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Discourse Analysis 5: Trương Văn Ánh Trường Đại học Sài Gòn

This document discusses key concepts in discourse analysis, including: 1. Given and new information, with new information generally coming last in English sentences. 2. Theme and rheme, with the theme being the initial element of importance in a clause and the rheme providing additional information. 3. Types of themes, including topical, interpersonal, and textual themes, and how they relate to the structure and progression of information in discourse.

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Phạm Ngọc Long Vân
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95 views

Discourse Analysis 5: Trương Văn Ánh Trường Đại học Sài Gòn

This document discusses key concepts in discourse analysis, including: 1. Given and new information, with new information generally coming last in English sentences. 2. Theme and rheme, with the theme being the initial element of importance in a clause and the rheme providing additional information. 3. Types of themes, including topical, interpersonal, and textual themes, and how they relate to the structure and progression of information in discourse.

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Phạm Ngọc Long Vân
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 5

Trương Văn Ánh


Trường Đại học Sài Gòn

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Given & New Information
In a standard sentence the information that
has been already known to the reader or
listener is referred as given information.
The information that is introduced for the
first time is known as new information.
The new information in a sentence or
utterance in English genrally comes last.
Ex: The cat ate the rat.
The assumed knowledge is that the cat ate
something and the new information is that
it was the rat that got eaten.

2
Theme and rheme
In a sentence or an utterance the
information is arranged in terms of the
importance.
In a clause theme is the initial element,
and rheme follows the theme.
The following sentences present the same
information:
- Chi Pheo loved Thi No.
- Thi No was loved by Chi Pheo.
In terms of theme, however, both
sentences are different.
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In the first sentence the theme is Chi Pheo.
It is Chi Pheo what Chi Pheo did is of
primary interest. In the second sentence the
theme is Thi No.
The Theme is the point of departure of the
message; it is usually what the clause is
concerned with. The rheme is the remainder
of the message; it provides information
about the theme.

4
There are three types of theme: topical,
interpersonal and textual. Topical themes
have to do with the information conveyed in
the discourse. Chi Pheo and Thi No are the
topical themes in the above sentences.
- Wow, your dress is nice.
Interpersonal themes express the
attitude/feeling of the speaker or reader.

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In the above sentence there are two themes:
interpersonal (wow) and topical (your dress)
themes.
Textual themes link a clause to the rest of the
discourse.
- In addition, Jack gets good marks in maths.
(Textual t.) (Topical t.)
In the above sentence gets good marks in
maths is rheme.

6
• Theme , in this lesson, can be viewed as
everything that comes before the verb.
EXAMPLE
James went to steal in Mr. Brown’s field.
The field is considered sacred by most
villagers.
The villagers reported the matter to the
headman.
A part of the rheme becomes the theme in
the next sentence.
Thematic Fronting
•  Thematic fronting occurs when the theme
is ‘marked’, that is,
• when some element of the clause which
does not usually assume this function is
made into the theme
• Banda they call me.
(They call me Banda.)
• An utter fool I felt.
(I felt an utter fool)
• A good teacher she’s not.
(she’s not a good teacher).
• Thematic fronting is often associated with
syntactic inversion.
• This can be of two types.
• The first is subject-verb inversion, which occurs
when a normally post-verbal element is moved
to pre-subject position, as in:
• Here comes the bus.
• There are our friends.
• Away went the car like a whirlwind.
• Slowly out of his cave came the cyclops.
• So say all of us.
The other type is yes-no syntactic inversion:
Never does he eat snails.
(He never eats snails).

10
Thematic progression
• The Themes and Rhemes in clauses are
interrelated with each other. For example,
the Theme (or part of it) in a preceding
clause often continues to be the Theme or
the Rheme in the following clause, and the
Rheme (or part of it) is often picked up as
the Theme or the Rheme in the next
clause, thus forming a thematic
progression pattern among successive
clauses.
Examples
The book you lent me is very interesting. It is really
worth reading.

Yesterday I saw Michael. He didn’t seem to be


very happy.

Tom and Peter decided to visit a remote village.


However, their expedition did not go as
expected.
When the theme in the following sentence
(clause) stands for the one or a part of the
rheme in the preceding sentence, there is
thematic progression)

13
Genre
Genre means different styles of literary
discourse such as sonnets, tragedies and
romances. Nowadays genre has been
adapted by functional linguists to refer to
different types of communicative events.
Different types of communicative events
result in different types of discourse, and
each of these will have its own distinctive
characteristics.

14
Rhetoric patterns
The ordering of information in discourse can
reflect certain rhetoric relationship such as
cause-consequence, problem-solution,
instrument-achievement.
Examine the four following sentences:
- I opened fire.
- I was on sentry duty.
- I beat off the attack.
- I saw the enemy approach.
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There are twenty-four ways to sequence these
four sentences; however, only one sequence is
completely acceptable:
I was on sentry duty. I saw the enemy
approaching. I opened fire. I beat off the attack.
There are constraints on the ordering of
information within a text. In the above text there
are two particular types of relationship: cause-
consequence and instrument-achievement.

16
I was on sentry duty.
CAUSE > I saw the enemy approaching. >
CONSEQUENCE > I opened fire.

INSTRUMENT > I opened fire. >ACHIEVEMENT


> I beat off the attack.

However, if we use grammatical devices, we can


change the sequencing of the information in the
text in acceptable ways.
17
While I was on sentry duty, I opened fire
because I saw the enemy approaching. I
(thereby) beat off the attack.
We may also use conjunction to change the
sequencing.
I opened fire because I saw the enemy
approaching when I was on sentry duty. By
this means I beat off the attack.
+ Grammatical devices: (conjunctions)
while, because, when, etc.
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THE END

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