Cohesion as a Tool for Narrative Coherence: A Hallidayan Analysis of Chekhov’s Short Story 'The Bet'

Abstract

The research at hand discusses the involvement of cohesion and coherence regards the style of narrating in the literary works, with reference to Chekhov’s short story The Bet which contribute to the gradual formation of a cohesive and coherent narrative. Consequently, by using Hallidayan approach as the theoretical foundation of cohesion, the study examines how lexical ties, reference, ellipsis, substitution, and conjunctions as cohesive devices affect continuity of the short story and the expression of meaning. The study shows that while cohesive devices are used logically throughout the text, they serve both the function of establishing cohesiveness of Chekhov’s ideas and adding philosophical and moral dimension to the short story. The study explores how for linguistic cohesion as the means for controlling the reader’s comprehension of the story and its main themes of freedom, materialism, and human nature. In that respect, the research advances the knowledge of how textual coherence builds upon the concept of cohesion in the development of narratives, which remains important for the improvement of literary and linguistic analysis. It benefits the fields of literary stylistics and discourse analysis and will be of great interest to those studying language and textual construction.