This paper examines the cohesion in the 'smoking gun' tape, one of the released Watergate tapes. Through a careful analysis offour types of cohesion devices -reference, Substitution, ellipsis, andlexical chaining -I demonstrate that an unusual amount of ambiguity and vagueness isfound in the 'smoking gun' tape compared to that found in the 'backstage* conversations we have recorded. Cohesion devices are, moreover, shown to have both a uniting and a separating function: they do not merely tie together discrete utterances into a continuous text, but they also serve to erect a partition between insiders and Outsiders to a conversation. I then discuss how ambiguity and vagueness effect the understanding of conversations by examining the comprehension of texts against the background of two pnnciples of human perception, referred to äs 'snoopy effect' and 'duck-rabbit effect.' Finally, I illustrate, through an analysis of apassage in Judge Sirica's book, the extent to which these two principles must have informed the final 'gestalt' of the evidence in court.
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