Unmarked structural theme

Finally, in addition to the unmarked and marked topical themes, there are the unmarked structural themes. Their function is both textual and topical at the same time; they introduce a subordinate clause with a relative pronoun or an equivalent pronominal group. Table 6.15 below shows the results.

N Word EN F % Word GN F % 1 WHAT 28 27.45 WAS 28 24.14 2 THAT 19 18.63 DIE 21 18.1 3 WHO 12 11.76 DER 9 7.76 4 HOW 9 8.82 WIE 9 7.76 5 WHICH 9 8.82 DAS 6 5.17 6 WHERE 5 4.9 ANDENEN 4 3.45 7 WHENEVER 4 3.92 WO 4 3.45 8 HOWMUCH 3 2.94 DEN 3 2.59 9 WHY 3 2.94 MITDEM 3 2.59 10 DURINGWHICH 1 0.98 MITDER 2 1.72 93 91.18 89 76.72 Other 9 8.82 Other 27 23.28 Total 102 100 Total 116 100

Table 6.15 Unmarked structural themes in EDNA

Obviously, there are similarities between English and German newsgroup texts. What (was) is the most frequent relative pronoun, followed by that and who with 31 instances in the English newsgroup texts and the German equiva- lent, die, der, das, with 36 instances in the German texts. The German news- group texts have a greater variety of different pronominal groups as unmarked structural themes compared to the English texts. This is probably due to the existence of gender specific relative pronouns in the German language system.

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6.3.5 Textual theme

Apart from topical themes, there are textual and interpersonal themes in EDNA. In the following, we look at textual themes first and then interpersonal themes. The main type of textual theme is the structural conjunctive (coordi- nating and subordinating conjunctions). Table 6.16 shows the ten most fre- quent structural conjunctives in EN and GN.

N Word EN F % Word GN F % 1 AND 221 32.76 UND 193 33.80 2 BUT 76 11.86 DASS 102 17.86 3 THAT 76 11.86 ABER 59 10.33 4 IF 31 4.84 DENN 21 3.68 5 WHEN 28 4.37 WENN 19 3.33 6 BECAUSE 27 4.21 DA 17 2.98 7 AS 16 2.50 WEIL 16 2.80 8 SO 13 2.03 OB 15 2.63 9 OR 13 2.03 ODER 14 2.45 10 UNTIL 9 1.40 WIE 10 1.75 510 79.56 466 81.75 Other 131 20.43 Other 104 18.25 Table 6.16 Structural conjunctives in EDNA

In both the English and German newsgroup texts, 47% of the ten most frequent structural conjunctives are coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or in EN; und, aber, oder in GN). And as well as und make up for one third of structural con- junctives in the tables. But and aber account for about 12% / 10%, and the coor- dination with or and oder is far less frequent, with only about 2% in both sub- corpora. These results are in agreement with what Biber et al. (1999, 81) say: “And is by far the most common coordinator in all the registers […]. But is most frequent in conversation and fiction, and least frequent in academic prose. Or is far more common in academic prose than in the other registers.” EDNA has roughly 21,000 times and (EN) and 18,500 times und (GN) per mil- lion words. But occurs about 7,000 times (EN), aber about 5,600 times (GN) per million words. The least frequent coordinator is or with roughly 1,200 (EN) and oder with about 1,300 occurrences (GN) per million words. It is hard to tell

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from the bar chart on page 81 in Biber et al. (1999) exactly how many times and, but and or occur per million words, but it seems that the results from EDNA correspond best to the columns for the registers of conversation and news, and that the results from GN do not differ to a great extent from the results in EN. Unfortunately, Fabricius-Hansen et al. (2006) and Götze and Hess-Lüttich (1999) include no statements about frequencies of coordinating or subordinat- ing conjunctions.

Subordination of clauses is slightly more frequent in EDNA than coordination, with 53% of the most frequently used structural conjunctives introducing sub- ordinate clauses. For subordinating conjunctions, there are no frequencies giv- en, neither in Biber et al. (1999) nor Fabricius-Hansen et al. (2006) or Götze and Hess-Lüttich (1999).

The next table (6.17) shows the five most frequent conjunctive adjuncts which were used in the English newsgroup texts. Another 11 lexical items appeared only once. The same table also shows the five most frequent conjunctive ad- juncts in GN. These are significantly more frequent in GN, compared to EN. Apart from the five most frequent ones, there are another 17 conjunctive ad- juncts which appear twice, and 37 which appear only once. GN has a much greater variety of different conjunctive adjuncts.

N Word EN F % Word GN F %

1 HOWEVER 7 22.58 DANN 15 16.48

2 ANYWAY 6 19.35 NUN 11 12.09

3 ESPECIALLY 3 9.68 NUR 10 10.99

4 ALSO 2 6.45 SEITDEM 3 3.30

5 BY THE WAY 2 6.45 EIGENTLICH 3 3.30

20 64.52 42 46.15

Other 11 35.48 Other 49 53.85 Table 6.17 Conjunctive adjuncts in EDNA

As the final step in this chapter, we look at the continuatives. Table 6.18 below shows all the continuatives which were used by the writers in EDNA.

141 N Word EN F % Word GN F % 1 WELL 9 39.13 ALSO 8 27.59 2 NOW 3 13.04 SO 4 13.79 3 YEAH 3 13.04 NAJA 4 13.79 4 SO 2 8.70 NUNJA 2 6.90 5 HEY 1 4.35 ALSOLEUTE 1 3.45 6 WELL SORRY 1 4.35 7 OH 1 4.35 8 GEE 1 4.35 9 YES 1 4.35 10 OKAY 1 4.35 23 100 19 65.52 Other 0 0 Other 10 34.48 Total 23 100 Total 29 100

Table 6.18 Continuatives in EDNA

We see also the five most frequent continuatives from the German newsgroup texts, there are another 10 which are used only once. Thus, once again, the German writers use a greater variety of different lexical items than the English writers.

6.3.6 Interpersonal theme

Table 6.19 shows the five most frequently used modal adjuncts which function as interpersonal theme in EDNA. Another 14 lexical items (50%) in EN appear only once. In GN, there are another 26 modal adjuncts (66%) which are used as interpersonal theme twice or once, clearly a greater variety than the English writers in EDNA use.

142 N Word EN F % Word GN F % 1 SOMETIMES 6 21.42 VIELLEICHT 5 12.82 2 MAYBE 3 10.71 ALLERDINGS 2 5.13 3 PLEASE 2 7.14 BITTE 2 5.13 4 USUALLY 2 7.14 IMPRINZIP 2 5.13 5 CERTAINLY 1 3.57 MANCHMAL 2 5.13 14 50 13 33.33 Other 14 50 Other 26 66.67 Total 28 100 Total 39 100

Table 6.19 Modal adjuncts as interpersonal theme in EDNA

To sum up the previous chapter, we can conclude that in both the English and German newsgroup texts, the unmarked topical themes are mostly personal pronouns, and of these, mostly I / ich was used. In the English newsgroup texts, the marked topical themes were mainly adjuncts that expressed a tem- poral circumstance, whereas in the German texts, marked topical themes were often used to put the focus on the writer (mir, mich, für mich). The annotation guidelines differed in this respect, though, turning temporal circumstances in the Vorfeld position in GN into unmarked topical themes. With regard to textu- al themes, it has become clear that coordinating conjunctions are less frequent (47%) than subordinating conjunctions (53%). The results for the coordinators and, but, or (EN) agreed with Biber et al.’s (1999) statements, and did not differ much from the results for und, aber, oder (GN). For the other two types of textu- al themes, conjunctive adjuncts and continuatives, the German part of EDNA contained a greater variety of different lexical items expressing these functions. Also for interpersonal themes, in particular modal adjuncts in theme position, the German newsgroup texts had a greater variety of different modal adjuncts, compared to the English newsgroup texts.

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Participant roles and process types – the experiential