A. The Cohesion in The Korea Herald and in The New York Times which Convey
the Context of the Resignation of South Korea’s Prime Minister 1.
The Cohesion of the text from The Korea Herald entitled “Prime Minister Quits over Ferry Disaster”
The article from The Korea Herald entitled “Prime Minister Quits over Ferry
Disaster” has 7 subtopics which the 4 subtopics are similar to the article from The New York Times
, while the rest 3 subtopics are different from The New York Times. This article maintains its cohesion by using the cohesion forms of reiteration,
collocation, reference, and conjunction. This text does not use the cohesion forms of substitution and ellipsis.
a. The Arrangement of Subtopics
The order of the topics in news-writing is not merely a placement without carrying a purpose. According to the theory in news-writing, the topics should flow
from the most important to the less important. Although the topic flows from the most important to the less important, all of the topics which convey the whole context
give contribution to the cohesion of the text. We cannot say that what is stated in the last part is not important. It is also important but it is just being less stressed by the
media in order to set the right angle from their perspective. Another thing that matter is the appearance of particular subtopics. A news
about certain issue can provide some detail information which is different from other news from the other mass media. This loss and gain is what makes the angle of telling
the issue different. The subtopics that appear on The Korea Herald may not appear on
The New York Times , vice versa because some detail information can carry some
perspective about the issue that is discussed. This matter also can show what points that each newspaper wants to highlight. The Korea Herald elaborates the context of
the resignation of South Korea‟s Prime Minister into 7 subtopics. The subtopics and its elaboration are in the following points.
i. The offer of Prime Minister’s resignation
This subtopic is in the beginning part of the news article which describes the offer of the resignation of the Prime Minister. So, according to its placement in the
text, the offer of the resignation of the Prime Minister is the most prominent information that the readers should catch at their first sight of reading. The
prominence of this topic also reflected on the headline, “Prime Minister Quits over
Ferry Disaster”. The headline of the article does not mention “South-Korea” which is different from The New York Times because this article is an article which is
published inside South Korea, so the people who read this article already share the same background knowledge about which Prime Minister that resigns.
ii. The Prime Minister’s statements on his resignation.
In this subtopic, this text elaborates about some statements of the Prime Minister in the moment of his resignation. In his resignation, the Prime Minister
stated his apology to the people. He apologized for a series of problem that the government did due to the disaster of the ferry sinking. What he apologized for
includes the preventive steps, the initial response, and the follow-up measures. Besides stating the apology to the people, the Prime Minister also stated his offer to
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