4.1 Organizing ideas
An extremely important aspect of a functional grammar is the way informa-tion is structured in communicainforma-tion. If we are explaining something to another person, whether in speech or writing, we instinctively try to organize what we say in a way that will make it easier for the hearer or reader to under-stand (unless, of course, we are deliberately trying to confuse).
Most of us are aware of the way in which we structure large chunks of infor-mation in writing because this is something that is usually taught in school, especially for particular genres like essays or business letters, where we are encouraged to plan what we are going to write about, paragraph by paragraph.
Genres with which we are very familiar from childhood, like stories, come more naturally to us, and most children can tell a joke or even write a reason-ably well-organized story without too much thought by the time they are eleven or twelve years old. That is not to say that conscious knowledge does not help us to construct stories better. Successful writers are often well aware of the ways in which they construct their texts even though they produce sen-tences intuitively.
Spoken language too is sometimes carefully planned and sometimes totally spontaneous. The context makes a big difference to how we talk and how far we think in advance about what we are going to say. We can make a dis-tinction between prepared speech and unprepared speech. Prepared speech, as, for example, in an after-dinner speech or a formal lecture, is similar to the letter or the essay in that a lot of planning can go into the organization of ideas and the structure of the text. A speaker may write down the ideas in note form before the spoken event takes place, and politicians and other official speech-makers may have their whole speech typed out in full, sometimes even pre-pared by a professional speech-writer. With an ordinary conversation, however, we rarely even think about what we are going to say, let alone how we are going to structure it; it just ‘comes naturally’. Yet, when we study lan-guage, we can see that we do subconsciously impose a structure on our speech as part of the act of communication.
This structure is something which is built into the grammar of the language and happens at the level of the clause (although it affects longer stretches of text as well). All clauses have information structure and we make use of this in spoken as well as written language.
In SFG, we recognize two parallel and interrelated systems of analysis that concern the structure of the clause with regard to organizing the message. The first of these is called information structure and involves constituents that are labelled Given and New. The second is called thematic structure and involves constituents that are labelled Theme and Rheme.
We do not use the term ‘information structure’ to refer only to clauses that state facts or give ‘information’ in the strict sense of this word. Any type of clause can be analyzed for its information structure, including clauses which give opinions or instructions, for example. Similarly, any type of clause can be analyzed for its thematic structure.
Information structure and thematic structure are introduced in Sections 4.2 and 4.3 respectively.
4.2 Information structure: Given and New information
An independent clause is a clause that can stand alone. Given and New infor-mation is found in both dependent and independent clauses and in combina-tions of the two, but for the sake of simplicity we will consider only independent clauses at this stage.
In order for a person to understand what someone says, he or she must be able to understand what the speaker is talking about. Another way of saying this is that an interlocutor must be able to ‘use the sounds uttered by another to locate some appropriate area within his own store of accumulated and gen-eralized experience’ (Moore and Carling, 1982, p. 168). This means that in order to communicate effectively, the speaker must bring to the hearer’s atten-tion some element of shared or ‘mutual’ knowledge. This shared informaatten-tion is usually found at the beginning of a clause and is labelled Given informa-tion. Most clauses also include information that is the focus of the speaker’s message, information that is considered New. The two elements together make up an information unit.
Thus, if a woman expects her friend to make tea and calls to him, ‘The ket-tle’s boiling’, she is making the assumption that her friend knows what a kettle is and more particularly can identify the particular kettle referred to.
That is to say that they share the knowledge about the kettle, and this knowl-edge is taken for granted in the statement. The main focus of the information (the New element) is is boiling, which is found at the end of the clause. The information unit is analyzed in Fig. 4.1.
Information structure: Given and New information 65
With this meaning, the woman would speak the clause with a falling tone on the final element in the clause (the tonic foot), in this case ‘BOILing’. The syllable in small block capitals is known as the tonic syllable and is the one on which the main pitch movement of the voice takes place.
Of course, this is not the only way in which the words can be spoken. A dif-ferent context might require a difdif-ferent intonation, but the most common form is the one where the Given information precedes the New information. It is said to be the unmarked form.
4.2.1 Given and New in written English
Text 4A is an extract from a computer manual. The text begins with the head-ing in the form of a question (‘What is an Operathead-ing System?’). The function of a question is often to ask for information and here the writer of the manual uses a question that he imagines (quite reasonably) is in the mind of the read-er who has opened this book. This is a common device in textbook writing and is used to establish the area of mutual knowledge. Having posed the ques-tion, the writer can then begin the first paragraph with the words ‘operating system’ presented as Given and the rest of the sentence, the explanation of what an operating system does, is New. In fact, every sentence in this text begins with a reference to this shared concept of operating systems (although the third sentence also includes the shared reference to a computer), so the text is a clear example of the principle that the New information is regularly presented in the second part of the clause.
66 Information structure and thematic structure
The kettle ’s boiling
Given New
Fig. 4.1
What is an Operating System?
An operating system runs a computer. It controls how the parts of a computer interact and organizes information in and out of the computer.
Without an operating system, a computer cannot be used effectively.
Some operating systems are DOS, CP/M, OS/2 and UNIX.
Text 4A (Chua Chooi See, DOS 5: A Step by Step Guide1).
GIVEN elements in Text 4A:
Sentence 1. An operating system Sentence 2. It
Sentence 3. Without an operating system, a computer Sentence 4. Some operating systems
There are, however, two main exceptions to this general statement. One is at the beginning of a fresh topic of conversation or of a new section of a written text, where the whole of the information is new (although even there the speaker or writer is likely to identify or assume some ‘shared’ element). A classic example of a clause without a Given element is the opening of the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice seen in Text 4B.
Information structure: Given and New information 67
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
Text 4B (Austen, Pride and Prejudice2).
In this case It carries no information at all (see discussion of the empty it in Chapters 3 and 8). The rest of the clause, of course, carries what is technically called the New information. Remember that the message may be something other than ‘information’ in the general meaning of the word; in the case of the quotation from Jane Austen, of course, it is an ironical comment on the social pressures on families in the early nineteenth century to find rich husbands for their daughters.
The second exception comes when, by using ellipsis, we leave out the Given information and express only the New. Examples of this can be seen in the computer manual text above. The second sentence contains two clauses (a) and (b):
(a) It controls how the parts of a computer interact (b) organizes information in and out of the computer
In clause (b), the information is all New. The subject of the verb organizes, which would normally carry the Given part of the clause, is omitted.
However, the reader understands that the subject is also ‘it’ (referring to
‘operating system’). The grammar of English allows ellipsis of this type in certain contexts where the meaning is clear.
Thus we can say that an information unit consists of Given, which is optional, and New, which is obligatory (brackets indicate the optional element):
(GIVEN) ––––––– NEW
4.2.2 Given and New in spoken English
In real life (and in fiction and drama that imitate real life) language is always set in a social context. It is this context that usually provides the source of the Given information. The words that feature most commonly as Given in conversation
are pronouns referring to the interlocutors: I, we and you. Proper nouns, the names of the people or places one is talking about, are also very common.
Look at the example (Text 4Ca) from a famous English play The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. Immediately before the section quoted, which takes place at tea time, Jack and Algernon have been dis-cussing divorce, but then Jack does something which causes Algernon to change the topic of conversation. Notice that he does this by using an imperative clause.
68 Information structure and thematic structure
Algernon: Divorces are made in heaven. [Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at once interferes.] Please don’t touch the cucum-ber sandwiches. They are ordered especially for Aunt Augusta.
Jack: Well, you have been eating them all the time.
Algernon: That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.
Text 4Ca (Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest3).
In an imperative clause like Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches all the information is effectively New. Part of the shared element is the unspoken you. This can be unspoken, because, as in most imperatives, the context makes clear who the request is directed at, in this case, Jack. The word please is a conventional reduction of If it please you but here the meaning is more like It would please me if you don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches.
In Text 4Cb, a version of the same text as 4Ca but with only the conversa-tion reproduced, the informaconversa-tion units have been separated by slashes (//) and the New elements in the information units have been presented in italics.
Please don’t touch the cucumber sandwiches.// They are ordered espe-cially for Aunt Augusta.//
Well, you have been eating them all the time.//
That is quite a different matter.// She is my aunt.// Have some bread and butter.// The bread and butter is for Gwendolen. // Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter.//
Text 4Cb
We can see that, with the exception of the imperative, all the clauses have Given elements that are referentially linked either to the interlocutors or to previously mentioned elements in the conversation. However, in this case, each clause begins with a different Given element, each taking up information from some idea that was presented as New in an earlier clause. In this way a speaker or writer can structure the clause so that the Given element is already understood by the listener. Thus They refers to the same cucumber sandwich-es mentioned in the previous sentence. That refers to the whole of the infor-mation in the previous sentence (You have been eating them all the time), and She refers to the same person as Aunt Augusta. Bread and butter and Gwendolen both also have previous identical mentions. This type of organ-ization is extremely common in everyday conversation, but it is also found in written texts in many contexts.
As we said in Section 4.1, where a speaker or writer constructs a clause in the way outlined above (with the Given information first and the New infor-mation second), the clause is said to be unmarked. This is a matter primarily of intonation, the way in which the different levels of pitch (or tone) are used in the language to express meaning.
In an unmarked declarative clause, the New information is said to have the most communicative dynamism (to use a term from the Prague School lin-guists) and is signalled intonationally by a falling tone.
4.2.3 Difficult cases of Given and New
Not all clauses are as clearly structured as the ones in our examples above.
The letter in Text 4D, written by the English novelist D.H. Lawrence after his return to England from New Mexico, contains an interesting example of a dif-ficult case in the first paragraph.
Information structure: Given and New information 69
110, Heath St, Hampstead, 7 December, 1923 Dear Bynner,
Here I am – London – gloom – yellow air – bad cold – bed – old house – Morris wallpaper – visitors – English voices – tea in old cups – poor D.H.L. perfectly miserable, as if he were in his tomb.
You don’t need his advice, so take it: Never come to England any more.
In a fortnight I intend to go back to Paris, then to Spain – and in the early spring I hope to be back on the western continent.
The meaning of this letter is not difficult to decipher even though it was writ-ten a long time ago and was writwrit-ten to someone we do not know. Moreover, the rhetorical structure of it is quite clear:
Paragraph 1: The writer complains about life in London.
Paragraph 2: The writer advises the reader to stay away from England.
Paragraph 3: The writer explains his plans for future travel.
Paragraph 4: The writer repeats that he is in London and wishes he was back on the American continent.
What is happening, however, in this letter at the level of information structure?
How is the Given and New information organized? The first paragraph is par-ticularly interesting because, after the first clause Here I am, the information is not presented in complete sentences or even complete clauses. Every word and phrase represents new information: that is to say, the reasons why ‘poor D.H.L.’ is ‘perfectly miserable’. He seems to have found it superfluous to his communicative requirements to present the Given information in each clause and so he has just left it out. It is certainly not difficult for us to guess what the Given elements would have been had he chosen to express them.
There are a number of different types of text which present mainly New information. One common genre is the shopping list, a list of words or phrases, sometimes written for others to follow but more often written for oneself as a simple reminder of what to buy.
70 Information structure and thematic structure
I wish I was in Santa Fe at this moment. As it is, for my sins, and Frieda’s, I am in London. I only hope Mexico will stop revolting.
De profundis, D.H.L.
Text 4D (Lawrence, Selected Letters4).