Identity Chains As The Confusion Of Reference And Lexical Cohesion [1]

Martin, Matthiessen & Painter (2010: 285-6):

The identity chains reviewed here are outlined in Table 7.5 below (with bridging items connected to their referent by dotted lines).

Table 7.5 Identity chains for the waves

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To be clear, from the perspective of SFL Theory, identity chains (± bridging) confuse referential cohesion with lexical cohesion. In referential cohesion, which is endophoric, the meaning of a personal, demonstrative or comparative reference item is provided elsewhere in the text. Lexical cohesion, on the other hand, involves relations between lexical items in terms of repetition, synonymy, hyponymy, meronymy or collocation (Halliday & Matthiessen 2014: 644).

The identity chains in Table 7.5 confuse relations between reference items (it, another, another, their, they, it, (yet) more, the) and their referents, with relations of repetition and synonymy between lexical items (wave, wave, waves, surf, surf, waves, waves, water).