Theme in discourse: 'thematic progression' and 'method of development' re-evaluated

Abstract

Fries (1981) hypothesises that the textual phenomena of 'thematic progression' (TP) (Daneš

1974) and 'method of development' (MOD) provide discourse evidence for the function

proposed by Halliday (1967) for Theme, in particular that 'initial position in the sentence,

or sentence-level Theme, means "point of departure of the sentence as message"'. This

paper discusses the theoretical basis for this hypothesis, in particular the relation between

TP and MOD, and reviews previous empirical research. Further research conducted by the

author is described, into global proportions of TP, TP patterning, and the relation between

TP and rhematic progression (RP) in a small corpus of 80 short argumentative texts. It was

found that only small proportions of either argumentative text, or high-quality

argumentative text could be considered as having a MOD. It was also found that texts had

comparable levels of TP and RP. It is concluded that MOD is not a universal feature of

discourse organisation, and therefore not conclusive evidence for Fries's original

hypothesis.

Theme in discourse: 'thematic progression' and 'method of development' re-

evaluated*

1 Introduction

In this article I review the theoretical and empirical basis for two closely-related concepts

which have been posited as being of use in discourse analysis, Thematic Progression

(hereafter TP) and Method of Development (hereafter MOD). I also report some research of

my own into the empirical basis for these concepts (part of a larger enquiry into Theme

described in Crompton 2003).

TP and MOD are associated with claims made for the function of Hallidayan Theme, a

concept which bridges the syntax and discourse levels of linguistic description. There are

perhaps three groups of people to whom TP/MOD may be of interest: syntacticians

interested in the claim that there is evidence from discourse to justify Theme as a unit of

syntactic analysis; discourse analysts interested in the claim that syntactic Theme expounds

discourse structure; composition theorists interested in the claim that certain kinds of

Thematic behaviour are associated with rhetorical competence.

2 Fries (1981) reconsidered

2.1 The status of TP/MOD

TP/MOD first appeared in linguistic theory in Fries (1981). Fries's paper seeks to address a

problem with Halliday's account of Theme: defining the meaning or function of Theme

satisfactorily. Halliday (1967) and (1985) set out unambiguous accounts of the form of

Theme but explained its function using metaphors: “the point of departure of the

message…the starting point for the message… what the clause is going to be about”

(1985:38-39). Fries (1981) can be seen as having anticipated the criticism that intuition-

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based metaphors such as these cannot be empirically validated. This criticism was in due

course levelled:

Perhaps he [Halliday] is tuned into language in a way that the rest of us are incapable of,

but those of us who can't easily pick out the parts of a clause which define "what it is

going to be about", or its "point of departure" are simply unable to decide whether any of

his claims about themes are right or wrong. (Hudson 1986:797)

A similar criticism of Hallidayan Theme appears in Givon (1995) the burden of which is

that because the communicative function of Theme has not been defined independently of

its form claims about Theme are empirically unfalsifiable and theoretically circular. Fries

accepted the validity of such criticism: “no real argument has been brought forward to

justify the statement that the Theme or beginning of a group, clause, or sentence means 'the

point of departure of the message expressed by that unit'” (Fries 1981:4). Fries's remedy

was to mount a defence based on "textual evidence" from "connected text". The detail of

Fries's defence is complex and discussed in greater detail below but in essence he argues

that the individual sentence Themes collectively may form noticeable patterns and that

these patterns play a text-structuring role. In terms of discourse analysis, Fries’s (1981)

implicit claim that a text's structure can be detected independently of the text's context is an

unusually strong claim for a purely linguistic analysis of discourse.

Fries (1981) has been influential within the school of Systemic Functional Linguistics

(SFL): Martin (2001) describes Fries's paper as "seminal" and "canonical" and Fries (1981)

is often cited by SFL scholars, most notably perhaps Halliday (1985), as a key to explaining

the function of Hallidayan Theme (e.g. Matthiessen 1992, 1995; Martin 1992; Thompson

1996). In discourse analysis literature outside SFL, by contrast, the MOD concept appears

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to have attracted little notice. The contributions of Hallidayan Theme to debate on

information flow and structure within clauses and sentences and the Halliday and Hasan

(1976) model of cohesion are well-known and commonly cited but the interaction of

Theme and cohesion in MOD/TP theory appears not to be so well-known. A recent edited

collection surveying discourse analysis (Schiffrin et al. 2001) refers to MOD in a

contribution by a leading SFL scholar, entitled 'Cohesion and Texture' (Martin 2001). Other

contributions entitled 'Discourse and Information Structure' (Ward and Birner 2001) and

'The Linguistic Structure of Discourse' (Polanyi 2001) make no reference to TP/MOD,

however. In other recent introductions to discourse analysis, there are several references to

Theme but none to TP/MOD (van Dijk 1997; Johnstone 2001).

Some scholars have questioned the text-structuring role claimed for TP/MOD. The

authors of another survey of discourse analysis illustrate the three types of Danešian TP and

argue that descriptive texts organised round time or location are well known for syntactic

patterning of sentence-initial adverbials and clauses. They continue:

It is doubtful, however, whether we can generalise this technique to a topic development

strategy for all non-narrative texts, as seems to be implied by Winter (1982) and Fries

(1983). (Georgakopoulou and Goutsos 1997).

Models of discourse structure from scholars with a similar Firthian background to that

of Hallidayan SFL also appear to discount TP/MOD as text-structuring. Hoey's (1991)

strongly cohesion-influenced Patterns of Lexis in Text, contains no reference to TP/MOD.

Sinclair (1993, 1994) proposes a dynamic model of text structure in which there are two

kinds of cohesion: (i) that which accomplishes encapsulation of sentence-level constituents

of previous text and (ii) that which does not. Into the latter category he assigns much

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cohesive patterning, including lexical cohesion, which is "not regarded as textual in nature

[…] not clearly structural" (Sinclair 1994:16).

From a composition theory perspective, Vande Kopple (1991: 339) drew attention to the

potential applicability of TP/MOD theory and suggested several pertinent research

questions, e.g. 'Do all texts have an identifiable method of development […]?' and 'What

are the most prevalent methods of development in contemporary English prose?' To my

knowledge, these questions have not been addressed.

In summary, Fries's (1981) claim that TP/MOD plays a role in expounding discourse

structure, has been accepted within SFL but either disputed or largely overlooked outside

SFL. What I would like to do in this paper is to re-evaluate TP/MOD, first considering their

theoretical basis and then looking at empirical evidence relating to them.

2.2 Problems in evaluating the core claims for TP/MOD

The core claims regarding TP and MOD in Fries (1981) are the following:

Step 1: Thematic progression correlates with the structure of a text.

Step 2: Thematic content correlates with the method of development of a text (and the

nature of the text). (Fries 1981:4)

Evaluating these hypotheses is difficult for a number of reasons. One of these is that neither

Fries nor subsequent Theme theorists thought it necessary to attempt definitions of the

terms used: TP was a concept borrowed from Daneš (1974) and MOD is treated as a

commonplace rhetorical term. I think it is helpful to recognise that following the adoption

of Fries’s (1981) ideas, when these concepts have been referred to in SFL literature (e.g.

Halliday 1985, Martin 1992, Matthiessen 1992, Thompson 1996) it is generally as

components of a specifically Hallidayan model of Theme in discourse. For them to serve

5

Fries’s original purpose, however, which was to provide independent evidence of the

validity of Hallidayan Theme, they need to be viewed as concepts independent of

Hallidayan Theme.

A second and related difficulty in evaluating claims about TP/MOD is that the relation

between the two concepts is unclear. Some overlap would appear inevitable but the precise

nature and the degree of the overlap is a matter for interpretation. TP and MOD are both

semantic and structural text properties. In his abstract Fries states that thematic content

correlates not only with TP but with "if the passage is outlinable, the outline structure of the

passage" (1981:1). My own reading would lead me to interpret Fries (1981) as intending

the following relation between TP and MOD: TP is the superordinate term and MOD refers

to a text structure based on one of the three TP types described in TP theory (Constant).

However, it seems clear from the SFL literature that a more prevalent interpretation (e.g.

Halliday 1985) is the following: MOD is the superordinate term for a text structure based

on any of the three TP types (Constant, Linear, Derived). The concepts of TP and MOD

have coalesced within subsequent SFL literature: Ventola and Mauranen, for example,

write of "all the major methods of thematic development" (1991:476) and the hybrid term

"thematic development" appears in the title and introduction of an edited collection on

Theme (Ghadessy 1995). To ensure completeness of coverage, I have chosen to designate

the two concepts by the awkward but unified label 'TP/MOD'.

To these terminological difficulties in evaluating TP/MOD must be added two more

concerning their epistemological status. First, there is some ambivalence in the literature as

to what extent TP and MOD are everyday linguistic phenomena and to what extent they are

ideal abstractions. Are they principles of linguistic description or rhetorical prescription?

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Do all texts have TPs and MODs – just as all sentences have Themes – or only rhetorically

effective texts? Do all rhetorically effective texts have TPs and MODs or only some? The

concept names themselves imply a degree of universality, i.e. that there is a semantic

progression in the cumulative sentence Themes of any text and that this Theme-based

progression is the method by which that text is developed. Fries (1981) could be

interpreted narrowly as hypothesising that where texts have a clear text structure, that text

structure correlates with TP and that where texts have MODs these correlate with thematic

content. In some cases, however, Fries seems to have been interpreted as hypothesising

more broadly that all texts have TPs which correlate with text structure and all texts have

MODs which correlate with thematic content, as exemplified in the following statement:

The choice of clause Themes plays a fundamental part in the way discourse is organized;

it is this, in fact, which constitutes what is often known as the "method of development" of

the text. (Halliday 1985:62)

A second epistemological difficulty in evaluating TP/MOD is that the more universal

statements italicised above seem in places (as in the last quotation) to have been interpreted

not as hypotheses to test but as already proven principles. Matthiessen, to take another

example, argues that: “thematic selections have been shown to key into [MOD] (see Fries

1981, for the original research)” (1995:26). MOD's discourse function has been further

explained by means of new metaphors, for example “[a] lens, an orientation, a perspective,

a point of view, a perch, a purchase” (Martin 1992:489). MOD has been positioned within

larger theoretical frameworks, also often associated with new metaphors – periodicity

(Halliday 1985; Matthiessen 1992, Martin 1995b), scaffolding (Martin 1995a), logogenetic

7

ideational networks (Matthiessen 1995). Such assimilation into larger theory may suggest

that TP/MOD are conceived of as universal rather than contingent properties of texts.

If TP/MOD were indeed textual universals, what would remain for research would

simply be the details of variation across genres. In this paper, I would like to step

backwards a little, treat Fries's Steps 1 and 2 as hypotheses to be tested, and examine the

evidence for and against them.

2.3 Evidence for claims in discourse

Regarding the general issue of evidence for research hypotheses in discourse analysis,

Tomlin et al. (1997) suggest that there "are three principal methodological strategies

employed in the analysis of text and discourse: (1) introspection-based analysis, (2) text

counting methods, and (3) experimental and quasi-experimental methods”. In this typology,

the methodology of Fries (1981) can be seen as a type (1) strategy – introspection-based:

Argumentation consists largely of documenting numerous examples congruent with one's

[theoretical] definition and hypotheses (Tomlin et al. 1997:101).

Martin (1992; 1995a; 1995b) and Matthiessen (1992; 1995) have written defending and

refining Theme using the same introspection-based methodology as Fries (1981), that is, by

documenting examples of TP/MOD in selected texts. As well as introspection, insofar as

Fries (1981) sought the evidence of third party informants as to the comprehensibility of

texts with manipulated Themes, he ventured a little into type (3) strategy – quasi-

experimental methods.

The main weakness of Fries’s (1981) own evidence for his hypotheses is its paucity.

The claim about correlation of TP and text structure, for example, is supported by the

evidence of two analysed paragraphs: how far these paragraphs can be considered

8

representative of text perceived as well-structured is not clear. Significantly, Fries himself

appears to regard Fries (1981) as in need of empirical support. Fries and Francis over ten

years later argued there was a need "to collect and analyse far more data" (Fries and Francis

1992:52). In a 1995 review of work published on Theme since Fries (1981), Fries describes

that article as having made two hypotheses (concerning TP/MOD) and adds two further

hypotheses (concerning Theme and genre, and Theme and generic elements of structure).

He argues that work published on Theme since 1981 "has generally supported the four

hypotheses" but argues for "a considerable expansion of the data which are used to test

them" (Fries 1995b:339), pointing out limitations in the size and spread of the data samples

used in previous studies. In discussing the lack of "robustness"' of previous empirical

studies Fries implies that, even in principle, introspection-based methods are insufficient to

prove generalisability. It seems clear to me that analysis of further selected texts (e.g.

Matthiessen 1995; Martin 1995a) per se cannot be relied on to support a general claim

about TP/MOD in discourse, any more than, say, the continuing citation of selected texts

written in blank verse would support a claim that all texts are written in blank verse. By the

same token of course, the continuing citation of selected texts which do not fit a particular

claim would not necessarily undermine it. What is required is to analyse representative

samples of language collected independently of criteria suggested by the claim.

Rather than replicating Fries's (1981) introspection-based methodology, one way to

confirm/disconfirm his hypotheses would be to employ a different methodology. Tomlin et

al. argue that “the best overall strategy in studies of discourse semantics" is "to provide

convincing evidence from an array of studies” (1997:102). The research reviewed below

and my own research employed a text-counting (type 2) methodology, in which "critical

9

theoretical notions are operationalised through a set of heuristic counting procedures"

(Tomlin et al. 1997:101).

Because form and function are so tightly knit in TP/MOD theory, operationalising the

"critical theoretical notions" is important. In discussing research on the relation between

language form and communicative function Givon points out:

If two entities A and B are said to correlate, then neither can partake in the other's

definition; otherwise stating that they "correlate" is stating a tautology. (Givon 1995:309).

To say anything worth saying about the relation between TP and text structure, then, a

definition of text structure is required which is independent of Theme. Similarly, any claim

about correlation of thematic content and MOD requires a Theme-independent definition of

MOD. In order to carry out empirical research on TP/MOD, two sets of operationalisations

are required: first, for the Theme-bound concepts (thematic progression and content);

second, for the non-Theme-bound discourse constructs (text structure and textual method of

development).

When the occurrence of these features in texts has been analysed and quantified, the

claim that these features correlate (TP with text structure, thematic content with MOD) can

be tested. To do this it is necessary to be specific about the details of the correlations

hypothesised: as Givon (1995:306) argues, to carry out research into functional grammar it

is necessary "to make hypotheses about form-function association explicit enough so that

they generate explicit factual predictions". It is then possible "to subject such factual

predictions to falsificatory testing" (Givon 1995:306).

In the next section I shall review the core concepts of TP/MOD from a theoretical

perspective, and attempt to flesh out what form the correlations might take. I shall go on to

10

formulate some specific predictions arising from the hypothesised correlations and review

the findings from previous text-counting empirical work in the terms of these predictions.

Finally, I shall describe further research of my own into the extent to which the predictions

are fulfilled in a small corpus of argumentative texts.

2.4 The core concepts of TP/MOD

2.4.1 TP and text structure

If Fries's were the first use of the term, TP might be interpreted as simply the global set of

Themes in a text considered from a dynamic perspective. However, Fries borrows from

Daneš (1974) a typological modelling of how Themes are connected with previous textual

content, reproduced here as Figure 1. What sometimes appears to have been overlooked is

that because Fries was working from a different account of Theme from Daneš, his account

of TP necessarily differs from Daneš's. Essentially, Daneš (1974) works within the

Praguean tradition according to which Thematicity is determined contextually rather than

syntactically. Theme, treated as non-Rheme, is discovered indirectly, employing "a

procedure using wh-questions, prompted by the given context and situation, for eliciting the

rheme" (Daneš 1974: 114). Practically this means that in Figure 1 "the formula TR the

order of symbols does not necessarily correspond to the sequence of expressions in a

particular sentential utterance based on this formula" (Daneš 1974:118). (It seems

appropriate to assume, however, that the vertical arrows, indicating the "contextual

connection" of utterances (Daneš 1974:112) transfer unchanged to Hallidayan TP.)

[INSERT FIGURE 1 ABOUT HERE]

Figure 1 Daneš's Thematic Progression Types (Daneš 1974:118-119) ( T= Theme, R= Rheme)

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For Danešian Theme the TP concept is not a claim about word-order but about textual

connectedness or connexity. For Hallidayan Theme, however, the TP concept is inevitably

a claim about both textual connectedness and word-order. Fries (1981) effectively adds to

Daneš’s claim – that all sentences in a discourse are connected linguistically to the

preceding discourse – a new claim that the linguistic exponent of this connection invariably

appears sentence-initially. The practical consequences of this difference between Danešian

Theme and Hallidayan Theme can be illustrated by attempting rival analyses of the TP of

the second of the following sequence of sentences from Fries's first sample text

[1] The process of learning is essential to our lives.

[2] All higher animals seek it deliberately.

(Bronowski (1959:111) cited in Fries (1981:8)).

For Daneš the (contextually-determined) Theme of [2] would be it (linked to the process of

learning), and the TP type Constant . For Fries the (syntactically-determined) Theme of [2]

would be All higher animals (linked to our lives) and the TP type Linear. This mis-match

between the Danešian analytical apparatus of TP and the Hallidayan concept to which Fries

has attempted to put the apparatus to work has practical consequences for empirical

research which will be discussed later.

Fries glosses text structure as "what ideas are coordinate with or subordinate to what

other ideas" (1981:9). Recognising and describing text structure is one of the core

endeavours of discourse analysis and there are many rival models from a range of

disciplines (cognitive science, sociology, natural language engineering) as well as

linguistics. Fries chooses to employ a rhetorical analysis of texts, using two text extracts

independently analysed by a scholar interested in rhetoric rather than linguistics

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(Christensen 1967). A feature of this analytical system is its simplicity. This could be a

drawback in that the simple binary distinction subordination/co-ordination appears to

conflate various notions pertaining to text structure such as dependency, hierarchy,

weighting.

Fries's discussion of the two example texts seems to propose the following correlations:

TP type Structural feature

Linear subordination

Constant co-ordination

One feature of this correlation is that it leaves out mention of a structural correlate for

Derived TP. Another feature is that there is no TP type to correlate with superordination,

that is no TP to indicate that a sentence is structurally higher than its predecessor, unless

co-ordinate with a higher previous Theme. Logically, this means that the opening sentence

of a text must always be at the apex of the text’s structure: in terms of Fries's visual

representation of structure as patterns of indentation it would be impossible for sentences to

appear to the left of the opening sentence. This appears to be an inherited feature of

Christensen’s original modelling of rhetorical structure, and accords with the privileging of

linear priority inherent in TP. If the correlation holds good, the linearity of a text constrains

the formation of its hierarchy. Such a linearity constraint is not a necessary feature of

models of discourse organisation (e.g. the Problem-Solution-type patterning discussed in

Hoey (1983), Mann and Thompson’s Rhetorical Structure Theory (1987), Polanyi's

Linguistic Discourse Model (1988)). On the basis of the exemplar texts in Fries (1981) it

would seem to be the case either (a) that Fries is implying that the first sentence is

13

paramount structurally in well-formed texts, or (b) that there happens to be no TP type

which correlates with non-text-initial sentences which are paramount structurally.

One of Fries's major arguments is that broadly narrative texts will be characterised by a

structure of repeated co-ordination/Constant TP, while expository and argumentative

texts by contrast will be characterised by a structure of repeated subordination/Linear TP.

As well as citing Christensen's (1967) Theme-independent analyses of text structure, Fries

also makes the following observation as to the model relation between TP and text

structure:

ideally, in argumentative or expository prose, each sentence should follow logically from

what has gone before. This implies in part that the point of departure of each sentence

should relate in some way to what has preceded. If there are unexplained jumps in the

sequence of starting points, that implies that there are breaks in the argument. (Fries

1981:6)

Such an account of the structure of argumentative texts is intuitively appealing. However, it

offers no argument why points of departure or starting points of sentences should be found

in their (Hallidayan) syntactic Theme. That this is actually the case would have to be

demonstrated empirically.

2.4.2 Thematic content and MOD

'Thematic content' seems a relatively straightforward concept, denoting the content of the

global set of Themes in a text. Similarly to text structure, MOD is argued to be a perceived

textual property. The origin of the term is not given by Fries. It sounds like a term from

composition theory but I have been unable to trace an example of its use. Its function, to

develop the text, is "obvious" or recognised by readers according to Fries (1981:15). MOD

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is distinct from other textual properties possibly perceived by readers, for example, topic

and message, although Fries notes that topic and MOD may be identical.

Fries depicts the kind of content which correlates with MOD as collectively constituting

(a) a general semantic concept, e.g. relative position, reference to component parts,

contrast in time and/or (b) a lexical system, e.g. living-growing-changing, wisdom versus

chance, concepts to do with government. Fries's hypothesis of correlation between thematic

content and MOD suggests a simple two-term system:

…if the themes of most of the sentences of a paragraph refer to one semantic field (say,

location, parts of some object, wisdom vs. chance, etc.), then that semantic field will be

perceived as the method of development of the paragraph. If no common semantic

element runs through the themes of the sentences of a paragraph, then no simple method

of development will be perceived. (Fries 1981:20)

Mention of both a ‘simple’ and later a ‘single’ MOD suggests that there might be

contrasting complex or multiple MODs but Fries does not pursue this suggestion.

Presumably too great a complexity of MOD would militate against the functional

requirement of MOD that it be obvious to the reader and too many semantic elements in an

MOD would be the equivalent of zero-MOD. The textual meaning of not having a single

MOD is not specified, but one implication of Fries’s article is that single MODs are

associated with texts perceived as rhetorically effective.

In a later paper Fries clarifies that because MOD is a psychological phenomenon, the

correlation hypothesis – that reader perceptions of MOD are associated with Theme content

– should be "testable using standard psychological testing techniques" although this has not

yet been done (1995a:9).

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3 Previous text-counting research on TP/MOD

3.1 Background

The relative paucity of text-counting studies on TP/MOD may be a result of theoretical

difficulties over analysing Theme. Hasan and Fries (1995) discuss some of these and

conclude that "both [Theme's] definition and its recognition criteria stand in need of further

clarification" (Hasan and Fries 1995:xxxviii-xxxix). Continuing debate about correct

placement of boundary between Theme and Rheme, for example, (as carried on explicitly

in Downing 1991, Ravelli 1995, Berry 1996, and implicitly in Fries 1981, Hawes and

Thomas 1996 and 1997, Mauranen 1996) has practical implications for the

operationalisations of Theme on which text counting research into TP/MOD must be based.

Of the two concepts, text-counting work appears to have been done explicitly on TP

rather than on MOD. This may arise from (a) the general conflation of the concepts

mentioned earlier and (b) the expense and difficulty of setting up psychological testing

procedures to identify MOD and non-MOD texts. Overall, research has taken the form of

addressing how TP is instantiated in texts. Assuming some kind of regular relation between

TP and MOD, the larger issue of whether and if so how much MOD is instantiated in text

does not appear to have been explicitly addressed.

In considering the research on TP, I shall begin by attempting to answer the question

"What predictions would Fries's (1981) hypotheses lead us to make about counts of TP in

textual data?" and then compare these predictions with actual findings. Overall, it appears

to me that Fries's hypothesis predicts two broad kinds of text: narrative texts structured by

the mechanism of a pattern of Constant TP and non-narrative texts structured by the

mechanism of a pattern of Linear TP. This prediction can usefully be broken down into

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three sub-predictions concerning related issues: (a) correlation between TP-type and genre,

(b) patterning or sequences of homogeneous TP, and (c) the sufficiency of the TP

typology. A fourth prediction – and the one of most interest to composition teachers –

relates to the issue mentioned earlier of whether MOD’s status is descriptive or prescriptive

(i.e. whether MOD is conceived as an unmarked textual norm or as a rhetorical ideal). For

convenience sake I shall call this the (d) quality prediction. The discussion of previous

research which follows is organised around each of these predictions in turn. In each case,

the prediction is stated in its most extreme form. Given that we are dealing with texts,

which are not ‘rule-bound’, it is immediately unlikely that the predictions will be borne out

in the way that they are formulated here. However, expressing them in simple, unhedged

form has the advantage of making it clearer precisely what issues are involved and what

kind of evidence is needed as a basis for reliable claims.

3.2 Genre

Prediction: In narrative texts all or most sentences will be found to have Constant TP,

while in argumentative and expository texts all or most sentences will be found to have

Linear TP.

Fries cites work by Enkvist (1978), who analysed fifteen sample text segments from

different literary and academic texts in terms of global proportions of the various TP types,

and found "two major stylistic poles": a 'static' style in which (translated into Fries’s terms)

Constant TPs predominate over Linear TPs, exemplified by a Hemingway novel extract,

and a 'dynamic' style, exemplified by a social science article, in which Linear TPs

(translated into Fries’s terms) predominate over Constant TPs. Dubois (1987) analysed TP

in independent clauses in an academic conference paper and found Linear TPs were far

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more common than Constant TPs. Both Francis (1990) and Gomez (1994) found Constant

TPs to predominate in narrative genres, news stories. Fries (1995b) analysed TP in three

kinds of texts: obituaries, narratives, and an expository text. Overall he found that Constant

TPs predominate in narrative texts (obituaries and narratives for children) and that Linear

TPs predominate in descriptive sections of narrative texts and expository texts. Constant

TPs predominated in narratives for adults but less so than in narratives for children. Hawes

and Thomas (1996) compared TP in the editorials of two British newspapers, The Sun and

The Times. While Linear occurred at similar levels in each newspaper, Constant TP

occurred twice as often in Sun editorials as in Times editorials. Ventola and Mauranen

(1991) found similar proportions of both Linear and Constant TP in social science journal

articles written in English by native English and Finnish speakers.

Overall, then, research suggests that the prediction overstates the case but that it is

correct to some extent: narrative texts are likely to have greater proportions of Constant TPs

than of Linear TPs; in expository and argumentative texts these relative proportions are

likely to be either equal or reversed. The proportion of Derived TPs, however, is

unpredicted: this is discussed further under the sufficiency prediction below.

3.3 Patterning

Prediction: In texts perceived as well-structured the constituent sentences will be found to

have the same type of TP. Thus there will be patterning formed by sequences of

homogeneous TP.

Fries (1981:9) offers as evidence of a "strong correlation" between the TP within a

paragraph and its "perceived structure” two TP example text-segments. In the text

exemplifying Linear TP, Fries notes that only one of the six sentences deviates from this

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TP. (Fries illustrates Constant and Linear patterning but does not discuss whether it is

possible for sequences of Derived TP to form patterns: I discuss this issue below in

reporting my own research (§4)).

The strongest evidence in support of the patterning prediction are the findings of Gomez

(1994) who looked at TP in radio news broadcasts and found a "very smooth" single type

(Constant) was the norm. Researchers who looked for patterned sequences in samples from

other genres had different findings. Francis (1990) analysed TP in three different text types

found in newspapers – News, Editorials, Letters. In News she found Constant TPs

"common…but by no means universal”. In Editorials and Letters it was “difficult to see a

theme-rheme pattern emerging, even at paragraph level" (1990:70). Hawes and Thomas

(1997) counted length of sequences of TPs of a single type in texts by NNES learners of

English of differing proficiency levels. They report that the Advanced learners were less

than half as likely as Lower Intermediates to use sequences of three or more progressions of

a single type. It is worth noting in addition that most researchers have sought to distinguish

between TPs which referred to the previous sentence and those which referred to an earlier

sentence, categorising the latter as 'non-contiguous progressions' (Dubois 1987) 'thematic

jumps' (Mauranen 1996), 'gaps' (Hawes and Thomas 1997), 'skips' (Fries 1995b).

Overall, these findings suggest that rather than being either a discourse norm or a

discourse ideal, homogeneity of TP may be associated with narrative texts, in particular

oral narratives, and texts by lower proficiency learners.

3.4 Sufficiency

Prediction: In all texts, all sentences will be found to fit one of the TP types.

19

In practice, the degree of fit between Fries’s adopted TP typology and the data varies

according to the analytical practice of the researcher. The biggest areas of variation are in

the treatment of (i) Derived TP and (ii) non-Thematic Progression.

As already noted Fries (1981) contained no exemplar text for Derived TP and has little

to say about its structural implications or its association with genre. Both Dubois (1987)

and Hawes and Thomas (1996) counted Derived TPs and noted that the hyper-Theme from

which such Themes derived could lack a textual exponent in the previous text and need to

be inferred. Hawes and Thomas (1996) found this category of TP extremely common:

Derived TP was the main TP type in every Times editorial and half of the Sun editorials.

Hawes and Thomas (1997) also found a correlation between ESL proficiency and Derived

TP: Derived TPs constituted a third of the TPs in Advanced learners' but only 5% in Lower

Intermediate learners' writing. Ventola and Mauranen (1991) found that journal articles by

native English speakers contained Derived TPs while similar articles in English by native

Finnish speakers did not. Mauranen (1996), by contrast, decided that Derived TP was a

synoptic category and that in terms of a dynamic analysis all TPs could effectively be

categorised as Constant or Linear. All these findings are from argumentative genres, so the

issue of whether Derived TPs also appear in narrative genres has not yet been addressed.

Perhaps the safest summary of these findings is that where Derived TP was measured it was

found to be associated with either style or English proficiency rather than with genre.

Several researchers encountered TPs which could not be accounted for in terms of

Fries's typology. Dubois (1987) suggested the term ‘unrecoverable’ TP. Ventola and

Mauranen (1991) classed TPs which did not fit as ‘unmotivated’ and found 25% were in

this class. These nearly all occurred paragraph-initially, which might offer Fries’s theory

20

the missing structural correlate of Derived TP. Mauranen (1996) found 'unmotivated' TPs

rare in articles by native-speaker writers in either English or Finnish but not uncommon in

articles by non-native English speaking Finns writing in English: her conclusion was that

such TPs are characteristic of deviant, lower proficiency English. Hawes and Thomas

(1996) classed TPs which do not fit the typology as breaks. Overall, 31% of the TPs in Sun

editorials and 15% of the TPs in Times editorials were classed as breaks. In Hawes and

Thomas’s (1997) ESL learner texts there was considerable variation but for most groups

breaks accounted for around at least around a quarter of all progressions. Unfortunately,

they do not record whether these breaks correlated with paragraph boundaries.

Many researchers (including Enkvist 1974, Mauranen 1996, Hawes and Thomas 1996,

and Cloran 1995) noted another kind of omission in the TP typology: there were occasions

when a Theme had no cohesive link with previous text but there was such a link in the

Rheme – what we might class Rhematic Progression (hereafter RP). However, counts of RP

where recorded are unreliable because RP was considered only as a fall-back option. In

fact, it is possible that the same sentence could contain both a TP and an RP. As Enkvist

(1974) noted, to avoid the in-built Theme bias of TP analysis one would need to carry out

two independent text analyses. While Mauranen (1996) considers RP in her data as

deviance from native English-speaker norms, Cloran (1995), looking at mother-child

dialogues, reaches an almost opposite conclusion: she argues that TPs and RPs mark

different kinds of relation in a hierarchy of text structure: TPs indicate embedding and RPs

expansion. This seems a similar claim in nature, though quite different in detail, to Fries's

claim about the correlation between different TP types and subordination/coordination.

21

Overall, then, there is widespread evidence that Fries’s TP typology is insufficient to

cover the numerically significant kinds of Theme-Rheme progression observable in

argumentative texts.

3.5 Quality

Prediction: Texts conforming to the correlations hypothesised in the patterning and genre

predictions are more likely to attract favourable judgements of quality than texts deviating

from these correlations.

Of the studies cited only Mauranen’s (1996) appears to offer indirect confirmation of this

prediction. Overall, only three studies looked at texts written by non-native-English

speakers and in those cases only non-narrative texts were analysed. In the absence of

analyses of narrative texts by NNES writer, and given that most researchers found

considerably more complexity and variation in the TP in non-narrative texts by NES writers

than did Mauranen, the bulk of the research discussed cannot be regarded as confirming the

quality prediction.

3.6 Summary

The genre prediction is partly supported in that the research suggests that there is

something of a correlation between Constant TP and narrative segments of text. Such text is

likely to have a higher proportion of Constant TPs and more extended sequences of

Constant TP than non-narrative text. The predicted correlation of non-narrative and Linear

TP is much less supported. The patterning prediction is little supported: extended

sequences of homogeneous TP of any type are rare. The sufficiency prediction is also little

supported: Derived TPs and sentences without recognisable TP are much more common

than predicted. Finally, there is little evidence either way for the quality prediction.

22

Before leaving this discussion of previous research, it ought to be noted that theoretical

differences mean that the studies considered are not entirely comparable. The commonest

unit of analysis was the independent clause, with initial subordinate clauses treated as

thematic (Gomez (1994) alone counting the themes of subordinate clauses). How Theme

extent was determined varied more: Enkvist (1974) considered everything prior to the main

verb as thematic, Mauranen (1996) everything up to the end of the subject, while Hawes

and Thomas (1996; 1997) included the subject in the case of “adjunct-only” Themes.

Francis (1990) adhered to Fries’s (1981) guidelines.

4 Further text-counting research on TP/MOD in argumentative texts

I will now report some research of my own, designed to further evaluate Fries’s (1981)

hypotheses, with reference to the same predictions discussed in the previous section, i.e.

genre, patterning, sufficiency and quality.

4.1 Methodology

4.1.1 The data

I chose to focus on a text-type which, in my experience, is often required of students on

EAP courses – an argumentative essay which discusses a controversial issue and expresses

and defends a point of view on the issue. I decided to analyse texts by NES and NNES

writers, sharing Mauranen’s assumption (1996) that texts by NES writers are more likely to

attract favourable judgements of writing quality than texts by NNES writers.

My NNES data was taken from examination essays for a one year EAP course for

Universiti Brunei Darussalam management faculty first year undergraduates. The essay

prompt required candidates to make a case for one of two opposed approaches to an issue

23

(that of delegating responsibility for managerial decision-making). In order to allow a more

fine-grained analysis of the quality prediction, it was decided to analyse two NNES

samples, a high and low quality sample. To arrive at (Theme-independent) judgements of

writing quality the following procedure was adopted. Each of the 57 answers to the EAP

examination prompt had had a mark out 15 assigned to it by the original

instructor/examiner. I arranged for the scripts to be second-marked by an experienced EAP

teacher from the same department and given a holistic score from 1 – 6. Each rater's set of

marks was ranked and the two rankings combined. The twenty at the higher (higher-graded)

end of the combined ranking were placed into one subcorpus and the twenty at the lower

(lower-graded) end of the combined ranking into another. The marks were allocated

holistically and in ignorance of the topic of my research.

I wanted to analyse Native-English speaker (NES) data as similar to this data as

possible. Finding plausible models of NES target performance for this kind of text was not

straightforward. In the end I opted for two samples: one sample of texts by NES peers of

the NNES writers (university students), another by NES experts (professional writers). The

first sample was taken from essays forming part of the LOCNES1 corpus, written by

students from Indiana University at Indianapolis, USA, taking an English composition

course. The essays were produced in response to prompts requiring students to choose and

make a case for or against fairly simple statements such as "Crime never pays." Finding

samples of argumentative text by NES expert writers was more problematic as 'for and

against' type essays are seldom produced outside educational assessment contexts. Biber

(1988:204) suggests that student essays lack "well-defined discourse norm in English". I

opted for broadsheet newspaper editorials on the grounds that they are similar to the student

24

essays in some respects, namely text-size, content, style, and purpose: I reckoned these to

be about 500 words, non-technical, formal, and persuasive, respectively.

The complete data therefore consisted of four samples or subcorpora of 20 texts of

about 500 words each, summarised in Table 1 (The names and matching abbreviations have

been adopted for convenience only: the authors of the first three subcorpora are all both

'learners' and 'apprentices' but 'learner' has recently come to be used in the corpus

linguistics literature for NNES learners of English (e.g. Granger 1998), and the labels 'NES

learner' and 'NNES learner' seem both cumbersome and easily confused.).

[INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]

Table 1 Details of the data samples

To investigate the quality prediction, I posit a cline of perceived textual quality, from

Lowest in the NNES Learner (Low) texts to Highest in the NES Expert texts. I also wanted

to investigate whether, in terms of TP characteristics, NNES texts perceived as being of

higher quality more closely resembled NES texts than those perceived as being of lower

quality.

4.1.2 Unit of analysis

Halliday (1985) and Fries and Francis (1992) argue that independent clauses are the most

appropriate unit of analysis for investigating Theme for textual analysis. The reason for the

greater importance attributed to independent clauses is that their Themes are less formally

constrained than dependent clause Themes. Halliday argues that "there is a kind of scale of

thematic freedom" and the further one moves from the Speaker's complete freedom of

choice in selecting Theme for an independent declarative clause "the more the thematic

options are restricted by structural pressures from other parts of the grammar" (Halliday

25

1985:61). According to the SFL principle that meaning is choice ("A system network is a

theory of language as choice" Halliday 1985:xxvii), independent clause Theme choices can

be regarded as more meaningful than dependent clause Theme choices.

Fries (1981; 1995b) used as a unit of analysis "an independent clause together with all

hypotactically related clauses and words that are dependent on that independent clause", a

unit which he terms an independent conjoinable clause complex. Like Hunt's (1965) T-

unit, or minimal terminable unit, this treats paratactically related complete independent

clauses as separate units with their own Themes. In cases of hypotaxis, if the subordinate

clause occurs first Fries treats the entire subordinate clause as Theme of the complex; if the

superordinate clause occurs first that clause's own Theme is treated as the complex's

Theme.

I have chosen to follow the practice of Enkvist (1974) whose basic unit of analysis was

the macrosyntagm (after Loman and Jorgensen 1971). This practice follows the

orthographic sentence more closely than Fries's clause complex, in that "co-ordinate,

complete main clauses capable of standing as well-formed sentences" are treated as units,

as are fragments punctuated as sentences. The following two orthographic sentences, for

example, would be divided into three units of analysis (themes underlined):

John came and Bill left; the house was peaceful again. Which suited Mary fine.

(Note that Fries would treat and as a unit boundary with and Bill as thematic in the extra

unit.)

In general, identifying independent clauses and making them the unit of analysis is

clearly necessary with spoken monologic texts. With written monologic texts, however, it

seems less appropriate: writers clearly intend sentences to have some formal status in the

26

reader's consciousness as a mediatory level between clauses and texts. As in most cases

they are identical, and for ease, I shall from now on refer to the units of analysis in this

research as sentences.

4.1.3 Placement of Theme-Rheme boundary

Lexical content is necessary for analysis of TP and MOD. Sentences with non-

representational It and There as unmarked Subjects and hence ideational Themes therefore

present a problem for TP analysis. Following the examples given by Fries (1981; 1995a;

1995b), where thematic It or There were non-representational I adopted the practice of

including in the ideational Theme the first lexical item following the verb. It clauses which

had been analysed as interpersonal Themes on the grounds that they are expressing the

writer's opinion of the probability of the following proposition and are functional

equivalents of adjuncts such as in my opinion were not analysed as marked ideational

Themes. In these cases the ideational Theme was analysed as the unmarked Subject of the

following clause, for example, the love of money was analysed as the ideational Theme of

the following sentence:

However, it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil. (3NA5)

4.1.4 Method of analysing TP

Each sentence in the data was analysed and assigned to one of Fries’s three TP categories.

TP analysis is based on assigning a semantic link between the content of two different units

within a text. It seems to be an unavoidable feature of TP research that there is a degree of

subjectivity in assigning such links: lexical cohesion and reference have to be interpreted

by subjects. In general, it is easier for an analyst to be confident that their subjective

27

interpretations are likely to be common (i.e. shared by other analysts) when interpreting

links between contiguous than between non-contiguous sentences: Constant and Linear TPs

are therefore more straightforward to identify than Derived TPs. Derived Themes may

theoretically derive from one of two sources: explicit and implicit hyper-Themes. A special

kind of hyper-Theme is what Martin (1992) calls a 'macro-Theme'. While hyper-Themes

exist at paragraph level, macro-Themes are higher level Themes such as headings and titles.

All of the texts in my data have one easily identifiable explicit hyper-Theme in the form of

the following macro-Themes: (a) a title, for the editorials, or (b) the assignment wording,

for the essays. In practice, analysing a Theme as Derived from a textual macro-Theme is

not always straightforward. Here is a possible example from an editorial about a new

government public relations initiative:

[1] Utopia Limited: A bid to convince us that everything is fine [title]

[…]

[20] Any complacency about what is involved must surely be dispersed by… (4NE1)

The Theme of sentence [20] may be Derived from the macro-Theme. Any complacency is

plausibly related to everything is fine, and what is involved to A bid but to confirm the

analysis the claims of other candidate antecedents in the intervening sentences would need

to be considered. The analyst's level of confidence in inferring such links is likely to vary.

Naturally-occurring examples of incoherent or nonsensical texts, such as the discourse

of aphasic patients or discourses containing typographic errors, are extremely rare. It is

predictable that in highly-rated texts it will be easier to analyse links than in lower-rated

texts. When analysts such as Ventola and Mauranen (1991) analyse a TP as 'unmotivated'

they presumably intend not that there is no motivation for a particular Theme – that the text

28

is in some sense aphasic – but that the motivation is difficult to recover, at any rate using

purely linguistic evidence such as lexical relations. However, as one of the overall goals of

this research is to assess how far the results of independent measurements of thematising

behaviour correspond with perceptions of writing quality, I specifically did not wish to

employ an analytical procedure for detecting TP which itself used ease/difficulty of

assessing links as a parameter.

To take account of the factors discussed above, and to sequence consistently

consideration of the various competitors for the source of cohesion in Theme, I adopted the

following iterative, 'two pass' approach to analysing TP in the data. Overall, I looked for

evidence of a link between a sentence's ideational Theme and previous sentences in the

text. Beginning with Step 1 on the first pass, then, if there was a link between a sentence's

Theme and the previous sentence's Theme I analysed the TP as Constant. If there was a link

with the previous sentence's Rheme, I analysed the TP as Linear. If the Theme explicitly

referred to an item in the text's macro-Theme, I analysed the TP as Derived. If none of

these sources appeared to yield a link I then began a second pass. I looked at the previous

sentence but one for evidence of a gapped Constant or gapped Linear TP, gaps in TP

having been recognised by previous researchers (see §3.3 and also Pery-Woodley

1989:159f). If there was evidence of a link with the previous but one sentence I analysed

the Theme as Constant or Linear, again based on whether the reference was to an item in

Theme or Rheme of the earlier sentence. If there was no such evidence, I analysed the

Theme by default as Derived. The procedure is summarised in Table 2 and a sample

analysis illustrating each TP type is shown in the Appendix.

[INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]

29

Table 1 Procedure used in analysing TP

The procedure is only one of several which could have been adopted: I might, for

example, have privileged explicit lexical references to textual macro-Themes over

immediately previous textual Themes (i.e. made the current Step 3 Step1). This would have

obscured however, the extent of Constant TPs where the thematised referent was also

contained in the macro-Theme. The analysis privileged (a) Constant (b) Linear and (c)

'Derived from macro-Theme' respectively. This privileging reflects the pre-eminence given

to Constant and Linear in Fries (1981). By the end of the second pass, Derived is a default

category. Overall, then Derived TP encompasses (a) Themes clearly linked to textual

macro-Themes, (b) Themes possibly linked to sentences earlier than the previous two

sentences and (c) Themes for which no link can be found – the equivalent of Ventola and

Mauranen’s (1991) ‘unmotivated’ TPs.

To further test the predictions described above (§§3.2-5), I decided to carry out three

enquiries into (a) the global proportions of TP types, (b) homogeneity of TP, and (c) the

global proportions of RP types.

4.2 Enquiry 1: Global proportions of TP types

4.2.1 Method

The numbers of sentences with each TP type were tallied by subcorpus.

4.2.2 Results and Discussion

The proportions of Fries's TP types in the data are presented in Table 3.

[INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE]

30

Table 2 Proportions of TP types in the data (as %)

There is some support for the genre prediction, in that Constant TP is the least common

type in all four samples of argumentative text.

The quality prediction with regard to the genre prediction is not met in a clear manner.

Supporting the prediction that higher quality argumentative text will have fewer Constant

TPs than lower quality argumentative text is the fact that the higher-graded NNES

subcorpus (2LH) has a much lower proportion of Constant TPs than the lower-graded

NNES subcorpus (1LL). Conflicting with the prediction, however, is the more general

finding that the NES subcorpora have higher proportions of Constant than do the NNES

subcorpora.

Turning to the sufficiency prediction, the generally high level of Derived TP, equalling

or outstripping that of Linear TP in three of the four subcorpora, although matched in some

previous research, is not predicted. Higher proportions – about 10% more of all TPs than in

NNES texts – of Derived than of Linear among the NES corpora also strike a blow to the

genre and quality predictions, according to which Linear should be the TP type par

excellence for well-formed argumentative prose.

4.3 Enquiry 2: Homogeneity of TP

4.3.1 Method

To assess fulfilment of the patterning prediction, it was decided to measure the extent of

homogeneity of TP at the level of paragraph. Although Fries (1981) couched his hypotheses

in terms of texts, his analyses are of text-segments and at points he refers to the MOD of a

paragraph. Only paragraphs in the corpus of three or more sentences were analysed. This

is because an individual TP exists not as a property of a sentence but as a property of the

31

relation between at least two sentences. To be able to judge paragraph-level TP

homogeneity one therefore requires at least two TPs, that is three sentences.

To operationalise a minimal level of homogeneity I took as a starting point the

following working definition:

To be considered minimally homogeneous more than 50% of the TPs in a paragraph must

be of the same TP type.

This means for example that a three-sentence, two-TP paragraph which has two Constant

TPs was treated as homogeneous, while a similar paragraph with one Constant and one

Derived TP was treated as heterogeneous. 336 of the 423 paragraphs in the data (79%)

comprise three or more sentences and therefore have the potential to be analysed as having

a minimal level of homogeneous TP. The maximal level of homogeneity would of course

be 100%.

4.3.2 Results and discussion

The first row of Table 4 shows what proportion of 336 eligible paragraphs could be

considered to have homogeneous TP according to maximal and minimal definitions of

homogeneity. The subsequent rows give details of which TP types predominate, or form the

majority, in the 336 paragraphs considered. Table 4 shows that even at the minimal level of

homogeneity only a little over half the paragraphs would be defined as homogeneous: at the

maximal level about one seventh would be so defined.

According to the genre prediction, we would expect to find a particularly strong

association between homogeneity and the Constant and Linear TP types and as this is a

corpus of argumentative text we would correspondingly expect little Constant patterning

and much Linear patterning. The figures shown in Table 4 provide mixed evidence. In

32

support of the prediction, even at the minimal level of homogeneity only 7% of paragraphs

have Constant dominated homogeneity of TP. Also in support of the genre prediction there

are considerably more paragraphs with Linear dominated TP(about 29%). The genre

prediction is undermined, however, by the high proportion of paragraphs with

homogeneous Derived TPs (23%). The combined high proportion of Derived homogeneous

and non-homogeneous paragraphs (65%) contradicts the patterning prediction.

[INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE]

Table 3 Proportions of the dominant TP types (as %) by degree of homogeneity

The quality hypothesis would lead us to predict that although nearly half of the

paragraphs in the corpus lack a minimal level of homogeneity this lack will be unevenly

weighted across the subcorpora and that the higher quality the subcorpus the more

homogeneous paragraphs it will contain. Figure 2 shows the lack of such a simple relation

between quality and TP homogeneity. The lowest quality and highest quality subcorpora

have the lowest degrees of homogeneity. While the most homogeneous corpus of all four is

the NNES (2LH) subcorpus, within the NES subcorpora, high prestige texts by professional

writers had about two thirds the level of TP homogeneity of that of essays by university

students.

[INSERT FIGURE 2 ABOUT HERE]

Figure 2 Proportions of homogeneous paragraphs (at the minimally homogeneous level)

At this point it would be useful to review the patterning prediction. In many ways this

seems to me to be the central prediction of Fries (1981). SFL theoretical work on textual

periodicity (Halliday 1985, Matthiessen 1995, Martin 1995a; 1995b) seems to be founded

on it. The essence of the claim for periodicity seems to be that the existence of overall

33

patterning in the Themes of a text makes the individual Themes in that text in some sense

predictable. Martin (1992; 1995b), for example, argues that hyper-Themes are predictive

of paragraph Themes and that "texts which do not make use of predicted patterns of

interaction [between lexical strings and Theme selection] in this way may be read as less

than coherent" (1992: 437). The analyst’s link analysis is presumably conceptualised as

mirroring some kind of ‘enabling’ (Matthiessen 1995), dynamic, real-time text-processing

mechanism employed by the reader. I interpret the periodicity/patterning as being enabling

in the following way: as a Constant TP paragraph unfolds the reader is enabled to predict

that any new sentence Theme will be linked to the previous sentence's Theme.

The practical details of periodicity in text segments without Constant TP have not been

dwelt on. As a Linear TP paragraph unfolds the reader is perhaps enabled to predict that

any new sentence Theme will be linked to its predecessor's Rheme. Can successive Derived

TPs form patterns which are perceptible to readers? In my analytical procedure, if

successive Themes refer to the same hyper-Theme, only the first will be counted as

Derived. Thereafter, Themes will be analysed as Constant. If a paragraph has two

successive Derived TPs, then, these Themes must be derived from different hyper-Themes

or no hyper-Theme at all. In either circumstance it is difficult to see how the two Themes

are patterned, or how the first sentence Theme could be interpreted as predicting the

second. If no real-time prediction can be made I would argue that there can be no

patterning. Sequences of homogeneous Derived TP can, therefore, be no different in effect

from sequences of heterogeneous TP.

If only Constant and Linear-dominated paragraphs can be considered as patterned, only

approximately a third of all paragraphs are patterned. In the highest quality texts (i.e. the

34

Expert 4NE subcorpus) the proportion is even lower: TP patterning does not appear to

approach being a default condition. This being the case, it is difficult to see how individual

instances of a given type of TP could function predictively – or in such a manner as to

create reader-expectations – or therefore be considered as text-structuring. On the evidence

of the data used for this research, text extracts such as those cited in Fries (1981) in which

there is a sustained use of a pattern-forming TP type cannot be considered representative

either of all texts or of texts likely to be perceived as well-structured.

4.4 Enquiry 3: Global proportions of RP types

4.4.1 Method

The next enquiry was designed to focus on the sufficiency prediction: how sufficient is TP

as an account of the way texts can be structured? Fries’s claim about text structure and TP

can be seen as a claim that cohesion and Theme interact uniquely. The claim that text

structure correlates with thematic selections is a claim that text structure does not correlate

with non-thematic (i.e. rhematic) selections. One way to assess this claim is to investigate

whether there are similar kinds of cohesive patterning in Rheme, or RP (a line of research

suggested by Enkvist 1974, Francis 1990, Fries and Francis 1992). To identify ‘similar

kinds of patterning’ it seems appropriate to borrow the Danešian TP typology and adapt it:

Figure 3 represents such an adaptation.

[INSERT FIGURE 3 ABOUT HERE]

Figure 3 Rhematic Progression Types ( T= Theme, R= Rheme)

Each text sentence in the data was analysed for RP: the procedure for interpreting links

was basically the same as that adopted for TP. (A fourth type – 'Zero' Rheme – was also

required for sentences in which it was not possible to identify a Rheme.)

35

4.4.2 Results and Discussion

Table 5 compares the proportions of contiguous and non-contiguous progressions according

to TP and RP analysis. If my previous argument that Derived TP is essentially unpatterned

is correct, and is extended to Derived RP as well, Table 5 shows that the most noticeable

patterned progression is Linear TP, followed by Constant RP. Both types are displayed by a

little over a third of all text sentences.

[INSERT TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE]

Table 1 Proportions of TP and RP in the data compared (as %)

RP has to my knowledge only been investigated hitherto as a default option when no TP

has been detected (Enkvist 1974; Mauranen 1996). The figures in Table 5 suggest that this

practice may have been misleading: there does appear to be slightly more contiguity of

reference and therefore more patterning in Themes than in Rhemes but not to an

overwhelmingly greater degree. There is more empirical evidence for Constant RP than for

Constant TP (37% and 20% respectively). In general there is almost as much evidence for

Constant RP as for Linear TP (37% and 39% respectively).

One possibility worth exploring might be whether or not there is a complementary

relation between TP and RP: might it be the case, as assumed in TP research which

measures RP as a fall-back progression, that contiguous RPs tend to occur when there is no

contiguous TP? Table 6 shows that there is no simple relation of complementarity between

TP and RP. A quarter of text sentences make no reference to either the Theme or the

Rheme of their immediate predecessor sentence, while 30% make reference to both Theme

and Rheme of their predecessor. To summarise, it does not seem justifiable to view RP as a

fall-back textual system which preserves textual connexity in cases where there is no TP.

36

[INSERT TABLE 6 ABOUT HERE]

Table 2 Overlap of contiguous and non-contiguous RP and TP in the data (%)

TP theory predicts that writers will place cohesive items in Theme (unmarked or

marked) rather than in Rheme, in other words that writers will front or 'thematise' cohesive

material. From Table 6, we can see that in fact in 16% of all text sentences there is no

contiguous TP but there is a contiguous RP. This behaviour is not predicted by the literature

on TP/MOD.

Overall, TP/MOD is claimed to be a meaningful interaction between cohesion and

Theme, the meaning being a text-structuring meaning, part of the textual metafunction.

Some of the introspection-based research on TP/MOD can be seen as having been

premissed on an assumption that the nature and extent of cohesion noticed in successive

Themes in particular text segments was unique to Theme. Uniqueness may have been

considered prima facie evidence of meaningfulness. However, as we have seen, in the same

dataset there are interactions of a similar type and on a similar scale between (a) cohesion

and Theme and (b) cohesion and Rheme. Logically, the existence of similar patterns

outside Theme suggests either (a) that similar phenomena exist outside Theme and also

have a text-structuring function (as suggested by Cloran 1995) or (b) that neither TP/MOD

nor similar non-thematic phenomena are in fact text-structuring. In either case, the

particular link between Theme and text-structuring hypothesised by Fries (1981) is not

supported.

37

5 Conclusion

I would like to conclude by returning to the knotty issue of the relation between TP and

MOD. I have discussed mostly TP in this paper but it will be recalled that there seem to be

two positions on the relation between TP and MOD, crudely paraphrasable as:

(a) MOD correlates with patterns of homogeneous Constant TP or

(b) MOD correlates with patterns of homogeneous TP of any type.

Fries’s (1981, 1995b) position would appear to be position (a). Martin’s account of MOD

appears to take this position, although metonymically Martin conceptualises MOD as a

textual property rather than a reader perception:

of all the experiential meanings available in a given field, [MOD] will pick on just a few,

and weave them through Theme time and again to ground the text (Martin 1992:489)

Consistent with previous research on argumentative texts, in my data Constant TPs form

the smallest proportion of TP types; fewer than a quarter of TPs in NES texts are Constant.

Moreover, paragraphs with patterned Constant TP account for only 10% of paragraphs in

high quality texts. If MOD-perception is held to correlate with Constant TP, the findings of

this paper suggest that most argumentative text could not be perceived as having an MOD.

The other, more catholic, position (b) seems to be Halliday’s position when he writes of

MOD's "fundamental" role in discourse organisation (Halliday 1985:62). The research

described above into patterning suggests that most argumentative text could not be

described as patterned, and the extent of such patterning as there is suggests that it is

inversely proportional to writing quality. If MOD-perception is held to correlate with TP

patterning of any type, the findings of this paper suggest that most argumentative text could

not be perceived as having an MOD. Note that psychological testing would resolve little. If

38

such research were carried out on reader responses to the Expert argumentative texts (or

segments therefrom) analysed above, for example, necessarily the texts would be perceived

either as (a) not having an MOD or (b) having an MOD. In the case of (a), MOD is proven

not to be associated with judgements of textual quality. In the case of (b), MOD-perception

is proven not to be based on Thematic selections. In either case, the claim of correlation

between Theme and ideal text structure is not substantiated.

To summarise, on the basis of the research described here, using either interpretation of

MOD, neither the descriptive claim that all or most texts have a Theme-based MOD, nor

the prescriptive claim that all or most high quality texts have a Theme-based MOD seem to

me to be tenable. In particular, consideration of the four predictions discussed above

(§§3.2-3.5) suggests that TP/MOD is not sufficient to account for many actual Thematic

selections in argumentative genres, that TP/MOD patterning is present in only a small

minority of text-segments, that the levels of such patterning are not unique to Thematic

phenomena, and that perceptions of rhetorical competence or quality are only seldom

associated with conformity to the kind of TP/MOD patterning proposed as ideal for

argumentative text.

Let us return to Fries’s (1981) original hypotheses (§2.2): step 1, that TP correlates with

text structure; step 2, that thematic content correlates with MOD. The term ‘correlation’

implies systematicity, complementarity, and completeness. Step 1 thus implies that all types

of TP are systematically, and therefore predictably, related to all types of text structure. The

research described here suggests that this is not the case. Constant TP may be related to

narrative text structure but there is little evidence of complementary relations between other

TP types and the structure of other text-types. Step 2 implies that all types of thematic

39

content are systematically related to all types of MOD. If there is basically a two-term

system for MOD – MOD texts and zero-MOD texts – then the correlation of MOD and

thematic content has nothing more to tell us about the content of Themes in zero-MOD

texts than that they do not favour the perception of an MOD. The finding above that the

majority of the texts sampled appear to be zero-MOD texts means that even if the step 2

hypothesis is correct it is largely uninformative.

The research described here has considered only argumentative prose. It seems clear

that in such texts thematic content is more complex and dynamic than in some other text-

types (e.g. spoken news broadcasts - Gomez 1994; obituaries, narratives for children - Fries

1995b). Regarding the epistemological problem discussed earlier, as to whether TP/MOD

should be conceived of as textual universal or a contingent property of texts, the evidence

from the data described here suggests that MOD is not a textual universal. From the

perspective of applying textlinguistic theory, given that much composition instruction,

certainly in the ESL domain, is instruction in argumentative or expository prose the fact

that MODs appear to be scarce in argumentative prose severely qualifies the MOD

concept's usefulness to composition theory.

As an aside, it appears from other research that where MODs exist they are associated

with narratives. Narratives are generally monologues. I am not aware of any research

claiming to find evidence of MOD in dialogic spoken texts. The facts that in spoken

dialogues thematic selections are made by at least two individuals and that many spoken

dialogues are relatively unplanned and unedited would make such a claim prima facie

implausible. Although the argumentative texts analysed here are written monologues, it

seems likely that the structure of such texts will be modelled to some extent on spoken

40

dialogues. Indeed, it is usually suggested that it is natural to look for the principles of

discourse organisation in spoken rather than written discourse and in dialogue rather than

monologue: "interactive talk is seen as having a privileged position as a source of

explanation for language structure and change" (Cumming and Ono 1997:114-115).

Sinclair (1994) argues that differing analytical practices, in particular the tendency for

written text analysis to emphasise retrospective cohesive patterning and for spoken text

analysis to emphasise prospective interactive structure, may have obscured the fundamental

similarity of text structure in written and spoken language. These considerations might help

explain why there appears to be little evidence of MOD in the argumentative texts

considered in this paper.

Regarding future research, the TP research described here focused largely on the two

types which occupy the limelight in Fries (1981), Constant and Linear. Derived TP, for

reasons explained in (§4.1.4), was used as a default category. For any future research on

TP, it would be useful to attempt to distinguish between Themes which could plausibly be

regarded as derived from previous text and those which could not, which we could perhaps

for convenience term unanticipated Themes. I would estimate, and this is partly supported

by Hawes and Thomas’s (1996) figures for ‘breaks’, that the proportion of the

unanticipated Themes is not negligible. Such findings might in part be explicable by the

phenomenon of RP as a possible parallel strategy of textual development.

The more general implications of the research discussed here for the interested parties

mentioned at the beginning of this article seem to me to be the following. Syntacticians

interested in the SFL claim that syntactic Theme has a consistent textual meaning might

want to look for different and more universal textual evidence than that offered by

41

TP/MOD. Meanwhile, it seems to me that both discourse analysts and composition theorists

would be correct to look outside Theme, both linguistically and probably extra-

linguistically, to discover the principles by which discourse is developed and structured.

Notes

* I should like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their comments and

suggestions.

1. The Louvain Corpus of Native English Speaker texts (LOCNES) was kindly supplied to me by

Professor Sylviane Granger, Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Université Catholique de

Louvain.

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AppendixAn example of TP analysis. The extract is from the Apprentice subcorpus (3NA).

Theme Rheme TP type

A lot of what has changed

women's roles

is the feminists. –

These are groups of people that have defended women over the

years

Linear

These people have shown the modern world what women in the work

place can do.

Constant

The problem is that these feminists have not looked at all women. Derived

47