms are designed to serve in human affairs. (Brown and Yule 1983:1)

INTRODUCTION
In recent years, applied researchers have become increasingly interested in investigating all potential factors, which could impinge on the generation of text as discourse. Such constructs as audience, context, coherence, register and cohesion have emerged as some of the key variables to be considered in this regard. Unlike its counterparts, which are fairly well mapped and re-evaluated in light of recent advances in written text analysis 1, the latter term has been, too often, relegated to a purely formal status in the overall writing and reading processes. Such a stance is, unfortunately, very limiting in scope, and misses much of the proven gains and merits cohesion can offer (Mei-Yun 1993; Williams 1983; Liu 2000). This essay is concerned with cohesion in written texts. It will address this issue with two chief intents namely, To provide an exclusively cohesion-based description of an actual, coherent text, and To highlight some of the most pertinent points of interest to be revealed in the course of analysis.

See e.g., Coulthard (ed) (1994) and Miller (ed) (1997) for an overview of some of the recent advances in written text analysis as well as suggestions for practical classroom applications.

Towards this end, the remainder of the paper will be divided into four sections. Section One briefly defines the concept of cohesion, including its various grammatical and lexical exponents as especially conceived of in Halliday and Hasans (1976) cohesion taxonomy. Section Two provides a detailed application of the conceptual framework of analysis to the illustrative text here selected (Appendix One). Section Three will highlight some of the major points of interest as yielded by the framework in force. The final Section will sketch out the major strengths and caveats relating to the concept of cohesion.

1. ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK: AN OUTLINE OF COHESION

Cohesion primarily concerns the surface ties and relations between the propositions of a text. It refers, more specifically, to the process whereby the words or phrases within two or more separate discourse segments are woven together so as to make the overall passage coherently hang. As Halliday (1989:48) argues, the realization of such cross-connectedness is attributed to the existence of an inherent stock of linguistic resources in all languages, which ensures a one-to-one symmetry between a given speech event and its particular context. In the case of the English language, the constituent speech events of a text can be linked up through a variety of cohesion-creating devices. Some of the recently identified ones in the literature include Continuatives, Parallelism, Consistency of Verb Form, Identity / Similarity Chains, Given-New Organization, and Theme-Rheme Development 2. According to Halliday and Hasans (1976) cohesion taxonomy, these very texts propositions may actually cross-refer via the following discourse-cohering devices: Reference: This type of inter- and intra-sentence cohesion tie concerns coreferential forms namely, personal pronouns, deictics, and comparatives. Each one of these forms may point to terms either in or out of the text to the wider context of situation involved therein. Ellipsis (or substitution by zero): This concept refers to the writers deliberate omission of otherwise expected clauses, phrases or single words because they have already been mentioned in the preceding texts segment, and can, as such, be readily recovered by a fluent reader (McCarthy 1991:43; Cook 1989:20). Substitution: It is commonly regarded as a special case of ellipsis with the ellipted material indirectly represented by such items as one (nominal), do (verbal) or so (clausal) (Cook 1989:20). Conjunction: This device concerns individual words or phrases that define the type of meaning relationship between one particular sentence or clause and another one as being either additive, adversative, causal, temporal or continuative (Cook 1989:21).

see Hasan 1989; Cook 1989 and Coulthard (ed) 1994 for a detailed account.

Lexical Cohesion: This type of cohesion refers to the types of relationship between lexical items and the way the latter mutually cohere across the text at large. It can be obtained out of two broad semantic categories: a- collocation or the tendency of two or more lexical items to strongly cooccur, and b- reiteration including its sub-categories: repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, and general nouns 3.

It is worth noting that the satisfaction of each of the above-mentioned cohesive devices, paired with the concept of register 4, is one of the major contributors of a yet higher-order textual feature, that of texture or coherence 5. It should be stressed that the above section is by no means intended to be totally inclusive or exhaustive; rather, it is strictly meant to serve as a brief, informal overview of the concept of cohesion and of the ways it may be expounded in texts of non-minimal size, as is the case with the illustrative text selected here. In so doing, all cohesion-related issues of no immediate interest or relevance to our purpose have been deliberately omitted 6. A detailed application of the conceptual analysis framework as conceived of in Halliday and Hasans (1976) cohesion taxonomy is provided in the section to follow. A media news story in the TIME (26 July 2004), Reeling in an Imam, or RIANI, written by Scott Mac Leod and Elaine Shannon, will be taken to serve as a basis for our purpose.

2. COHESION-BASED ANALYSIS OF A SAMPLE TEXT

2.1 Preliminary Notes: The scope of the present section will be limited, at this point, to identifying the cohesive ties and relations as exhibited in RIANI. Due to obvious concern over tedious repetitiousness, the illustration of the analysis framework in force will be restricted to only two out of the articles fourteen verbal sequences (Appendix Three). The excerpt in question, which is reproduced below for convenience, is to be analyzed in terms of Halliday and Hasans 1976 model and with reference to a text analysis sample carried out by Hunston and Charteris-Black (2000:8-9). A thorough analysis of the whole text, following the same procedure, is available in Appendix Three.

See e.g., Salkie (1995) for further details.

Halliday (1989:38-39) defines the concept of register as being a configuration of meanings that are typically associated with a particular situational configuration of field, mode and tenor. But since it is a configuration of meanings, a register must also, of course, include the expressions, the lexico-grammatical and phonological features, that typically accompany or REALISE these meanings 5 Halliday and Hasan (1976:2, quoted in Carrell 1982:481) define texture as follows: A text has texture, and this is what distinguishes it from being something that is not a text. It derives the texture from the fact that it functions as a unity with respect to its environment.
6

See Carrell (1982) for criticism leveled at the theory of cohesion as an index of textual cohesion, based on theoretical and empirical work in schemata theory.

(8) That gracious initiative promise militants due process and provided the families of their victims consent spares them execution in exchange for their surrender and cooperation. (9) The deal was devised to reel in lower-level militants in hopes of isolating their hard-core leaders; it also enables King Fahd to point to a grace period before his security forces begin a promised crackdown. 2.2 Application: The excerpt above exhibits a miscellany of grammatical and lexical cohesion-creating devices and relations: Grammatical ties are realized via the use of: Co-reference (as in their, it and his, which refer anaphorically to militants, The deal and King Fahd, respectively). Conjunction: additive (and; also); causal (in hopes of); temporal (before). Lexical cohesion, on the other hand, is achieved by means of the following semantic devices: Simple repetition of a given item (militants; militants) Partial repetition (gracious / grace; promises / promised; reel / reeling [Headline]) General Noun (gracious initiative / the deal) Antonym (lower-level / hard-core) Collocation (militants / leaders; security forces / crackdown) As just illustrated, the construction of the excerpt (and, indeed, that of the text as a whole) rests to a large extent upon the presence of a wide array of cohesive ties and relations. This inference in itself might not sound particularly surprising at a glance. Yet, as will be seen in the section to follow, a closer examination of the clusters of cohesive items would not fail to recognize its far-reaching impact across the writer-message-reader triad.

3. ANALYSIS POINTS OF INTEREST

The analysis of RIANI yields several points of interest, which, most importantly, concern (a) the text-related impact of cohesion, (b) its audience-intended affect, and (c) its strengths and weaknesses. These three outstanding issues are elaborated in some detail, each in turn, here below. 3.1 Text-related Cohesion Impact: One of the initial features, which the analysis promptly brings to the fore, concerns the non-flouted state of cohesiveness across the text under consideration. This distinctive feature is not without immediate consequences. For one thing, it readily helps distinguish RIANI as a text and not as an arbitrary, random collection of sentences (McCarthy 1991:35). In addition, it emphatically contributes to the latters coherence, communicativeness and reader-oriented impact by virtue of its own dynamic import in the discourse being disclosed: Each element in the discourse, whether just one phrase or an entire chapter or a book, has a value (1) as a text, in itself, and (2) as context, to other text to come. (Halliday 1989:48)

Not less importantly, the text-based aspect in question facilitates getting access to the inner meanings embedded in the clusters of concepts and relations which underlie the outer world of the text at issue (de Beaugrande and Dressler 1981:4). In so doing, it markedly paves the way for prospective readers to get an appropriate, non-prejudiced interpretation of the individual messages, and to achieve a yet firmer, well-grounded grasp of the text in its ultimate entirety at a later stage. 3.2 Cohesion Affect: In addition to the text-related implications pointed out just earlier, the analysis draws due attention to the affective impact which the co-writers tend to cast into the set of cohesive devices in an obvious attempt at anchoring their target readers in their joint viewpoints and perspectives. This striking feature may be traced quite easily in the following points: Demonstrative reference the: The repeated use of the definite article the as in the radical Saudi imam, the spectacular success of the Sept.11 attacks, the imam, and the families of their victims (Sequences One through Eight) largely reflects the coauthors intent at creating an atmosphere of intimacy as well as a bond of knowledge between them and their target readers irrespective of the potential truth-value that might be embedded in the noun phrase given (Lapaire and Rotg 1997:210-11). Ellipsis: The recourse to such a particularly powerful component in textual cohesion, as is the case in Sequence Thirteen, seems to be consciously intended at creating an illusion of closeness, familiarity, and cooperativeness between the cowriters and their audience 7. Deixis: The verbal pointers this (Sequences 4 and 7) and that (Sequence 8) tend to establish, in Grundys (1995:30) terms, some common ground within a presupposed shared world between both the text producers and their addressees (McCarthy 1991:41). Equally important, they seek to position the intended target audience vis--vis the discourse stretch at issue, in accordance with the motifs and priorities pre-set by the texts co-producers. As it were, This, these and here all mean near the writer / speaker, while that, those and there all mean away from the writer / speaker. (Carter et al 2001:199) From this perspective, the recourse to the deictic That in Sequence 8 seems to stem from two major reasons namely to call on the reader to adopt the co-writers deliberate option for self-detachment, and to persuade him/her to accept their cautious reservation regarding the royal decree being reported (Sequence 6). In contrast, the deictic reference this, used by Imam al-Harbi in Sequences 4 and 7 while addressing his own audience, would, arguably, fail to promote any sense of

As Thompson (1999:144) asserts, In looking at ellipsis, we are moving () to the human relations aspect. Ellipsis can be seen as an essentially cooperative resource (). It involves the hearer in the construction of the message by placing on him/her the task of filling out the missing parts; and it also implies an expectation on the speakers part that the hearer is willing to cooperate.

proximity or self-projection amongst readers with pro-American or antifundamentalist stands in particular 8. Conjunction: the adversative but in Sequence 5, is conventionally used to strongly suggest to the reader how the discourse segments on either side of it be best read and interpreted. Used in this very context, this connective makes the association between imam and singing a remarkably different tune dramatically negative hence, foregrounding yet another insane, opportunistic facet in the Saudi cleric's personality, and insinuating to the reader to step further away from the Saudi cleric. Personal reference he: Though, obviously, identical in form, this pro-form tends to bear a different nuance each time it is used. Viewed from a cognitive, nonobjective perspective, this item neither points back nor, even, replaces the textual word al-Harbi throughout the article; rather, it conjures up all the latest images of the Saudi cleric which the readers mind and memory has kept accumulating as he/she goes on reading (Stockwell 2001; Lapaire and Rotg 1997). As these images and attributives are represented in such a satirical way, the ultimate outcome of determining the co-referents identity would, expectedly, yield little room for any feelings of self-identification with, or tolerance towards, the character in question on the part of the reader. (And this is precisely one of the emotional attitudes that RIANI seems so intent to arouse). Lexical cohesion chains: The presence of a large set of cohesion chains acts as a powerful factor in positioning the reader and constructing a particular viewpoint not dissimilar from theirs (Carter et al 2001:176). This move is particularly evident in the items burbled and explained in Sequences 4 and 7, respectively. The former enhances and refines the meanings of foolishness and reeling; the latter, normally associated with lucidity and mind power, is used in this context to convey just the opposite way round thus, further accentuating the derogatory depiction of imam al-Harbi.

4. DISCUSSION AND FURTHER IMPLICATIONS

As might be inferred from the background points indicated in the section above, the set of cohesion items initially made use of here to act as formal links between the various segments and propositions of the text are soon deemed to reach beyond such semantic and lexico-grammatical constraints. They, accordingly, become part and parcel of the wider totality of resources resorted to in view of generating a meaningful, communicative article in its full textual, social and psychological context (Cook 1989: ix). As such, they would be best viewed as visibly genuine instances of conscious decision-making which aim at achieving uttermost appropriateness regarding not only the text being generated but also the target readers who happen to be removed in time and space (Nunan 1993:8).

For an extensive discussion on discrepancies between both types of deictic, see McCarthy (1994:

266-75).

It is worthy of notice, however, that such overlapping stylistic, pragmatic and functional strengths should in no case blur the inherent limitations of cohesion. For, as the analysis further yields, this concept is not the primary determinant cause or effect of Reeling of an imam's coherence, meaning, purpose or message, notwithstanding all its multidimensional importance (Carrell 1982; Salkie 1995:94). Nor is it even sufficient or necessary on its own to account for the active, critical reader's sense of the way the text under study is actually operating at its discourse, cultural and ideological levels (Cook 1989: 21; Carrell and Eisterhold 1983; Nuttal (1982); van Dijk 1998). Hence, as Halliday (1989) concludes, we cannot simply treat a theory of text as an extension of grammatical theory, and set up formal systems for deciding what a text is (10). This directly implies that broader and more efficient approaches might best be used, in conjunction with cohesion, to account for the article's multi-faceted entirety. These would include semiotics, discourse analysis, pragmatics, and critical discourse analysis to name but a few.

CONCLUSION
This essay provided, within its purview, a detailed a linguistic description of an authentic, coherent media text, with exclusive reference to the cohesion features and properties it displays. This framework of analysis revealed the following points of interest in particular: The positive role of cohesion as a formal discourse-signposting agent in the overall textualization of the sample media text, RIANI, here selected; Its valuable, contributory import in bringing about RIANI as a genuine instance of discourse; Its remarkably unbiased power in detecting latent, undeclared attitudes and motifs in the co-writers; The affective impact and force which it proves of, as typically offered in the English language; and Its remarkable usefulness as a viable framework of analysis in spite of some inherent limitations. The findings of the present essay offer considerably important implications for ESL/ EFL writing and reading classes at pre-intermediate through advanced levels of instruction. Insofar as we as teachers are concerned, we are, most importantly, urged to give the concept of cohesion due prominence in our writing classes. We should also empower learners to make appropriate use of the cohesive ties and devices by devising holistic, discourse-oriented activities and tasks (Cook 1989:127-33). As for student writers, they should be fairly aware of the idiosyncratic properties of cohesion as typically delineated in the target English language. This will, hopefully, help eradicate a so common, erroneous belief according to which there is a one-to-one

correspondence between cohesive items in the first language and those in the target language (op.cit: 126). While this essay succeeded in highlighting many of the impacting implications of cohesion with respect to the sample text and its target readership, it failed to a large degree to bring to the fore the non-passive, cognitive roles of the reader in relation to the linguistic cohesive devices he/she is exposed to (Carrell and Eisterhold 1983; Nuttal 1982; Nunan 1993). Nonetheless, it is hoped that this paper, by adopting the concept of cohesion as a sole framework of analysis throughout, will trigger further investigations particularly about target readers with different cultural backgrounds and ideological affiliations would actually respond to the value-laden cohesive items they surely encounter in texts of the same genre as RIANI. This would prove of paramount help and benefit for the writing/reading teacher, student and syllabus writer communities.

REFERENCES
Brown, G. and G. Yule (1983), Discourse Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carrell, P.L. (1982), Cohesion is not Coherence, TESOL Quarterly, 16, 4: 479- 88. Carrell, P.L. and J.C. Eisterhold (1983), Schema theory and ESL Reading Pedagogy, TESOL Quarterly, 17: 553-73. Carter, R., A. Goddard, D. Reah, K. Sanger and M. Bowring (2001), Working with Texts: A Core Introduction to Language Analysis, London and New York: Routledge. Cook, G. (1989), Discourse, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coulthard, M. (ed) (1994), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London and New York: Routledge. De Beaugrande, R-A. and W.U. Dressler (1981), Introduction to Text Linguistics, London: Longman. Ghadessy, M. (ed) (1999), Text and Context in Functional Linguisitcs, Amsterdam and Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins. Grundy, P. (1995), Doing Pragmatics, London: Arnold. Halliday. M.A.K. (1985-9), Coda: Text, context, and learning, in M.A.K. Halliday and R. Hasan, Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 71-96. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan (1976), Cohesion in English, London: Longman. Halliday, M.A.K. and R. Hasan (1985-9), Language, Context and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-Semiotic Perspective, 2nd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunston, S. and J. Charteris-Black (2000), Discourse Analysis (ELD 503 Part 1), Surrey: University of Surrey. Lapaire, J-R. and W. Rotg (1997),Towards a Psycho-Grammatical Description of the English Language, in Miller, T. (ed.), Functional Approaches to Written Text: Classroom Applications, Washington, D.C, USA: English Language Programs. USIA, 201-14.

Liu, D. (2000), Writing Cohesion, [21 April, 2005] <http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol38/no1/p28.htm> McCarthy, M. (1991), Discourse Analysis for Language Teachers, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCarthy, M. (1994), It, this and that, in M. Coulthard (ed.), Advances in Written Text Analysis, London: Routledge, 266-75. Mac Leod, S. and E.Shannon (2004), Reeling in an Imam, TIME, 26 July, 18. Mei-Yun, Y. (1993), Cohesion and the Teaching of EFL Reading, [21 April 2005] <http://exchanges.state.gov/forum/vols/vol31/no1/p12.htm> Miller, T. (ed) (1997), Functional Approaches to Written Text: Classroom Applications, Washington, D.C, USA: English Language Programs. USIA, 201-14. Nunan, D. (1993), Introducing Discourse Analysis, London:Penguin. Nuttal, C. (1982), Teaching Reading Skills in a foreign Language, London: Heinemann. Salkie, R. (1995), Text and Discourse Analysis, London: Routledge. Stockwell, P. (2001), Unit 8:Text Linguistics (MA MEL Q321), [29 January, 2005] <http://webct.Nottingham.ac.uk/SCRIPT/Q321/scripts/serve_home> Thompson, G. (1999), Acting the Part: Lexico-grammatical Choices and Contextual Factors, in M.Ghadessy (ed), Text and Context in Functional Linguisitcs, Amsterdam and Philadelphia PA: John Benjamins B.V, 101-24. Williams, R. (1983), Teaching the Recognition of Cohesive Ties in Reading a Foreign Language, Reading in a Foreign Language 1, 1: 35-52.

APPENDICES

Appendix One: Sample Text: Reeling in an Imam (Source: TIME, 26 July, 2004, p.18)

Appendix Two: Numbered sequences of the sample text

1- Reeling in an Imam 2- Sheikh Khaled al-Harbi got his first few minutes of fame in an hour-long video that aired around the world in December 2001. 3- In it, the radical Saudi imam praised Osama bin Laden for the spectacular success of the Sept.11 attacks. 4- Hundreds of people used to doubt you, he burbled, until this huge event. 5- The imam was on camera again last week, but singing a remarkably different tune. 6- In a video released by Saudi authorities, al-Harbi announced from his wheelchair that he was taking an offer of leniency issued in June by Saudi King Fahd Abdul to his nations many Islamic militants.

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7- I came in obedience to God and the ruler, the imam explained. There is no doubt that this is a gracious initiative by King Fahd and his crown prince. 8- That gracious initiative promise militants due process and provided the families of their victims consent spares them execution in exchange for their surrender and cooperation. 9- The deal was devised to reel in lower-level militants in hopes of isolating their hard-core leaders; it also enables King Fahd to point to a grace period before his security forces begin a promised crackdown. 10- Al-Harbi was only the third man to take the kings offer, which expires this week. 11- A Saudi official tells TIME that al-Harbi contacted the Saudi embassy in Tehran two weeks ago and negotiated his surrender over three days. 12- U.S. officials doubt al-Harbi has much useful information. 13- The Saudis are more optimistic. 14- Saudi security analyst Nawaf Obaid tells TIME that al-Harbi could have the goods on as many as 100 Saudis he is thought to have enticed into bin Ladens service. 15- By Scott Mac Leod and Elaine Shannon

Appendix Three: Detailed Linguistic Analysis of the Sample Text

Sequence Two his : the world : Pronominal, anaphoric reference to item Sheikh Khalid al-Harbi in the preceding sequence segment. Self-specifying reference to an item which is unique in its kind (i.e.homophora).

Sequence Three It : Personal reference, anaphorically pointing to video in Sequence 2. the (radical Saudi imam): Demonstrative reference to al-Harbi ( Sequence 2) and to Imam ( Headline). Imam : Lexical cohesion; simple repetition of a same item in the Headline. the (spectacular success) : Demonstrative, cataphoric reference to a stretch of text labelled here as spectacular success. the (Sept.11 attacks) : A demonstrative referent which points cataphorically to the specifying phrase Sept.11 attacks. radical : Lexical, used here as a synonym to hard-core and as an antonym to lower-level in Sequence 9. Sequence Four you :

A pronominal deictic, which might, in this context, be considered something between exophoric and endophoric reference(Hunston and Charteris-Black 2000) as it simultaneously points back to a preceding item Osama bin Laden (Sequence3) and forward to a character out of the print boundaries of the text.

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he : This (huge event) :

burbled : Sequence Five the (imam) : camera : but :

Personal reference, an anaphora to the radical Saudi imam in Sequence 3. Demonstrative reference, a cataphora specified by the phrase huge event. Also used as a lexical, general noun to the Sept.11 attacks in Sequence 3. Lexical, near-antonym to explained in Sequence 7.

Demonstrative reference to a text item, labelled in this context as imam. Lexical collocation with video in Sequences 2 and 6. Lexico-grammatical, adversative conjunctive that connects both parts of the sequence.

Sequence Six Saudi : his/he : June : he : Sequence Seven I : the ruler : The (imam) : this : king : ruler :

Intra- and inter-sequential lexical cohesion. Pronominal, anaphoric reference to al-Harbi. Lexical, semantic relationship with preceding items (December and Sept.), which belong to the same field of meaning. Personal reference, anaphoric to King Fahd.

A deictic; personal reference cataphorically pointing to the item The imam in the same sequence. A homophora referring to King Fahd of Saudi Arabia in this context. Demonstrative reference to Khalid al-Harbi . A verbal pointer, both endophorically and exophorically pointing to offer of leniency. Lexical, simple repetition of a same word in a previous segment. Lexical cohesive device, used here as a superordinate of the hyponyms king and crown prince.

Sequence Eight That ("gracious initiative") : A demonstrative pronoun, here pointing cataphorically to the phrase gracious initiative . " gracious initiative" : Lexical, simple reiteration of a same preceding phrase in Sequence 7. militants : Lexical, simple repetition of a same word militants in Sequence 6. the (families) : A demonstrative definite article, referring cataphorically to families. Their / them : Pronominal reference, anaphorically picking out the item militants in the previous sequence segment. Sequence Nine The deal : A lexical general noun referring to offer of leniency (Sequence 6)

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reel in : their : militants : it : also : grace : before : his : promised : period :

and "gracious initiative" (Sequences 7 and 8). Partial lexical repetition of the gerund reeling in the Headline. Personal reference, referring anaphorically to militants . Lexical, simple repetition of same items used in previous of text (Sequences 6 and 8). An anaphora to The deal in Sequence 9. Lexico-grammatical additive extension. Lexical, partial reiteration of the adjective gracious used previously in Sequences 7 and 8. Lexico-grammatical subordination. Personal, anaphoric reference to King Fahd . Lexical, partial repetition of the verb promises in Sequence 8. Lexical, superordinate of the hyponyms December, Sept., June, week, Sept.11, hour, and minutes.

Sequence Ten the (king's offer): offer : Sequence Eleven Saudi/al-Harbi :

Demonstrative reference to king's offer in this context. Lexical, near synonym to initiative and deal in Sequences 8 and 9, respectively.

Lexical, simple repetition of a same item used across the text's propositions. and : Lexico-grammatical, additive cohesive device. surrender : Lexical, simple repetition of a same item used in Sequence 8. week/day/hour/minutes : Lexical, whole-part relationship ( a meronymy). Sequences Twelve and Thirteen U.S : Lexical, semantic field cohesion with the item Saudi used twice in the preceding sequence. officials : Lexical, partial repetition of official in Sequence 11. more (optimistic) : Comparative reference. Sequence Fourteen Security / TIME : Lexical, exact repetition of a same item in Sequences 9 and 11, respectively. he : Pronominal, endophoric reference pointing back to al-Harbi in the same sequence and elsewhere in the text. bin Laden : Partial reiteration of a full name Osama bin Laden mentioned in Sequence 3.

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