Cohesion & reference in sophisticated texts

What it is

A long formal text names the same people, things and ideas many times. Repeat the same word and the prose sounds clumsy; vary it badly and the reader loses track of who did what. Formal Brazilian Portuguese has a toolkit for this: demonstratives that point back or ahead (este, aquele, isto, isso), anaphoric words (tal, o referido), chains of synonyms and general terms, ellipsis, and a few ways to remove ambiguity (dele, deste, o qual). This topic is about using them precisely, the way a good editorial, ruling or speech does.

The toolkit

este and aquele: the latter and the former

When two names have just been mentioned, este / esta points to the nearer one (the last mentioned) and aquele / aquela to the farther one (the first). Gender often helps: Paulo e Marina são irmãos: esta é médica; aquele, advogado.

isto and isso: ahead and back

In careful writing este / isto announce what is coming (O motivo é este: …) and esse / isso take up what was just said (Isso mudou tudo). Speech has merged them into esse / isso, but editors and exam markers still notice.

Chains of reference

Journalists rarely repeat a name twice in a row. They move along a chain: a ministra da Saúde → a titular da pasta → a médica sanitarista; São Paulo → a capital paulista → a maior cidade do país; Machado de Assis → o autor de Dom Casmurro → o escritor carioca. They also turn verbs into nouns to refer back: O governo anunciou que vai cortar gastos. O corte atinge a saúde.

Ambiguity and how to fix it

• seu / sua: in Brazil seu tends to mean "your" (você). For a third person, dele / dela is clearer, and deste / desta points to the last person named: O diretor conversou com o professor sobre o filho deste.
• que with two possible antecedents: a filha do vizinho que estuda medicina (who studies?). O qual / a qual agrees with the intended noun: a filha do vizinho, a qual estuda medicina.
• Pronouns with two candidates: O chefe disse ao estagiário que ele seria promovido (who?). Rewrite: O chefe disse ao estagiário que este seria promovido, or name him.

o mesmo as a pronoun

Bureaucratic Portuguese loves o mesmo as a pronoun: Recebemos o relatório e encaminhamos o mesmo à diretoria. Antes de entrar no elevador, verifique se o mesmo encontra-se parado. Style guides criticise it as heavy and imprecise. Use the ordinary pronoun (o encaminhamos, se ele está parado), repeat the noun, or drop it. O mesmo is fine with a noun or as "the same": o mesmo erro, fez o mesmo.

When to use it

• Editorials, essays and exam writing (ENEM, public-service exams): reference chains and este / isso are marked.
• Legal and administrative texts: o referido, o supracitado, a presente lei ("this law").
• Speeches: este … aquele lets a speaker compare two people elegantly.
• Conversation: almost none of this; speech repeats names and uses ele, dela, isso.

Contrasts and traps

• este = the nearer, aquele = the farther: don't swap them.
• tal agrees in number: tais medidas.
• cujo never takes an article after it: cujos nomes, not cujos os nomes.
• The comma of ellipsis: Pedro, Medicina — without it the sentence reads as a list.
• Don't overdo the chain: three names for one person in one paragraph can make readers think there are three people.

If you speak Spanish

Good news first: este and aquel work exactly as in Spanish, and Spanish style guides criticise el mismo as a pronoun too (antes de entrar en el mismo). The traps: Brazilian seu is heard as "your", so third-person possession goes to dele / dela; tal agrees in number (tais, like tales); and in Brazilian speech esse has replaced este, so you will hear esse livro aqui, while formal writing keeps the distinction you already make in Spanish between este and ese.