THEME RHEME 2) Subordination

When I saw her I realized she had been crying.

THEME RHEME

Clauses related by coordination are said to be paratactically² related.

Clauses related by subordination are said to be hypotactically³ related.

Paratactically related clauses are typically placed in the chronological order in which the events described occur. In example 1, the event described in the rheme clause (Tommy’s sister bursting into tears) is understood to have occurred after the event described in the theme clause (Tommy hitting his sister). In hypotactically related clauses, however, the speaker/writer does not necessarily have to maintain chronological order,

2 A paratactic relationship is that holding between clauses of equal status. It is, thus, a relationship of equivalence.

3 A hypotactic relationship is that holding between clauses of unequal status. It is, thus, a relationship of non-equivalence.

thus in example 2 both the main and the subordinate clauses could be used as the starting point of the message (or theme). Therefore, I realized she had been crying when I saw her is equally possible, the only difference being the intention, on the part of the speaker/writer, to place what he considers to be new and important information at the end, and as part of the rheme in each case.

The thematic organization of the different clauses in a text is of great importance to the discourse analyst, because it reveals the method of textual development: “…by analyzing the thematic structure of a text clause by clause, we can gain an insight into its texture and understand how the writer made clear to us the nature of his underlying concerns”

(Halliday, 1985: 67).

8.1.1.1.4. Theme, subject and topic

It is important to note that theme is a different category from syntactic Subject and from Topic, even though “these three tend to coincide in one wording” (Downing & Locke, 1992: 222). Whereas theme is the starting point of the message, subject is a syntactic element of clause structure (the other elements being Predicator, Complements, Objects and Adjunct) and Topic refers to what the text is about (it may refer to the whole or only to a given part of the text). The following examples illustrate the fact that the three elements may coincide (a) or, contrariwise, may not (b):

a) The new president has been strongly criticized for his foreign policy.

Subject Theme Topic

b) In Spain, the people criticized the new president for his foreign policy.

Theme Subject Topic

As can be seen in b, the theme does not coincide with the syntactic subject. Instead, the theme is, syntactically, an adjunct (circumstance) which is realized by a prepositional phrase (In Spain). The topic does not concur with the subject either: when turning a into its active counterpart in b, the agent (the people) that was not named in a appears as the subject of the clause and the topic is now the direct object (the new president).

However, clauses may have more than one type of topic. Those topics which are introduced into the discourse for the first time are called new topics. New topics may become old or known topics as the discourse

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proceeds, or they may be abandoned completely. In b, for example, the people could be taken as an old topic and the new president as the new topic. We may also speak of global and local topics (Downing & Locke, 2006: 225). The former refer to those that organize a whole piece of language; the latter, to the topics of utterances and sentences, and these are the only ones that have a direct grammatical realization. In between global and local topics it can be said that paragraphs or sections in writing, as well as episodes in talk, each have their own topic. All levels of topic help to build up the coherence of discourse as a whole.

8.1.1.1.5. Marked and Unmarked Themes

Depending on the purposes of communication, certain types of information may be foregrounded or thematized. When the theme does not coincide with the expected first constituent of each mood structure,⁴ we speak of a marked theme. If, on the contrary, the theme co-exists with such a constituent, it is an unmarked theme. For example, the expected first constituent of a declarative clause is the subject, so if in such a clause the subject appears as the first constituent, the theme will coincide with the subject (as is the case in example a in 8.1.1.1.4.), and we shall say that the theme is unmarked. Contrariwise, in example b the adjunct In Spain has been thematized or foregrounded, and thus we say that the theme is marked. Here are two more examples:

1)

Sally will never pass that exam.

UNMARKED THEME RHEME

Never will Sally pass that exam.

MARKED THEME RHEME

4 The different mood structures with their corresponding (normal or expected) first constituents are: a) Declarative subject (e.g. Tommy fell off his bike); b) Polar interrogative Finite + subject (e.g. Do you believe in ghosts?); c) Wh- interrogative Wh- element (e.g. Who told you such a thing?); and d) Imperative Predicator or let + Subject (e.g. Do it now!/ Let’s do it now!).

For a more detailed description of this topic see Downing and Locke (2006:224-25).

2)

He popped the question.

UNMARKED THEME RHEME

The question he popped.

MARKED THEME RHEME

In example 1, the adjunct never is fronted and thus thematized; in example 2, it is the direct object (the question) that is thematized, both fronted elements thereby turning into marked themes. If we go back to Table 1 (in 8.1.1.1.) we shall see that in all the examples, except for the first one (Tom is coming for dinner), the themes are marked.

8.1.1.1.6. Thematization/Staging

As has been suggested so far, sentence word order is of capital importance for the organization of the information. The same applies for the order in which sentences are put into texts, because this order will influence the hearer’s or reader’s interpretation of the whole discourse in question. The speaker/writer always has to choose a beginning point: what s/he puts first will influence the interpretation of the text which follows it. This process, which has to do with the linear organization of sentences and texts, has been called thematization. A more inclusive and more general term than thematization is staging⁵, a term that, according to Grimes, refers to the fact that “Every clause, sentence, paragraph, episode, and discourse is organised around a particular element that is taken as its point of departure” (1975: 323).

It is interesting to note how the linear organization can be manipulated to bring certain items or events into greater prominence than others by means of the process of thematization or staging. The title of a newspaper article, or the title of a book can be considered a powerful thematization device used by the author. Thematization creates certain expectations in the readers or hearers in that the thematized elements provide a starting point which constrains their interpretation of the discourse that follows.

Brown & Yule illustrate this by presenting the results of an exercise they

5 Although some authors, like Brown & Yule (1983), make no distinction between these terms (thematization and staging).

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conducted using the following text:

A Prisoner Plans His Escape

Rocky slowly got up from the mat, planning his escape. He hesitated a moment and thought. Things were not going well. What bothered him most was being held, especially since the charge against him had been weak. He considered his present situation. The lock that held him was strong, but he thought he could break it (1983: 139).

Brown & Yule used this text to conduct an exercise in which they asked their subjects several questions, and they found that “there was a general interpretation that Rocky was alone, that he had been arrested by the police and that he disliked being in prison” (1983: 139). Another group of subjects were given the same text to read but with a different title, namely, A Wrestler in a Tight Corner. This group gave very different answers to the questions: they said Rocky was a wrestler who was being held in some kind of wrestling ‘hold’ and was planning to get out of it. They also thought that Rocky was not alone and that that he had had nothing to do with the police. This experiment shows how, by providing different themes or starting points in the thematized elements of the two different titles, the authors constrained the ways in which the texts were interpreted by the subjects.

8.1.1.2. Information Structure: Given vs. New

In his search for correspondences between linguistic elements and their functions, Halliday found that the tone group, apart from being a phonological constituent, “functions as the realization of something else, namely, a quantum or unit of information in the discourse” (1985: 274).

Halliday explains that spoken discourse takes the form of a sequence of information units, and he uses the term information to mean “a process of interaction between what is already known or predictable and what is new or unpredictable” (1985: 274-75). The information unit, thus, is a structure made up of two functions: the New and the Given. From a structural point of view, it can be said that all information units have an obligatory new element and an optional given element. The latter is concerned with information which is presented by the speaker as ‘recoverable’ (either from the linguistic co-text, from what has been said before, or from the situational or cultural context). The former (the new element) concerns whatever information the speaker presents as not recoverable by the hearer.

We say that the Given is optional from the structural point of view because, by its own nature, this element is referential or ‘phoric’ (i.e. it refers to something already present in the verbal or non-verbal context), and reference is often achieved through ellipsis. Ellipsis is a grammatical form in which certain features are not realized in the structure.

The Given typically precedes the New, and the New is always marked by tonic prominence. The element which has this prominence is said to be carrying information focus. Consider this example, in which the syllable in capitals represents the intonation nucleus of the tone unit:

A: Where have you guys been?

B: Well, I’ve been to the GROcery store, and Tim to the LIbrary.

GIVEN NEW GIVEN NEW

In A’s utterance, you guys is a deictic expression that refers to B (I) and to Tim, so by the time of B’s reply, I and Tim are a Given, and the New elements are found towards the end of each coordinate clause.

As noted above, on many occasions the Given is ellipted, and therefore the clause structure consists only of the New element, as in the following example:

A: What are you writing?

B: (I am writing) An essay for my English class.

(Ellipted Given) NEW

Here the first part of B’s response has been ellipted, since it would involve a repetition of part of A’s clause, and therefore would be redundant and unnecessary. Thus, the whole of B’s response can be said to be New.

8.1.1.2.1. Marked and Unmarked Focus

Regarding the information focus in normal, unemphatic discourse, the unmarked distribution starts with the Given and progresses towards the New. Downing & Locke (2006: 241) explain that this is often called the principle of end-focus. The focus normally marks where the New element ends (because it typically falls on the last lexical item in the clause) but it is not always clear where it begins, or where the boundary between Given and New would be. The distinction of such a boundary is highly dependent on other elements of the text or context, which are not always available to the analyst. If, for example, we take an utterance out of context, we will be able to tell that it culminates with the New, but will not be able to tell whether there is a Given element first. Suppose you overhear the following statement: