theme and rheme

发布时间：2023-03-22 00:54:44


Theme-RhemetheoryisanimportantcomponentofSFG.ThetermthemeisfirstputforwardbyscholarMathesius,whoinclinestoanalyzethesentencestructurefromthecommunicativeandfunctionalperspective.InfluencedbythePragueSchool,HallidayacceptsanddevelopsthethemetheoriesofthePragueSchoolandbringsitintooneofthemetafunctionsoflanguage-thetextualfunction.Theme-RhemeTheoryisanimportantcomponentofSFG,whichisusedtorealizetextualfunction.ThemereferstoapointofdepartureforthemessageandRhemenewinformationaboutthepointofdeparture.ThedefinitionofThemeasgivenbyHallidayandMatthissen(2004:64isthatitistheelementwhichservesas“thestarting-pointforthemessage:itiswhattheclauseisgoingtobeabout”.InEnglishThemeiseasytoberecognizedforitoftencomesfirstintheclause.Halliday(1994:37categorizestheremainderofthemessage,thepartinwhichtheThemeisdeveloped,intotheRheme.RhemecombineswithThemetoformaclause,whichexpressesacompletemeaningfromthetextualorganization.InEnglish,clauseconveysmessagebyhavingtwoparts-ThemeandRheme.“TheThemeistheelementwhichservesasthepointofdepartureofthemessage;itisthatwhichtheclauseisconcerned.Theremainderofthemessage,thepartinwhichtheThemeisdevelopediscalledinPragueSchoolterminologytheRheme.”(Halliday,2000:37.InEnglish,theThemealwayscomesfirstinasentenceorintheleft-mostpositionofasentence,andtherestistheRheme.Accordingtothecomplexity,Halliday(2000classifiestheThemeintothree

kindsinhisAnIntroductiontoFunctionalGrammar:simpleTheme,multipleThemeandclausalTheme.Besides,adetailedanalysisonEnglishthematicstructureisgivenbyHalliday.“ThesimpleThemeofaclauseconsistsofjustonestructuralelement,andthatelementisrepresentedbyjustone,unit-onenominalgroup,adverbialgrouporprepositionalphrase’(Tompsom,2000.InHalliday’s(2000view,ThemecanbeconsistedofmorethanonegrouporphrasesuchastheexamplesinthefollowingTable,whicharestillsimpleThemes,becauseofthesingleconstituenttheyformsintheclause;itonlyhasonemeta-function”.

Thesinglestructuralelementcanalsobecomposedoftwoormoregrouporphrase,thatis,thefunctionofthegroupsandphrasesisequaltoonestructuralelement.Theexamplesareshownbelow:

theme and rheme

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