The concept of theme

Once the whole contextual framework of language has been described in SFL

terms, in the remainder of Part 2, we are going to proceed to explain it through linguistic

analysis. Theme is a feature of the clause and its analysis is context-independent. However,

as Thompson (2013) states, to understand its textual function it is necessary to analyse it

within the text in which it occurs, where it has an “explicative” value. The role of Theme in the organisation of the discourse can only be appreciated when analysing the Themes in

coherent discourse. Thompson (2013: 145) explains that when we look at a language from

the point of view of the textual metafunction, we are trying to see how speakers constantly

construct and organise their messages so that it makes them fit smoothly into the language

event (e.g. a conversation or a newspaper article). In accordance with Grimes (1975), every

clause, sentence, paragraph, episode and discourse is organised around a particular element

that is taken as its point of departure, that is, the Theme. “By means of Theme, the speaker

presents what they want to say from a particular perspective” (Grimes, 1975: 323). The

text will tell us why the speaker/writer has chosen a particular Theme in a given sentence.

Thematisation, then, does not relate to the way individual components are

in the clause. The Theme of the clause is simply the first element of the clause with content

(not necessarily the subject). “When choosing the starting point for a clause — the

constituent that appears in first position — co-operative speakers select something which

will make it easier for their hearers to ‘hook’ this clause on to what has already been said” (Thompson, 2013: 146). Like Grimmes (1975), Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 83) also

describe the grammatical function Theme “as the element of clause structure which serves

as the point of departure of the message”. But Eggins (2004) disagrees with this statement

because it makes it hard to distinguish Theme from Subject. She prefers to keep to the idea

of Theme as “the starting-point for the message”, or “what locates and orients the clause

within its context” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014: 89). As Eggins (2004) rightly indicates,

although the functional definition of Theme is presumed to be universally valid (i.e. all

languages recognise some clause elements as Theme), the identification criteria are only

true for English (Theme is realised through initial position), where word order plays a

significant role in the grammar. In other languages, like Tagalog or Japanese, Theme can

occur in other positions in the clause (Eggins, 2004: 300). As we typically depart from

places with which we are familiar, Theme typically contains information that has already

been mentioned somewhere in the text or that is familiar from the context. Thompson

(2013: 147) proposes the following example from a newspaper report of an exhibition on

industrial history, to illustrate the concept of Theme (underlined), which changes if the

components of the sentence are reordered:

1. For centuries, yellow canaries have been used to ‘test’ the air in mining.

(Adjunct) It starts from the historical perspective

2. Yellow canaries have been used to ‘test’ the air in mining for centuries.

In examples 1 and 2, both ‘yellow canaries’ and ‘miners’ might be read as indicating that both will be the main topic of the article this sentence belongs to rather than just examples

of the interesting things dealt with in the exhibition.

3. In mining, yellow canaries have been used to ‘test’ the air for centuries.

It suggests even more strongly a restricted starting point.

4. To ‘test’ the air in mining, yellow canaries have been used for centuries.

The air has been ‘tested’ in mining for centuries by using yellow canaries.

The last two themes, in examples 3 and 4, are very restricted as starting points in this

context, and would be more likely to occur later in the article rather than at the beginning.

According to Thomposon (2013), the comparison of the different versions underlines the

fact that, although each refers to the same state of affairs, they are, by no means,

interchangeable. That is, “the different choice of Theme has contributed to making a

different meaning” (2013:147).

Martin (1992), notes that Halliday & Matthiessen (2014) carefully distinguish

Theme from Rheme (the part in which the Theme is developed) in the English clause.

Since we typically depart from the familiar to head towards the unfamiliar, the Rheme

typically contains unfamiliar, or ‘new’, information. The identification criteria for the Rheme are simple: everything that is not the Theme (the rest of the clause). Thus, once the

Theme in a clause is identified, the Rheme is easy to detect and “the two parts together

constitute a message” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2014: 88). It is necessary to determine the

Theme/Rheme boundary in the clause as well as how many of the clause’s constituents

belong in the Theme, and how many in the Rheme, as Eggins (2004) contemplates.

Matthiessen (1992), following Halliday, characterises the Theme-Rheme structure using

the metaphor of the textual wave: the thematic organisation is concerned with the

prominence followed by one trough of a rhematic non-prominence”, (Matthiessen, 1992:

42).

Lavid et al. (2010: 294) consider that, similarly to English, the thematic

prominence is achieved in Spanish by foregrounding some clausal material as the point of

departure for the message (the Thematic field), while the rest of the elements which follow

become rhematic.54 It is worth pointing out that, although both Theme and Rheme seem to

be complementary divisions of the English clause (and necessary for its configuration as a

message), the focus of attention in the SF literature is mainly on Theme. The notion of

Rheme has raised much less interest to the point of being considered disposable by some

scholars (see Fawcett 2003). Theme will also be reviewed in the analysis of lyrics because

its study may help identify the prominence of certain fronted topics that are repeated and

therefore relevant to the message that certain songs intend to convey. These are some

examples of thematic structures (underlined) borrowed from the corpus of songs examined

in this project:

It's just you I'm thinking of; That's how it's got to feel; For bliss is what your kiss is,

That's what I wake up each day for; one of these days these boots are gonna walk

all over you; Que amante siempre te adoraré; ramito de violetas que luzca en el

ojal; anoche soñé contigo; porque con la mirada tú me pusiste un telegrama, en

mis discos pueden ver mi corazón tal como es, etc. 55

54

Although in Spanish there may be differences regarding sentence order and structure, the theory used for the thematic analysis here is the English one given that the already-existing Spanish description is based on the same terms.

55 _{Lover, I’ll always adore you; posy of violets shown in my buttonhole; last night I dreamt about you;}