Analysis of Cohesive Devices of Mark Rober’s Address to MIT Class of 2023

Cohesion is one of the core concepts in discourse research, first proposed by Halliday and Hasan as early as 1976. They believe that if one part of a discourse plays a crucial role in understanding another part, then there is a connection between these two parts. They divide cohesive devices into grammatical devices and lexical devices. The grammatical devices include reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction, and the lexical devices include reiteration and collocation. Based on the cohesion theory of Halliday and Hasan, this paper analyzes the grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion of Mark Rober’s address to MIT class of 2023. By systematically studying the application of cohesion theory in speeches, the audience can better understand Mark Rober’s intention in his speech and have a certain understanding of the discourse layout of his speech. It is helpful for the audience to have a comprehensive understanding of the speech text; meanwhile, this can also help English learners understand the practical application of cohesion theory and apply it to social practice.