Cohesion and coherence in RM BTS’s English speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) 2025 CEO Summit in Korea

Abstrak

This study explores how cohesion and coherence are established in spoken discourse, focusing specifically on RM BTS's speech at the 2025 APEC CEO Summit in Korea. The primary issue addressed is how a spoken discourse, situated within the realms of cultural diplomacy and business economics across various industries, can resonate with its audience through the use of cohesive and coherent elements enhanced by pragmatic strategies. The purpose of this research is to identify the different aspects of cohesion utilized by RM in his speech and to explain how pragmatics reinforces the overall coherence of the discourse. Employing a descriptive qualitative approach alongside Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this study integrates Halliday and Hasan’s theory of cohesion, Van Dijk's coherence theory, and various pragmatic theories that support the concept of coherence. The findings reveal that cohesion and overall coherence in RM’s speech are intricately linked and equally essential for constructing a compelling argument. The analysis highlighted 231 instances of grammatical cohesion, 39 instances of lexical cohesion, and 16 instances of coherence, all of which were supplemented by several relevant pragmatic theories.