Grammatical Cohesion vs. Lexical Cohesion
Cohesion refers to the linguistic connections that help the parts of a text “hang together.” Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) distinguish four types of grammatical cohesive ties—reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunction—from lexical cohesive ties. Together, these devices connect words, clauses, and propositions across a text.
| Type | How it creates cohesion | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Reference | Uses an expression such as a pronoun to point to another element. | Maria submitted the paper. She finished it yesterday. |
| Ellipsis | Omits information that can be recovered from the surrounding discourse. | A: Who finished? B: Carlos did [finish]. |
| Substitution | Replaces an earlier linguistic item with another form such as one, do, or so. | I need a marker. Do you have one*?* |
| Conjunction | Explicitly signals relationships such as addition, contrast, cause, or time. | The task was difficult, but the students completed it. |
| Lexical cohesion | Connects ideas through relationships among vocabulary items and their meanings. | The professor entered the classroom. The teacher greeted the students and learners*.* |
The main difference, therefore, is where the connection comes from. Grammatical cohesion relies primarily on grammatical resources and structural relationships, whereas lexical cohesion relies on relationships among words and meanings. The lexical-cohesion reading identifies repetition, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy/superordination, meronymy, and collocation as important ways vocabulary can establish these relationships. Across longer texts, related vocabulary may form lexical chains that maintain a topic or semantic thread.
For example:
The students entered the classroom. They opened their books while the professor prepared the lesson. The learners knew she would discuss the assignment.
Here, students → they and professor → she are examples of grammatical cohesion through reference, while students → learners and classroom → books → professor → lesson → assignment create lexical cohesion through semantic relationships. As both readings emphasize, real texts normally use grammatical and lexical cohesion together, rather than relying exclusively on one type.
Reference: Celce-Murcia, M., & Olshtain, E. (2000). Discourse and context in language teaching: A guide for language teachers. Cambridge University Press.