Toward a description of coherence patterns in contemporary Hebrew prose and Palestinian-Israeli Arabic prose
-
Bruria Margolin is a Senior Lecturer at Levinsky College of Education in Tel-Aviv, where she heads the Hebrew Language Department. Her research interests include the syntax, style and pragmatics of Modern Hebrew and Arabic, discourse analysis and academic literacy.
Abstract
The present study examines coherence as a language- and culture-dependent phenomenon by analyzing differences in intercultural coherence patterns. Specifically, it examines differences between coherence patterns characterizing contemporary Hebrew prose and those marking Palestinian-Israeli Arabic prose.
The data were extracted from two closed corpora, one Hebrew and the other Arabic. The corpora were chosen to reflect contemporary Hebrew prose and contemporary Palestinian-Israeli Arabic prose. The texts chosen from these corpora demonstrate significant and interesting differences between the coherence patterns of Hebrew and those of Arabic. The texts in Hebrew display “explicit coherence” in that they tend to be clear and self-explanatory and are characterized by explicit informational relations between events specified in the text. The Arabic texts, in contrast, display “implicit coherence” in that they tend to be unclear and are characterized by a superimposition of contrasting themes and scenes.
About the author
Bruria Margolin is a Senior Lecturer at Levinsky College of Education in Tel-Aviv, where she heads the Hebrew Language Department. Her research interests include the syntax, style and pragmatics of Modern Hebrew and Arabic, discourse analysis and academic literacy.
©[2012] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Toward a description of coherence patterns in contemporary Hebrew prose and Palestinian-Israeli Arabic prose
- Conversational management and pragmatic discrimination in foreign talk: Overlap in advanced L2 French
- Toward a metapragmatic analysis of self-review in research grant proposals: From relevance to metarelevance
- A discourse analysis of the Thai experience of “being krengjai”
- Responding to Bara: Tightening, explicating, and making consistent
- Book reviews
- Contributors to this issue
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Toward a description of coherence patterns in contemporary Hebrew prose and Palestinian-Israeli Arabic prose
- Conversational management and pragmatic discrimination in foreign talk: Overlap in advanced L2 French
- Toward a metapragmatic analysis of self-review in research grant proposals: From relevance to metarelevance
- A discourse analysis of the Thai experience of “being krengjai”
- Responding to Bara: Tightening, explicating, and making consistent
- Book reviews
- Contributors to this issue
