Are the Same Cohesive Patterns Used in English and Lithuanian Texts?
Are the Same Cohesive Patterns Used in English and Lithuanian Texts?

Summary/Abstract: The article, on the basis of English texts and their translations into Lithuanian, aims to analyze cohesive patterns in the two languages. The major study question addressed was that two languages, possessing features of different grammatical structure, might display different patterns of cohesive devices, especially in case of reference and ellipsis/ substitution. As far as lexical cohesion is concerned, the research addressed the question whether the two languages employ the same or different sets of lexical ties. To provide answers to the above mentioned questions, content analysis was carried out which focused on how particular cohesive patterns render the texts of SL and TL cohesive and coherent. Contrastive analysis, aimed at comparing these patterns, focuses on the ways they differ and the reasons for these differences. The research showed that the usage of referential items differs because of 1) presence/ absence of the articles in two languages; 2) the possibility to omit personal pronouns in the subject position in the Lithuanian language; 3) irrelevance of the inalienable possessives in Lithuanian. Different patterns of ellipsis/ substitution emerged because of a greater variety of substitution forms and greater amount of analytical forms in English. Differences in lexical cohesion are caused by stylistic preferences and languages’ semantics.

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