4.
Textual equivalence: thematic and information structures
1) Give the definition to the following terms and find some information about
linguists:
Theme – The theme is what the clause is about. A theme is also the main idea of
a work of literature or art.
Rheme – The rheme is what the speaker says about the theme. It is the goal of
discourse.
Conjunction – A word or phrase which links together two CLAUSES, groups or
words. These include special linking devices such as however, nevertheless,
because and moreover, which are called conjunctions
Disjunct – is a type of adverbial adjunct that expresses information that is not
considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be
the speaker's or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the
propositional content of the sentence, "expressing, for example items which
express the attitude of the speaker, such as unfortunately, in my opinion, frankly
and clearly
Clause (grammar) – A group of words which form a grammatical unit
containing a SUBJECT and a verb. In the sentence "I can't cook very well but I
make quite good pancakes", both "I can't cook very well" and "I make good
pancakes" are main/independent clauses (= they are of equal importance and
could each exist as a separate sentence).
Main clause (grammar) – The main clause elements are subject, predicator,
object, complement and adjunct. Is a group of words made up of a subject and a
predicate that together express a complete concept. I like bananas and I like
grapes.
Subordinate clause (grammar) – A subordinate clause contains a subject and a
verb, but it needs to be attached to a main clause because it cannot make sense
on its own. Who is my best friend (not written as a question-who=subject;
is=verb)
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Subject – The noun or noun group which comes in front of the verb group in
English and with which the verb agrees in terms of number and PERSON/ I he
she it
Predicator – The verb or verb group in a CLAUSE. That tells what the subject is
doing or what the subject is. Example: “The cat is sleeping in the sun.” The
clause sleeping in the sun is the predicate; it's dictating what the cat is doing.
Object – A noun or noun group which refers to a person or thing, other than the
SUBJECT, which is involved in or affected by the action of the verb. Example
I give the chocolate', the subject is 'I', the verb is 'give' and the direct object is
'the chocolate'. But we can also say 'I give Lucy the chocolate'. In this case,
'Lucy' is the indirect object and she receives the direct object, which is the
chocolate.
Complement – A noun group or adjective which comes after a link verb such as
is, was or remain and gives more information about the SUBJECT.
Adjunct – A word or group of words added to a CLAUSE to give more
information about the circumstances of an event or situation, usually in terms
of time, place or manner, e.g. I’ve known him for years
Marked themes – "Marked" in this sense means that the theme is less frequent
or is more unusual. For example, a marked theme could be a prepositional
phrase, a complement (which could function as the subject but is not), or an
adverbial phrase.
Marked and unmarked terms (linguistics) – which designate a contrasting
pair, one possessing a special ‘mark’, the other neutral: in play/played, play is
unmarked and neutral, and played has the mark -ed. The mark is not necessarily
visible or audible: in the pair horse/mare, horse is the more general, unmarked
term, while mare is marked for femaleness.
Ónoma – a noun as distinct from a verb] which originally meant ‘name
Rhema – ‘saying’ It is a word that signifies the action of utterance. I
Thematic structure (linguistics) – s a preoccupying conception of a proposition
which runs throughout a media text, usually around an initiating topic. It
strategically ties together a number of more specific conception or statements
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on the basis of particular social forms of knowledge and social forms of
perception and belief.
Information structure (linguistics) – refers to the interface between the structure
and meaning of linguistic utterances, on the one hand, and the
interlocutors’інерлокюрорс mental representations of information, discourse
referents, and the overall universe of discourse, on the other.
Three main types of marked theme in English (Hallidayan model) – defines
Theme in terms of aboutness and starting point, and states that it can be
identified by its clause-initial position.
(A) Fronted theme – Fronting involves ‘the achievement of marked theme by
moving into initial position an item which is otherwise unusual there’
(B) Predicated Theme – Predicating a theme involves using an it-structure (also
called a cleft structure) to place an element near the beginning of the clause
(C) Identifying theme – Identifying themes are very similar to predicated
themes. Instead of using It (a cleft structure), an identifying theme places an
element in theme position by turning it into a nominalization using a wh-
structure (called a pseudo-cleft structure),
It-structure (also called a cleft structure) – The theme of an it-structure is not it
but rather the element which occurs after the verb to be. It was the boys who
started the fight.
Wh-structure (called a pseudo-cleft structure) – In pseudo-cleft sentences, the
emphasis (focus) is usually at the end of the sentence. What do you need?–
What I need is something to drink.
Preposed theme and postposed theme – . Both involve using a gloss tag. In
preposed theme, the gloss tag occurs at the beginning of the clause, in postposed
theme, it occurs at the end of the clause.
Hallidayan position on theme – as whatever comes in initial position in the
clause – as a refl ection of (a) the nature of English as a language with
relatively fi xed word order,13 and (b) his study of Chinese, this being a
language with a special category of topic which always occurs at the beginning
of the clause.
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Michael Halliday (linguist) – British linguist, teacher, and proponent of neo-
Firthian theory who viewed language basically as a social phenomenon. In his
early work, known as “scale and category linguistics,” Halliday devised four
categories (unit, structure, class, and system) and three scales (rank, exponence,
and delicacy) to describe language. He also did work on intonation (Intonation
and Grammar in British English, 1967) and on discourse analysis (Cohesion in
English, 1976). His later theory, sometimes called systemic linguistics, was that
language has three functions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual.
The Prague School – The Prague school. What is now generally referred to as
the Prague school comprised a fairly large group of scholars, mainly European,
who, though they may not themselves have been members of the Linguistic
Circle of Prague. The most characteristic feature of the Prague school approach
is its combination of structuralism with functionalism. The latter term (like
“structuralism”) has been used in a variety of senses in linguistics. Here it is to
be understood as implying an appreciation of the diversity of functions fulfilled
by language and a theoretical recognition that the structure of languages is in
large part determined by their characteristic functions.
SVO language – Languages are usually classifi ed according to their normal
ordering of clause elements. For instance, English is classifi ed as an SVO
language because the normal order of clause elements in English is subject–
verb–object.
SOV language – subject–object–verb
VSO language – Verb-Subject-Object
Topic – A topic is a particular subject that you discuss or write about. The
weather is a constant topic of conversation in Britain.
Topic-prominent language – the topic is often not the subject of the sentence.
The two things are separate, and the topic is placed first. Fronting refers to those
odd sentences you come across sometimes where the topic has been moved to
the front. A couple of examples with the subject highlighted in yellow, and the
topic highlighted in green:
Chocolate, I like.
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Americans, he can’t stand.
Clefting involves putting a dummy subject “it” at the beginning of the sentence
and using this to introduce the topic. Some examples:
It’s bananas that I like.
It was the small car that we were supposed to steal.
Subject-prominent language –
End-focus (grammar) – the tendency to process information ‘so as to achieve a
linear presentation from low to high information value’
End-weight (grammar) – in this genre simple verbs without modals or closely
linked prepositional phrases are regularly fronted while long and syntactically
complex subjects are not.
Ruqaiya Hasan (linguist) – For Hasan and Halliday, language was a mental tool
built out of an intricate system of co-dependent choices. As a system of choices
in how to mean, language carried with it the realisation of a given society's
culture and history. Hasan, more directly than any other scholar, brought out in
detail how cultural context and grammatical patterns were interwoven.
Information focus – This is the device used by English speakers to highlight the
core of a message. The tonic accent is what we normally perceive as stress.
Discourse (linguistics) – In linguistics, discourse refers to a unit of language
longer than a single sentence.
Functional sentence perspective (FSP) – Functional sentence perspective is
sometimes used as a cover term for any approach based on a theme–rheme or
given–new type of analysis.
Communicative dynamism – based on the fact that linguistic communication is
not a static, but a dynamic phenomenon.
Jan Firbas (linguist) – He was a Czech linguist and a prominent representative
of the Prague School of linguistics. In linguistics, Functional Sentence
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Perspective (FSP) is a theory describing the information structure of the
sentence and language communication in general. It has been developed in the
tradition of the Prague School of Functional and Structural Linguistics together
with its sister theory, Topic-Focus Articulation.
Firbas’ model (linguistics) – with a non-binary notion that determines which
elements are thematic and which are not thematic in a clause. This is the notion
of communicative dynamism (CD). By CD I understand a property of
communication, displayed in the course of the development of the information
to be conveyed and consisting in advancing this development
Firbas’ notions of context-dependence/independence –
The non-theme consists of two elements (Firbas’ model) –introduced a twofold
interpretation of sentences and distinguished two content elements which every
utterance consists of:
1) the element about which something is stated = the basis (theme);
“východisko/téma/základ”
2) what is stated about the basis = the nucleus (rheme); “jádro/réma”
Linear arrangement (linguistics) – then, has a role to play in processing
information and organizing messages at text level. Over and above its
propositional organization in terms of elements such as subject/object and
agent/patient, a clause also has an interactional organization which reflects the
addresser/addressee relationship
Suggested strategies for minimizing linear dislocation – A number of linguists
have suggested a variety of strategies for resolving the tension between
syntactic and communicative functions in translation and language learning.
Strategy no. 1: voice change – This strategy involves changing the syntactic
form of the verb to achieve a different sequence of elements. A good example
of this is voice change in languages with a category of voice.
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Ergativity – Tendency of a language to pair the subject, or agent, of an
intransitive verb with the object, or patient, of a transitive verb. Ergativity
involves using the object of a transitive verb as the subject of an intransitive
verb.
Strategy no. 2: change of verb – This involves changing the verb altogether and
replacing it with one that has a similar meaning but can be used in a different
syntactic configuration. Examples of pairs of verbs that describe an event from
different perspectives in English include give/get and like/please.
Strategy no. 3: nominalization – Nominalization involves replacing a verbal
form with a nominal one (e.g. describe → description).
Strategy no. 4: extraposition – Extraposition involves changing the position of
the entire clause in the sentence, for instance by embedding a simple clause in a
complex sentence.
Cleft structures – In cleft structures, the item in theme position is presented as
new and the item in rheme position is presented as given.
Pseudo-cleft structures – they are formed with the pronoun what (= the thing(s)
that/which ). In pseudo-cleft sentences, the emphasis (focus) is usually at the
end of the sentence. These cleft sentences begin with WH words such as what,
why, where and the words all, the thing, something, one thing.
