Abstract
Based on Halliday & Hasan's theory of textual cohesion, anaphoric references and noun phrase organizers may serve as cohesive ties linking separate sentences into unified paragraphs. It was hypothesized their presence would affect paragraph comprehension and reading time. 12 experimental paragraphs were constructed. Alternate conditions incorporated noun phrase organizers and references. 119 college students read paragraphs and completed a multiple choice recognition test. Analysis of variance indicated only the noun phrase condition was significant. Within subject repeated measures analysis of variance indicated the influence of the noun phrase organizer could be attributed to its position in the initial sentence of the paragraph. No difference in time scores by paragraph condition was indicated. That lexical but not reference items influenced memory is discussed in terms of “old” and “new” information and alternate “checking” systems.