Deborah Tannen

Coherence in Spoken and Written Discourse Deborah Tannen

This collection of papers by linguists, with contributions from anthropology, sociology, English, and education, provides theoretical and empirical analyses of discourse to examine cohesion. Authors analyze discourse produced in a variety of settings, including chapters focusing on cross-cultural differences; children's use of language in and out of school; and the relationship between music and language. These papers deepen our understanding of features that typify spoken and written discourse and further the demonstration, begun in the collection Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy, that orality and literacy are complex and intertwined. Discourse structures and processes are dynamic patterns growing out of communicative goals which cut across spoken and written modes.