MASARYK UNIVERSITY BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION Department of English Language and Literature Lexical cohesion in Stephen King’s short stories Diploma Thesis Ostrava 2016 Supervisor: Author: doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navrátilová, Ph.D. Bc. Štěpán Boček Prohlášení “Prohlašuji, že jsem diplomovou práci vypracoval samostatně, s využitím pouze citovaných pramenů, dalších informací a zdrojů v souladu s Disciplinárním řádem pro student Pedagogické fakulty Masarykovy university a se zákonem č. 121/2000 Sb., o právu autorském, o právech souvisejících s právem autorským a o změně některých zákonů (autorský zákon), ve znění pozdějších předpisů.” Declaration I hereby declare that I wrote this thesis independently and that I used only sources listed in the bibliography section. ____________________________ Ostrava, March 2016 Bc. Štěpán Boček Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to doc. Mgr. Olga Dontcheva-Navratilová, Ph.D. As my supervisor she helped me to write this thesis and gave me valuable advice. I also thank her for her support, time, patience and constructive criticism. Anotace Diplomová práce analyzuje kohezní prostředky, které autor používá k dosažení koheze ve svých povídkách. Cílem této práce je lokalizovat, popsat a analyzovat prostředky v různých povídkách za využití kvalitativní analýzy textu. Teoretická část zkoumá různé typy kohezních prostředků - opakování, kolokace a lexikální řetězce se svými podkategoriemi. Výzkumná část analyzuje autentické texty a poskytuje popisy a analýzy vybraných části povídek z různých sbírek. Tyto analýzy jsou rozděleny do pěti kategorií- opakování, substituce, kolokace, lexikální řetězce a samotná kvalitativní analýza. Klíčová slova Koheze, koherence, lexikální koheze, kvalitativní analýza, kolokace, lexikální řetězce, povídky, fikce, lingvistika, lexikologie, současná literatura Summary The diploma thesis analyses cohesive devices which the author uses in order to achieve cohesion within his short stories. The aim of the thesis is to locate, describe and analyse the devices within different stories by means of qualitative analysis. The theoretical part explores various types of cohesive devices - reiteration, collocation and lexical chains with their subcategories. The empirical part analyses the authentic texts and provides descriptions and analyses of chosen parts of short stories from different collections. The analyses are divided into five categories - repetition, substitution, collocation, lexical chains and the qualitative analysis itself. Key words Cohesion, coherence, lexical cohesion, qualitative analysis, collocation, lexical chains, short stories, fiction, linguistics, lexicology, contemporary literature Table of contents Introduction ................................................................................................................. 7 1 Theoretical part .................................................................................................... 8 1.1 Cohesion and coherence ..................................................................................... 8 1.2 Lexical Cohesion ................................................................................................ 9 1.3 Reiteration ............................................................................................................. 10 1.3.1 Simple and complex repetition ................................................................. 11 1.3.2 Substitution ............................................................................................... 13 1.3.4 Equivalence ............................................................................................... 18 1.3.5 Generalization ........................................................................................... 20 1.3.6 Specification ............................................................................................. 22 1.3.7 Co-specification ........................................................................................ 24 1.3.8 Contrast ..................................................................................................... 24 1.4 Collocation ....................................................................................................... 26 1.4.1 Ordered set collocation ............................................................................. 27 1.4.2 Activity-related collocation ...................................................................... 28 1.4.3 Elaborative collocation ............................................................................. 29 1.5 Lexical chains ................................................................................................... 30 1.5.1 Identity chain ............................................................................................ 32 1.5.2 Similarity chains ....................................................................................... 34 2 Empirical Part .................................................................................................... 37 2.1 Repetition ......................................................................................................... 37 2.1.1 Repetition of adjectives ............................................................................ 38 2.1.2 Repetition of pronouns .............................................................................. 39 2.1.3 Repetition of nouns ................................................................................... 40 2.1.4 Repetition of verbs .................................................................................... 41 2.1.5 Repetition of personal names .................................................................... 43 2.2 Substitution ...................................................................................................... 45 2.2.1 Substitution by synonymy ........................................................................ 45 2.2.2 Substitution by a pronoun ......................................................................... 46 2.2.3 Substitution by hyponymy ....................................................................... 47 2.2.4 Various types of substitutions ................................................................... 48 2.3 Collocations...................................................................................................... 50 2.4 Lexical chains ................................................................................................... 52 3 Qualitative analysis ............................................................................................ 57 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 66 List of references: ...................................................................................................... 68 List of sources: ........................................................................................................... 70 Introduction The diploma thesis explores lexical cohesion in selected works by Stephen King in an attempt to show the importance of lexical choice in contemporary literature. The main aim is to analyze various aspects of the writer´s style and demonstrate why and how often he uses features of cohesion in different short stories. The thesis thus aspires to find different cohesive devices which enable lexical cohesion by analyzing examples taken from different short stories in the collections The Skeleton Crew, Nightmares and Dreamscapes, Different Seasons, Everything´s Eventual, Four past Midnight and Just after Sunset. King is considered to be one of the most popular and worldwide sold authors in contemporary fiction, writing both novels and short stories. In order to demonstrate the devices used in his writing, more short stories collections are in the scope of this thesis. Since lexical cohesion has been explored by many scholars and authors over the fifty years, the classification of lexical cohesive devices and the is described in the theoretical part of the thesis and then the different types of devices are analyzed in chosen examples of King´s different short stories. The theoretical part deals with cohesive devises such as reiteration, collocation and lexical chains and their subcategories. The thesis applies a theoretical framework drawing on Halliday and Hasan (1976 and 1989), Hoey (1991) and Tanskanen (2006) and uses a qualitative analysis of lexical cohesion in short stories by S. King. The thesis undertakes to explore what are the most typical cohesive devices that King uses in order to create a coherent text. An analysies of various passages of different short stories will try to illustrate the different types of lexical cohesion used by King. 7 1 Theoretical part 1.1 Cohesion and coherence The concepts of cohesion and coherence have been described by a vast number of scholars such as Halliday and Hasan, Hoey or Tanskanen. Cohesion in general is the linking within text that enables a text to hold together by use of various means of cohesion. Halliday and Hasan (1976) argue that cohesion “refers to relations of meaning that exits within the text and that define it as a text.” (p. 4). Thus the main idea of cohesion in general is to create a text that is to be understood by its readers and Tanskanen (2006) points out that cohesion refers elements of a text which form connections between parts of the text. There have been described two main types of cohesion and they are grammatical