Teaching coherence in verbal and non-verbal texts: an alternative approach

Abstract

Coherence is usually analysed by the textual linguistics paradigm (Fávero, 1991; Koch & Travaglia, 1997). We propose an alternative approach to this phenomenon in the basic education by establishing a dialogue between discursive semiotics (Greimas & Courtés, 2012, Greimas, 2014 [1983]) and dynamic semantics (see Stalnaker, 1999; Portner & Partee, 2002). From the first theoretical framework, we borrow the concepts of isotopy and veridiction contract; from the second one, we borrow the concepts of contradiction and that of common ground. The approximation of these two theories allow us to distinguish internal incoherences from external ones. The former emerge when there is a contradiction between ideas within the same text, while the latter emerge from a contradiction between a proposition of the text and the pool of common knowledge shared by the enunciation subjects. Potential applications of these concepts will be at first demonstrated in the analysis of simple texts extracted from social networks, then with visual texts and at last with more complex verbal texts. The didactic activities follow the principles of cooperation-based active learning (Pilati, 2017; Johnson et al., 1998; Johnson & Johnson, 2008). The proposed approach allows one to recognise the employment of incoherences for rhetorical, argumentative and aesthetic purposes.