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Thematization vs Topicalization

Universidad de ChileFacultad de Filosofía y HumanidadesDepartamento de LingüísticaMagíster en Lingüística InglesaEnglish GrammarProf. Carlos Zenteno

Santiago, 2011

Integrantes: Yessica González

Daniela Silva

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INTRODUCTION

THEMATIZATION TOPICALIZATION

• Theme

• Rheme

• Topic

• Sentence Topic• Discourse

Topic

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THEMATIZATION

Theme + Rheme

Message = Communicative event

English Clause

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THEME

Starting point of the message

To orient the listener/reader to the message

To provide a framework for the interpretation of that message (Fries, 1995)

“Is the ground from which the clause is taking off” (Halliday, 1994, p.38)

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RHEME

The part in which the theme is developed

Develop the information presented in the theme

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THEME / RHEME: EXAMPLES

The children are playing hide and seek in the garden

In the garden the children are playing hide and seek

Very carefully the man took his son to the hospital

How he did it is his own secret

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THEMATIC PROGRESSION

A resource for analysing texts

Examines the ways information is developed in a text

Represents text connexity

Represents the text development

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Simple Linear Progression

THEMATIC PROGRESSION

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Example 1:

The eyes of the Happy Prince were filled with tears, and tears were running down his golden cheeks.

Th1 (The eyes of the Happy Price) + Rh1 (tears);↓Th2 (Tears) + Rh2 (his golden cheeks);↓Th3 (His golden cheeks) + Rh3;

 

Simple Linear ProgressionSimple Linear Progression

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Communication is a process of transmitting a message (1). The message can be delivered through oral or written expression (2). Through writing, people can communicate without limitation of distance and time (3).

Th1 (Communication) + Rh1 (a message);↓Th2 (The message) + Rh2 (written expression);↓Th3 (Writing) + Rh3;

Example 2:

Simple Linear ProgressionSimple Linear Progression

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TP with a constant (continuous) theme

THEMATIC PROGRESSION

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Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi on January 29, 1954 (1). When she was 19 years old (2), she became the first African-American news anchor on WTVF-TV in Nashville (3). She began The Oprah Winfrey Show, one of the most popular talk show in the United States (4). She got remarkable success in this program (5). She finally formed a company (6) and bought her own show (7).

Th1 (Oprah Winfrey) + Rh1;↓Th2 (She) (=Oprah Winfrey) + Rh2;↓Th3 (She) (=Oprah Winfrey) + Rh3; …

TP with a constant (continuous) theme

Example:

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TP with derived themes

THEMATIC PROGRESSION

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Ecuador is situated on the equator in the northwest of South America (1). The economy is based on oil and agricultural products (2). More oil is produced in Ecuador than any other South American country except Venezuela (3). Bananas, coffee, and cocoa are grown there (4). The people are mostly of Indian origin (5). Several Indian languages are spoken there (6). The currency is called the Sucre (7).

Th1 (Ecuador) + Rh1;↑[Brief description of Ecuador] → Th2 (The economy) + Rh2;↓Th3 (More oil)   +    Rh 3;

TP with derived themes

Example:

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Split RhemesCombination of model 1 and 3

THEMATIC PROGRESSION

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The only other considerable region in the world lies in Japan (1). This country shows a remarkable fusion of both densely populated rural and urban communities (2). Japanese peasant farmers, who constitute 45 percent of the population, practice a typical monsoon Asian subsistence economy (3), whereas the millions of people living in vast industrial cities have much in common with counterparts in Europe and North American (4).

Split Rhemes

Example:

Topic

Aboutness perspective semantic-pragmatic notion.

Not from the structural perspective.

Textual category.

Determined by the context, not by formal or structural aspects.

Topic vs Theme

There’s no automatic relation between the topic and theme:

Luxury, style, service, quality (theme),

this beautiful hotel (topic) has it all.

Aboutness perspective

the entity, proposition or main idea which a sentence, a stretch of discourse or a discourse in its global sense is about.

Delimiting the notion of topic

We consider: communicative purpose. shared knowledge of the participants. the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts.

A pragmatic and cognitive phenomenon, which can only be established in contextual terms (Moya Guijarro).

The topic

Does not always coincide with a specific constituent of the clause structure.

In many cases it expresses a main idea or a general concept that unifies and gives coherence to the text.

Applications

Sentence or local topics Discourse or global topics

DiscourseSentence

Sentence Topic

A single clause.

It represents the entity or the proposition about which

information is given at the local level.

It is a referential phenomenon, which is maintained through the continuous references that are made to it.

Discourse Topic

it represents what a whole text or discourse is about

it is defined as a cognitive schema which sequentially organizes and unifies all the local topics under the same topical frame.

It refers either to the global idea which the discourse or an episode within the discourse is about, or to the propositions, hierarchically organised, that constitute its semantic macrostructure.

Subtypes of Local Topics

5 subtypes:

Introductory Topic or New Topic Given or Known topic Subtopic Resumed topic Superordinate topic

Introductory Topic

Topical entities introduced for the first time in the discourse.

Activates an entity that later becomes a topic in the following text.

High level of persistence.

Known Topic

Already activated through an introductory topic or subtopic component, or presented by other informative elements of the clause.

Subtopic

Entities associated or related to a topic previously activated in the text.

“If an entity X has been activated in the given setting, then the speaker may present an entity Y as a subtopic entity, if Y R X, where R is a

relationship of inference.” (Hannay 1985:53)

Resumed Topic

Re-established through anaphoric reference after some time without mention in the discourse.

Continuity and Discontinuity.

Subtopic and Resumed Topic

Superordinate Topic

Evoke the general idea about which information is given in a text or a stretch of text.

Hierarchy

Study topical progression in a text either locally or globally.

We cannot assume all sentences in a text contain a topical constituent or that they can be segmented into topic and comment (what it’s said about the topic).

There are introductory sentences which cannot be assigned a topical status or even sentences that only contain focal information.

Local topic sometimes remains implicit, either for rhetorical reasons, linguistic economy or for possible interference from the previous linguistic context.

An example

In tourist brochures we cam find examples of sentence that lack a local topic.

This example shows only focal information that refers to the main topical entity about which information is given, Castleton.

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References

Downing, A. (2001) Thematic progression as a functional resource in analysing texts. Circle of linguists applied to communication.

Halliday, M.A.K. 2004. An introduction to functional grammar (2nd ed.). London: Hodder Arnold.

Moya, A. Jesús. (2001). Topicality chains in two discourse genres. Estudios ingleses de la Universidad Complutense.