The Role of Parallel Structure as a Cohesion Device in a Technical Text
The Role of Parallel Structure as a Cohesion Device in a Technical Text

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes cohesion as one of the fundamental properties of the textuality and parallel structures as the oldest and most common technique of cohesion. Parallel structures help to achieve grammatically, stylistically and in some cases lexically correct writing, because they adjusts the order of the words having similar meaning in the sentence. The parallel arrangement of words makes the structure clearer and the text becomes meaningful. There are five main situations where this linguistic device is used – structures with coordinating conjunctions, structures with correlative conjunctions, words in series, sentences incorporating function words, and comparisons and contrasts. Non-parallel structures refer to the sixth situation. A number of researches have been carried out, both by foreign and Lithuanian scientists, focusing on the importance of parallel structures as a technique of enhancing the text cohesion. However, this issue has not been analyzed in technical texts yet. Articles on information technology and control from scientific magazines have been chosen for the research. In order to reveal the significance both of cohesion and parallel structures systemic analysis of scientific literature has been performed. Quantitative calculations have been used to identify the frequency of parallel structures in the texts, and a comparative analysis of parallel structures in the texts of the Lithuanian and English scientists – to interpret the results of the analysis.

• Details
• Contents