10
Cohesion and texture
. . . to combine textural appeal with an appropriate scheme of
textual cohesion, in such a way that one supports the other, is a
fundamental stylistic task. The text, however, has primacy;
plot is more important than diction, though diction may be
involved in plot.
Walter Nash
This chapter shows how to use the resources of English to
connect with your reader on almost a subconscious level.
For you, though, it needs to be as conscious as possible. It
is like the musical ‘language’ available to a song-writer, to
reinforce the lyrics or the ‘plot’. You will find out how to
r deploy the words and structures in order to achieve a
sense of depth and resonance among the different parts of
your essay, with the cultural background from which you
write, and with the stylistic traditions of your various
disciplines
r make the most fruitful use of the time you have set aside
to revise your text in order to improve its cohesion and
texture – to bring out those resonances which will make
your writing really stand out.
1
Determinants of cohesion and texture
A coherent essay depends in the first instance, as we have seen in
many preceding chapters, on the careful formulation of the case to