Kohärenz in laotischen Pressemitteilungen

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of a Lao text of the text-type ‘press information’ in order to clarify some means of textual coherence, including some functional aspects. Textual coherence is brought about by interpropositional relations, which, on their turn, are realized by meaning types and topic relations. Meaning types describe syntactic means of connecting propositions as textual elements. Topic relations are relations between textual elements established by referentially identical lexemes (i. e. topics). Characteristic of Lao texts of the above mentioned text-type is a mainly asyndetic connection of textual elements, according to the text-typical functional-communicative features ‘objective’ and ‘concise’. A great amount of topic chains has its starting-point in the headline of the text and is almost completely repeated in the first sentence. Most topics are repetitions of their first mentions. The interruption or ending of topic chains in many cases already after the first sentence are signals for a chunk-borderline at this position.