Abstract

refers to relations ofmeaning that exist within the text,and that defines it as a text. Thedetection of these meaning relationsis important to its interpretation.These relations are achieved by theuse of cohesive devices. This meansthat the presence or absence of thesedevices in a text helps to make a textcoherent or incoherent respectively.This paper is a statistic study of twotypes of cohesion : the grammaticalcohesion and lexical one in selectedscientific and literary texts. Threescientific essays as well as threeliterary ones have been chosen forthe purpose of analysis. The sixessays are written by differentBritish writers and most of them aretaken from the Internet. The studyaims at presenting data verifying theassumption that both lexical andgrammatical cohesive devices aremore frequent in use in scientifictexts than those occurred in literaryones. Also, some categories in eachtype are more widely used thanothers such as conjunctions andreiteration in both scientific andliterary texts. The study shows thatsuch conclusions can be traced backto the writer's intention to use rathersimple, comparative, and descriptivelanguage in expressing rathercomplex topics presented inscientific texts. That is to say, the useof indirect and complex languagemakes the reader's task moredifficult. Moreover, the frequentcategories of each one help the writerelaborate, illustrate, compare, andeven add new information and ideasto his/her reader. The paper startswith an introduction that acquaintsthe reader with the concept ofcohesion and its two types : thegrammatical and lexical cohesion.Then, an analysis and a statisticstudy of six essays are carried outthat reflect the frequency ofoccurrence of both types of cohesionin these texts. Three scientific essaysas well as three literary ones havebeen chosen for the purpose ofanalysis. The study ends with someconclusions resulted through the

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The article was added to IASJ on 2014-04-01

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