Discourse and the Non-Native English Speaker By Michael Cribb

Chapter 2

Background

In this chapter, I will look at the theoretical background of the study and previous research. My intention in section 2.1 is to consider the theoretical background of the notion of coherence in order to produce a working definition of the construct. In this section, I will also consider the notion of fluency briefly. In section 2.2, I will review both the textual and evaluative studies on coherence, including the error gravity and the manipulation studies. In section 2.3, I will consider the issues arising from these studies and how these contextualise the present study.

2.1. Theoretical Background

In this section, I will look first at how coherence as a construct has been treated in the literature in order to construct a working definition of this notion. I will also examine how comprehensibility is related to coherence. After this, I will review how coherence has been investigated in the literature from two broad approaches: textual analyses and evaluative studies. The review of evaluative studies will include an examination of