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This article tackles the concept of discourse coherence, and its importance in the processes of language production and comprehension. It deals with the problems which may occur when the concept has to be explained to students of English as a foreign language, who may not be able to approach it intuitively. It proposes using seven key notions based on semantic discourse analysis to show how coherence is achieved and developed in English. The notions are explained and then applied to a real text in English.

The aim of this paper is to study the cognitive organization which native and nonnative speakers of English present with regard to modal verbs in English This was inferred from the semantic networks, obtained with the Pathfinder procedure (Schvaneveldt 1990; Schvaneveldt, Durso and Dearholt, 1989; Schvaneveldt, Durso, Goldsmith, Breen, Cooke, Tucker and De Maio 1985; Thompson, Gomez and Schvaneveldt, 2000), of two groups of subjects (native and non-native speakers of English) in a task dealing with modal verbs in a limited sentential context and with another task: a multiple choice test containing modal verbs in a free sentential context (Leech and Svartvik, 1975). The results of this investigation show context (limited / free) as a help for a better conceptual understanding, which make students more similar to native speakers in their command of modal verbs. Context is also considered as an important factor to gain knowledge on subjects cognitiveorganization, which is useful to teach this lexical group in a more effective way.

In this article, Seuren’s notion of mod-proposition is taken as point of departure to address the question of discourse topic. Seuren distinguishes between the classic notion of proposition (flat-propositions) and modulated propositions (mod-propositions), and assigns to the latter a topic-comment modulated structure which becomes essential to decide on the information structure of discourse, especially in terms of incrementation. Drawing from this propositional modulated status, different theoretical approaches to the notion of topic at sentence level are reviewed and special attention is paid to the syntactic functions identified by these theoreticians as predominantly topical. Then the empirical analysis of a small corpus of comment articles in English is used to classify the linguistic strategies employed in the construction of a global discourse topic; this procedure makes it possible to focus on those topics which gradually acquire global projection by re-use, in opposition to those pieces of information which are topical only at the local level. Based on this evidence, our research shows the linguistic mechanisms which allow for re-used topical information to gradually acquire subject status as discourse progresses and proposes thinking in terms of intermediate information structures as subsumers of local information and builders of global topics.

Bajo el paradigma de la neogeografía sobre el uso de las herramientas cartográficas, este artículo presenta una reflexión conceptual y distintas experiencias, que aúnan las aportaciones clásicas de la semiología cartográfica con las nuevas demandas de los ciudadanos. Los soportes expositivos, páginas web o atlas temáticos se han convertido en las herramientas para participar y cooperar en la ciudad, interactuar entre expertos y habitantes, reforzar las capacidades de los ciudadanos para empoderarse, y conocer con objetividad científica la realidad del espacio geográfico en el que viven.