A study on information focus at sentence level in English Economics News = Nghiên cứu về tiêu điểm thông tin ở cấp độ câu trong các tin kinh tế tiếng Anh. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 60 22 15

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES VŨ THỊ THANH THÚY A STUDY ON INFORMATION FOCUS AT SENTENCE LEVEL

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

VŨ THỊ THANH THÚY

A STUDY ON INFORMATION FOCUS AT SENTENCE LEVEL

IN ENGLISH ECONOMICS NEWS

(Nghiên cứu về tiêu điểm thông tin ở cấp độ câu trong

các tin kinh tế tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

HA NOI – 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

VŨ THỊ THANH THÚY

A STUDY ON INFORMATION FOCUS AT SENTENCE LEVEL

IN ENGLISH ECONOMICS NEWS

(Nghiên cứu về tiêu điểm thông tin ở cấp độ câu trong

các tin kinh tế tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS CODE: 60.22.15

SUPERVISOR: Assoc.Prof VÕ ĐẠI QUANG (PhD)

HA NOI - 2011

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 1: Marked and Unmarked Theme

Table 2: Syntactic Strategies in Assigning Information Focus

Table 3: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of Some Grammatical Devices of End-Focus Strategy in English Economic News

Table 4: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of the Active and Passive in English Economic News

Table 5: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of Sub-categories of Passivization in English Economic News

Figure 1: Construction of the Existential strategy

Figure 2: Construction of Extrapotition of Finite Subject Clause

Figure 3: Construction of Thematic Fronting

TABLE OF CONTENT

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

List of tables and figures iii

Abbreviations iv

Table of content v

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the Study 1

1.2 Scope of the Study 2

1.3 Objectives of the Study 2

1.4 Method of the Study 2

1.5 Design of the Study 3

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 2.1 The Concept of Discourse 5

2.2 Discourse and Text 6

2.3 Spoken and Written Discourse 7

2.4 Thematic Structure 8

2.5 Information Structure 11

2.5.1 The Notion of Information Structure 11

2.5.2 Information Focus 13

2.5.3 Principle of End-Focus 14

2.5.4 Principle of End-Weight 15

2.6 Economic News Discourse 16

CHAPTER THREE: INFORMATION FOCUS IN ENGLISH ECONOMICS NEWS 3.1 Marked and Unmarked Theme 17

3.2 Syntactic Strategies in Assigning Information Focus 19

3.2.1 End-Focus Strategy 20

3.2.1.1 The Active- Passive Alternative 21

3.2.1.1.1 The Active 21

3.2.1.1.2 The Passive 23

3.2.1.2 Existential 27

3.2.1.3 Extraposition 29

3.2.2 Thematisation Strategy 30

CHAPTER FOUR: PEDAGOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 4.1 Findings from the Interviews 33

4.2 Pedagogical Implications 34

4.3 Suggested Types of Exercises 34

CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS 5.1 Concluding Remarks 37

5.1.1 Conclusion on Objective One 37

5.1.2 Conclusion on Objective Two 38

5.2 Recommendations for Further Studies 38

References 39 Appendices

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the Study

It is common knowledge that language is a means of communication and has always mirrored society It is English that is one of the most common languages and is being used all over the world in education, business, science, technology.etc The economic development of our world recently has given rise to the development of economics literature, including books, magazines, newspapers and journals Therefore,

it is clear that English is needed for economic communication not only in spoken but also in written form

There are messages exchanging in each communication Any message is the result

of number choices made by sender, though it has to be said that these choices are to some extent determined by the context of the message- who the receivers are, what the purpose of the message is According to Leech (1975), there are three conditions that make a message to be understood, such as the message has to be cut up into individual pieces of information, the ideas have to be given the right emphasis, and the ideas have

to be put in the right order

Accordingly, it is the speaker and the writer who decide how to understand the messages While speakers can directly convey their information focus through stress and pitch, the writer must construct a clause, indeed the whole sentence (and text), carefully — with judicious word order, punctuation, and discourse implication (about

what the writer considers given or new information for the audience) — to recapture

the loss of such explicit markers of emphasis in speech In written English, therefore, the reader has to rely on the structure and ordering of the syntax It can be seen that each derivation of the basic English sentence pattern SVO has its own emphasis on different sentence elements Studying the derivation patterns makes clear contribution

to the understanding of how the message is organized and the proper understanding of the message

From the author‘s teaching experience and the common problems faced by students

of economics, Vietnamese learners have some difficulties in realizing the information focus of individual clause or sentence This happens as they do not obtain how the

focus of information assigned in different sentence patterns As a result, they meet certain obstacles in understanding the controlling idea of the whole passage or in writing interesting passages

All the reasons mentioned above have inspired the author to conduct this study Studying and analyzing economic news discourse attracts the author‘s attention because economics news is one of the highest interests of readers all over the world in general and Vietnamese ones in particulars Hopefully, the study will make some useful contribution to the way the readers analyze and understand properly how the message is organized and the information focus of each message

1.2 Scope of the Study

There are various types of economics discourse which may come from textbooks, newspapers, magazine, reports or journals However, this study does not explore all the mentioned economics discourse The writer will only focus on written English economic news discourse taken from some mainstream newspapers Within the framework of a minor M.A thesis, the present study will just take up syntactic devices employed in assigning information focus at sentence level in the light of discourse Furthermore, the investigation is carried out in the English language only It is hoped that this study will help the readers in general and teachers and students in particular to gain an insight into the information focus of English economic news

1.3 Objectives of the Study

The inter-related objectives of this thesis are:

(i) To give a systematic and comprehensive description of syntactic devices

employed for assigning information focus in English economics news (ii) To propose possible implications for teaching students how to assign

information focus

1.4 Method of the Study

The study is confined to the syntactic strategies in assigning information focus in English economics news The result should be useful for language teaching and

learning In order to achieve the objectives as stated above, research methods of description, analysis, statistics in linguistics and survey have been used

Firstly, ten pieces of English economic news written by different journalists will be carefully selected from mainstream newspapers written in English including

Economics, The Times, Times online, The Sunday Times, Global Finance, CNN, etc

Secondly, all syntactic features in assigning information focus in these news discourses are picked up The percentages and frequencies of various types of syntactic strategies are calculated However, only outstanding examples are used to illustrate Finally, after analyzing and systematizing syntactic strategies employed in the English economics news, the author will carry out interviewing the third-year students

of economics major Based on the interviews, some implications in teaching English will be figured out

1.5 Design of the Study

The thesis consists of five chapters:

Chapter one of this study is an introduction presenting some background

information and the rationale of the study The objectives, the scope and method of the study are also dealt with in this chapter

Chapter two is aimed to present the theoretical background of the work Some

essential concepts closely related to the study are carefully discussed one by one Firstly, some theories of discourse including the concept of discourse, discourse and text, spoken and written discourse Next, thematic structure and information structure are taken into consideration In term of information structure, the notion of information structure, information focus, principle of end-focus and principle of end-weight are presented Finally, some features of economic news discourse are also discussed in the chapter

Chapter three attempts to analyze English economics news in the light of

Discourse Analysis In this chapter, the marked and unmarked themes, and syntactic strategies in assigning information focus are investigated The frequency of occurrence and the percentage of contribution of each strategy are clarified

Chapter four is concerned with findings from the interviews of third year

students of Economics major at Thai Nguyen University Based on these findings, some useful pedagogical implications and some suggested types of exercises are

delivered

The last chapter is set up to give concluding remarks on the two objectives of

the thesis and gives suggestions for further research

CHAPTER TWO: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

In this chapter, the author is going to talk about preliminaries that are employed to conduct the investigation into information focus at sentence level in English economics news

2.1 The Concept of Discourse

Traditionally, language was viewed as a biologically determined phenomenon and its social aspect was neglected Language study, therefore, has based on isolated sentences However, it is more important to produce and understand meaningful language than to produce and recognize grammatically correct sentences According to Cook (1989), not all sentences are interesting, relevant or suitable; one cannot just put any sentence one after another and hope that it will mean something It is not always true that grammatically correct sentences are meaningful While, although people communicate with correctly complete sentences, they are still make their communication understandable and successful It cannot be denied that language must

be learnt and comprehended in its social context Consequently, the concept of discourse came into being and has been a rapidly expanding field of linguistic study There have been lots of observations on discourse by many linguists and each of them has their own ways to define discourse Richards (1985) uses the term discourse

to refer to language use or language in use Brown and Yule (1983:18) pointed out that

―discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the language.‖ Cook and Crystal share the similar perspective of discourse Cook (1989) considered discourse as ―stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and purposive‖ Crystal (1992) defined discourse as "a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit such as a sermon, argument, joke, or narrative.‖ However, Widdowson (1997) defines discourse as a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger units

Obviously, a discourse is a unit of meaning and it is the language that is functional

As Cook (1989) stated, ―discourse is the language in use for communicating, even though it is an interpersonal or non-personal communicative‖ Within the limit of this paper, we would like to take an idea from Nunan (1993) that discourse is communicative events involving language in context

Language used in economic news is discourse because it is the language in use for the purpose of communication

2.2 Discourse and Text

There has been a lot of confusion between the two terms discourse and text, which has been causing a pitfall for discourse analysis

There are some linguists who share the same idea that these two terms can be used interchangeably According to Halliday & Hasan (1989:10) ―text (discourse) can be defined in the simplest way perhaps by saying that it is language that is functional By functional we simply mean language that is doing some job in some context as apposed

in isolated words or sentences that I might put on the blackboard (These might also be functional of course if I was using them as linguistic examples) So any living language that is playing some part in a context of situation, we shall call a text It may be either spoken or written or indeed in other medium of expression that we like to think of.‖ Moreover, Halliday & Hasan (1976:1) found no distinction between them when they stated ―a text may be spoken or written, pose or verse, dialogue or monologue.‖

On the other hand, some other linguists draw a clear and explicit distinction between the two terms Brown and Yule (1983:6) claims that ―discourse is language material, either spoken or written, in actual uses by speakers (and writers) of the language.‖ while text is ―the representation of discourse and the verbal record of communicative act.‖ From his point of view, Crystal (1992) states ―discourse is a continuous stretch of (especially spoken) language larger than a sentence, often

constituting a coherent unit, such as sermon, argument, joke or narrative‖ while text is

―a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed discourse identified for purposes of analysis It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a conversation, a poster.‖ According to Cook (1989: 156), discourse is considered as ―stretches of language perceived to be meaningful, unified, and

purposive‖ whereas text is ―a stretch of language interpreted formally, without context.‖ It is clear that these linguists see discourse as a process and text as its product For the sake of the study, the writer of this thesis would take the viewpoint that it

is sometimes impossible to make a clear distinction between discourse and text This study will follow the trend that two terms can be used interchangeably In particularly,

it follows the approach developed by Halliday and Hasan The term ―text‖ is used to refer any written record of communication event and regarded as the product of discourse

2.3 Spoken and Written Discourse

Spoken and written languages present different modes of expressing language meanings According to Halliday (1985), ―Written language does, in fact, perform a similar range of broad functions to those performed by spoken language- that is, it is used to get things done, to provide information and to entertain‖ David Nunan (1993) also shared the same idea when he pointed that ―the differences between spoken and written modes are not absolute, and the characteristics that we tend to associate with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language and vice versa‖ Do Huu Chau (1996) also confirms the interrelation between spoken and written discourse Accordingly, written discourse can be represented inform of spoken discourse and vice versa For example, lectures, speeches are written discourse made to be spoken On the other hand, from the point of view of some other linguists, in discourse analysis we need to distinguish between spoken and written language because each mode seems to possess different features

It is considered that spoken discourse is less formal, less planned and orderly, more open to intervention by the receiver Halliday (1985) stated ―speaking does not show clearly sentence and paragraph boundaries or signal the move into direct quotation‖ He also pointed out that ―talking might be spontaneous which results in mistakes, repetition, sometimes less coherent sentences where even grunts, stutters or pauses might be meaningful.‖ This view is based on the perception that speech depends on a shared situation and background for interpretation whereas writing does not depend on such a shared context Additionally, in spoken discourse, content words

tend to be spread out over a number of clauses rather than being tightly packed into individual clauses which is more typical of written discourse Another feature of spoken discourse is it may consist of nonsense vocabulary, slang, or contracted forms (I‘ll, you‘re, he‘s…) Rhythm, intonation and speed of utterance are other important features of oral discourse (Crystal 1992:291)

On the contrary, written discourse is considered as more structurally complex and elaborate than speech According to Crystal (1995:291) ―writing develops in space in that it needs a means to carry the information The writer is frequently able to consider the content of his work for almost unlimited period of time which makes it more coherent, having complex syntax and ―the reader might not instantly respond to the text, ask for clarification, hence neat message organization, division to paragraphs, layouts are of vital importance to make comprehension easier.‖ In addition, according

to Halliday written discourse tends to be more lexically dense than spoken discourse Lexically density refers to the ration of content words to grammatical or function words within a clause Content words include nouns and verbs while grammatical words include items such as prepositions, pronouns and articles.‖

2.4 Thematic structure

The thematic structure is a formal category in the analysis of sentences and clauses

In this structure, one element called Theme serves as the departure point of the message, which in English coincides with the initial element of the clause This then combines with the remainder called Rheme

There has been a variety of definition of Theme by different linguists According to Nunan (1993) theme is a formal grammatical category which refers to the initial element in a clause It is the element around which the sentence is organized and the one to which the writer wishes to give prominence A Czech linguist named Mathesuis defines theme as ―that which is known or, at least obvious in the given situation and from which the speaker precedes in his discourse‖ The initial constituent of a clause serves as "the point of departure for the clause as message" (Halliday, 1967) or as the

"starting point" from which readers interpret the message of the clause (Halliday, 1985; MacWhinney, 1977; Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985)

The theme organizes the clause as message, functioning as the starting point of the message In English, the theme is realized by the element in clause initial position Halliday (1970) characterizes the thematic constituent as the ―peg on which the message of the clause is hung‖ According to Brown et al (1983), Theme has two main functions such as: connecting back and linking into the previous discourse, maintaining

a coherent point of view and serving as a point of departure for the further development

of the discourse A theme may be realized by a nominal group, a prepositional phrase,

an adverbial group, or even a clause in the case of predicated theme In speaking or writing, we signal that an item has thematic status by putting it first

With regard to the three-dimensional metafunctional structure of the clause, themes

can be identified in three different types namely topical, interpersonal and textual in the realization of the three types of clause elements A topical theme has to do with the information conveyed in the discourse An interpersonal theme is any combination of a modal theme consisting of a modal adjunct, vocative element (any item used to address) and a mood-making element (a finite verbal operator, or WH-interrogative or imperative Let’s.) A textual theme links a clause to the rest of the discourse

The following is an example of Theme-Rheme structure:

Unfortunately,

Not surprisingly,

however, then,

the “Un-artist”

its operations

proliferated within the art institutions

as well

were viewed with admiration

Interpersonal textual experiential Rheme

―The Theme is what I, the speaker, choose to take as my point of departure The

given is what you, the listener already knows, or has accessible to you Theme-Rheme

is speaker oriented, while Given-New is listener oriented‖

(Halliday, 1985: 278) Theme, which is considered as ―point of departure‖ on the message, always appears before Rheme in the clause

E.g

The duke

Once upon a time

Who

Has given my aunt that teapot

There were three bears

Killed Cock Robin?

(Halliday, M A K, 1985) Nunan (1993) states that one important consideration is whether the information has already been introduced into the discourse, or is assumed to be known to the reader

or listener Such information is referred to as given information It contrasts with

information which is introduced for the first time and which is known as new information In contrast to Theme-Rheme, Given-New does not always appear in the same order

E.g

A We flew to Paris on a Jumbo JET

B No, it was to ROME that we flew on a Jumbo

is generally understood as ―usual and most typical‖, is a subject in a statement, an operator in a Yes/No question, Wh-element in a Wh-question and main verb in a command

E.g

Alice Did Where

Go Let’s

Once upon a time,

Very carefully

With sobs and tears

there were three bears

she put him back on his feet again

he sorted out those of the largest size

(Halliday M A K, 1985)

2.5 Information Structure

2.5.1 The Notion of Information Structure

The term information structure (IS) goes back to Halliday (1967) and has been widely used in the subsequent literature to refer to the partitioning of sentences into

categories such as focus, background, topic, comment etc There is no con- sensus on what and how many categories of information structure should be distinguished, or how these can be identified

There has been disagreement and confusion about Information Structure

An extremely important aspect of functional grammar is the way information is structured in communication Whenever we explain something to someone in both speech and writing, we instinctively try to organize what we say or write in a way that will make it easier for the hearer or reader to understand

In his book ―Information Structure and Sentence Form‖, Lambrecht stated that

―Even though information structure is concerned with such psychological phenomina

as the speaker‘s hypotheses about the hearer‘s mental states, such phenomena are relevant to the linguist only in as much as they are reflected in Gramatical Structure (morphosyntax, prosody) The importance of this caveat cannot be overemphasized I take information structure to be a component of Grammar, more specifically of SENTENCE GRAMMAR,i.e I take it to be a determining factor in the formal structuring of sentences.‖ Brown, Gillian and Yule, George (1993) share some similar ideas that information structure is realized partly by syntax (i.e.the word order) and partly by phonological prominence and pause

On the idea of Halliday about the organization of information, it is phonological realisation, especially to intonation According to Richards (1985), Information Structure is defined more broadly It is the use of word order, intonation, stress and other devices to indicate how the message expressed by a sentence is to be understood Nunan (1993: 120) stated that Information Structure is the ordering of elements within sentences and utterances according to assumptions about the current state of knowledge

of the listener and reader, and elements which the speaker or writer wishes to thematize

"There is a close semantic relationship between information structure and thematic structure Other things being equal, a speaker will choose the Theme from within what

is Given and locate the focus, the climax of the New, somewhere in the Rheme" (Halliday, 1985, p 278)

In this study, an investigation is put on English economics news which is in the

form of written discourse Therefore, there is no consideration on phonological realization of the organization of information Syntactic features are the only motivation for the author

2.5.2 Information Focus

In his book ―Functional Grammar‖, Halliday stated that ―Each information unit is realized as a pitch contour, or TONE, which may be falling, rising or mixed This pitch contour extends over the whole tone group Within the tone group, one foot (and in particular its first syllable) carries the main pitch movement: the main fall, or rise, or the change of direction This feature is known as TONIC PROMINENCE, and the element having this prominence is the TONIC element (tonic foot, tonic syllable)…The element having this prominence is said to be carrying INFORMATION FOCUS‖ The term focus refers to a cross-linguistic semantic phenomenon related to the highlighting

of information for communicative purposes In English, focus is typically connected to words in an utterance that are perceived by hearers as stressed or emphasized by speakers Such syllables can be louder or longer than the syllables around them

It is implied in Bolinger‘s early definition of what he calls the ―information point‖

of a sentence:

―We can say that the prosodic stress…marks the ―point‖ of the sentence, where there is the greatest concentration of information, that which the hearer would be least likely to infer without being told (1954:152)‖

More explicitly, the notion of focus according to Halliday (1976), ―information focus is one kind of emphasis, that whereby the speaker marks out a part (which may

be the whole) of a message block as that which he wishes to be interpreted as informative What is focal is ―new‖ information; not in the sense that it cannot have been previously mentioned, although it is often the case that it has not been, but in the sense that speaker presents it as not being recoverable from the preceding discourse…the focus of the message, it is suggested, is that which is represented by the speaker as being new, textually (and situationally) non-derivable

In spoken English, information focus is achieved by manipulating intonational contours

so that informationally important elements receive nuclear stress in tone units Since

those tone units can be conveyed directly, this creates few problems In written English, however, the reader has to rely more heavily on linear ordering of the syntax While speakers can directly convey their emphases through stress and pitch, the writer must construct a clause, indeed the whole sentence (and text), carefully — with judicious word order, punctuation, and discourse implication (about what the writer considers given or new information for the audience)

Within the scope of the study, only written English Economic News discourse is focused Therefore, syntactic features are taken into consideration

2.5.3 Principle of End-Focus

One strategy for interpreting the focus of information from syntax is the principle of end-focus (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1985, p 1356-57) There is a

variation in the information value of different parts of a clause or a sentence It is

normal to arrange the information in our message so that the most important information comes at the end The clause-final element carries the (relatively) highest information emphasis, or ―end-focus‖ as Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik (1985) put it: ―…it is common to process information in a message so as to achieve a linear presentation from low to high information value We shall refer to this as the principle

of END-FOCUS‖ Leech et al (1975) also recognized that a sentence is generally more effective if the main point is saved up to the end In contrast, the beginning of a sentence or clause typically contains information that is general knowledge, or is obvious from the context, or may be assumed as given because it has been mentioned earlier For example:

- It is unbelievable how much that child eats

It can be seen that the subject clause in the above example carry new information They are longer and much informative than their complement

If the following clause is kept in the first front position, it sounds marked and less natural

- That people demonstrate against war surprises no-one

It is normally write in this way:

- It surprises no-one that people demonstrate against war

2.5.4 The principle of End-Weight

Where there is a choice, it is normal to put long and complex constituents at the end of a sentence or clause This principle of end-weight is in large part a consequence

of the principle of end-focus, since the more important information tends to be given in fuller detail The ―weight‖ of an element can be defined in terms of length or in term of grammatical complexity

It is more difficult to understand a sentence when the subject is considerably longer than the predicate We can rephrase the sentence to shift the weight to the end:

Consider the following examples:

1 (a) That he did not understand what I said at the lecture is very strange!

(b) It is very strange that he did not understand what I said at the lecture

2 (a) The rate at which the American people are using up the world‘s supply of

irreplaceable fossil fuels and their refusal to admit that the supply is limited is the real problem

(b) The real problem is the rate at which the American people are using up the world‘s supply of irreplaceable fossil fuels and their refusal to admit that the supply is limited

It is clear, for communicative purposes, that 1(b) and 2(b) are more appropriate than 1(a) and 2(a), since the former has a long, complex phrase in subject position, and that may make it difficult to interpret

The principle of end-weight, as (Greenbaum 1991) mentions, usually has a strong relationship with the principle of end-focus, in which the most significant information

is likely to occur at the end of the clause However, the two principles can conflict, as can be seen in the examples below:

(a) My father owns the largest betting-shop in London

(b) The largest betting-shop in London belongs to my father

(Leech, 1975)

Leech and Svartvik (1975) note that in (a), the long object phrase comes after the

short subject ‗my father‘, to respect the principle of end-weight In contrast, this

principle is broken by putting the long phrase in (b) in the theme position; but it could

be said that the writer did so to apply the principle of end-focus to ‗my father‘

Therefore, in this situation, the two principles of end-focus and end-weight conflict

2.6 Economic News Discourse

Language of Economics has a distinctive function of language As Halliday‘s point

of view, economics is a generalized functional variety of modern English language It varies greatly in rhetorical functions such as expository, analytic, synthetic, and informing Economics news is one type of press According to Nguyễn Thị Vân Đông (2001), the function of press is ―informing and provoking reader‘s curiosity and satisfying their choice.‖

In this thesis, the mode of economic news is in the form of written language, thus it has several characteristics:

 The use of normalization, metaphor, personification, syntactic features like the passive and the leavings of gaps in message are used to make economics writing what it is

 Terminology is the most important part of vocabulary in scientific prose, in particular and in economics discourse in particular

 The language of economic news must be concise and clear; the content is up to date and excites the readers‘ curiousness

 The descriptive sentences with a concise structure are mainly used instead of multi-clause sentences

 In economics discourse, reference made to the relationships of factors is often represented through graphs, tables and charts

CHAPTER THREE: INFORMATION FOCUS IN ENGLISH

ECONOMICS NEWS

3.1 Marked and Unmarked Theme

Theme is a meaningful choice, as in other parts of the grammar, writers can choose between a marked and an unmarked option Unmarked theme is generally understood

as ‗usual and most typical‘ while marked considered ‗untypical or unusual‘ In relation

to the system of mood, a theme is called unmarked when it conflates with the Mood structure constituent that typically occurs in the first position in the clause For example, in declarative clauses, the unmarked theme takes place when a theme coincides with the clause subject In this case, Theme typically contains familiar, old

or given information Theme provides the settings for the remainder of the sentence –

Rheme Rheme is the remainder of the message in a clause in which Theme is developed, that is to say, Rheme typically contains unfamiliar or new information, therefore, receiving the information focus

Here are some examples from exploited news discourse:

(The Times, April 9, 2010)

5 We need to unleash the full potential of the service sector and find new areas-green and digital technologies, for instance-that can fill the gap

(Global Finance, January 2010)

On the other hand, marked sentences often contain a Theme that is separate from the subject A marked theme is the one functioning as some element of the Residue such as Complement, Adjunct, or Predicator The marked Theme receives nucleus stress and is given special emphasis

Marked themes

1 Regarding the import of soybean oil to China, it‘s just a normal problem that

comes with the development of trade and economic relations

(Economics, July 13, 2010 )

2 To ensure we avoid another financial catastrophe such as the one that

plunged our nation into the worst recession since the Great Depression

(Times Online, July 13, 2010 Wall Street)

3 With the support of Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe and Scott

Brown, Wall Street reform is a step away from heading to the president's desk to be signed into law

(Times Online, July 13, 2010 Wall Street)

4 Though this was a relatively modest rate of contraction, tough operating

conditions, dire weather and funding constraints dampened overall sector activity

(Times Online, March 2, 2010)

5 After bungling his handling of the Northern Rock crisis in 2001, Mervyn

King, governor of the Bank England, was blamed for creating the crisis that many said made Britain the laughingstock of global banking

(Global Finance, November 2009)

From the above samples, we could conclude that Theme may be realized by a nominal group, verbal group, adverbial group, prepositional phrase or a dependent clause

The result of our analysis reveals that the number of clauses with unmarked theme occupies 87.2% that is about seven times as big as that of clauses with marked theme at the rate of 12.8% The frequent occurrence of unmarked themes proved that most of themes take the usual subject position in the clause Furthermore, with most of the clauses functioning as declaratives, the writers tend to use more statements than questions More importantly, the fronting positions of subjects, which form 87.2 % of the number of unmarked themes, imply that writers of economics news attach much

attention to the ―what‖ of the message The analysis of the theme system is shown in

the following table:

Table 1: Marked and Unmarked Theme

(in number)

Quantity (in percent)

3.2 Syntactic Strategies in Assigning Information Focus

As discussed above, the important positions in the clause and the sentence are initial position and final position There are grammatical devices for reordering information in order to bring an element to initial position (thematic fronting) In addition, the device of clefting also places the element to be focused near the front On the other hand, the language provides devices to shift information towards the end The Wh-cleft, active-passive alternation, existential sentences and extraposition work on end-focus strategy

Table 2: Syntactic Strategies in Assigning Information Focus

Types of Strategies Quantity

(in number)

Quantity (in percent)

Table 2 presents the frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of two

major syntactic strategies in assigning information focus in English economic news discourse The data indicate that, end-focus is the more frequently occurring strategy with the percentage of contribution up to 87.98 % It means that, in English economic news discourse, writers put focus of information more at the end of clauses or sentences than at the beginning Since each strategy is categorized into subtypes and the investigation of the random selected economic news in English reveals that the sub-types of each strategy do not occur with equal frequency Therefore, the frequency of occurrence and the main features of each sub-type of the two strategies will be discussed in detail in the next part

3.2.1 End-Focus Strategy

As discussed before, it is normal to arrange the information in our message so that the most important information comes at the end Leech et al (1975) recognized that a clause or a sentence is generally more effective if the main point is saved up to the end Thematic structure with unmarked themes, therefore, is applied Here, writers assign information focus into the rheme

There are some special grammatical devices used to assign the focus of information, such as active-passive alternative, existential, extraposition, right-movement strategy and pseudo-clefting strategy In the occurrence of 322 times, 52.63

% is realized by three first devices And in English economics news, there is no preference on right-movement and pseudo-clefting strategies Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of these is shown in the table below:

Table 3: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of Some Grammatical Devices of End-Focus Strategy in English Economic News Some grammatical devices of end-

focus strategy

Quantity (in number)

Quantity (in percent)

3.2.1.1 The Active- Passive Alternative

Most situations which involve two or more participants, writers can take one or others as the starting point of the message According to Downing et al (1992), the active-passive alternative permits the speaker/writer to arrange his message so that the part presented as New is placed in the end position while the element considered to be given is placed in initial position He thus exploits to advantage the two main positions

in the clause, the beginning and the end

Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution of the active and passive in English economics news is shown in the table below:

Table 4: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of the Active

and Passive in English Economic News

(in number)

Quantity (in percent)

3.2.1.1.1 The Active

In the active construction, the point of departure, the Theme, coincides with Agent

as Subject, while Affected included in the Rheme is in final position and receives focus Examples are as follows:

end-1.The rise in inventories

(Times Online, March 9, 2011)

Direct object Focused element Rheme

(Times Online, March 9, 2011)

3.Top Senate Democrats

Agent

Subject

Theme

say they have the 60 votes needed to pass the Wall Street

reform bill this week

Affected Direct object Focused element Rheme

(Times Online, July 13, 2010)

(Global Finance, January 2010)

In the above examples, the themes ―The rise in inventories‖, ―Greater sales‖, ―Top Senate Democrats‖ , ―and ― European policymakers‖ all are given information because

of the definite ―the‖ and because of being mentioned before They all coincide with the

clause subjects which function as unmarked themes Therefore, it is the rheme which contains the focus of information

The survey of tenses used in English economics news shows that 82.1% of the verbs used are active forms It is interesting to realize in many clauses where passive forms may be applicable, it is not taken advantage of Instead, such kinds of structures

as below are used:

1 The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) calculated that GDP grew by 0.4 per cent in the first quarter, matching growth in the final three months of last year as the country emerged from the longest recession on record

(The Times, April 9, 2010)

2 Earlier this week the OECD forecast that the UK economy would grow by 0.5 per cent in the first quarter, and 0.8 per cent in the second quarter, marking one

of the strongest performances in the G7

(The Times, April 9, 2010)

3 CIPS said that new orders received by construction companies fell for a third successive month

(Times Online, March 2, 2010) The percentage of contribution of the active shows that most authors tend to prefer the active form They directly state their aims and objectives of their writing and put the focus of information on the Affected

3.2.1.1.2 The Passive

From the point of view of Downing et al (1992), in passive construction these correspondences are reversed The affected now provides the point of departure, coincide with subject While the Agent takes up final position and receives end-focus Consider the examples below:

(a) Rising oil prices partially influenced the spike in sales

(b) The spike in sales was partially influenced by rising oil prices

(Times Online, March 9, 2011)

If we analyze the active clause (a) and the passive clause (b) deeply, it can be said, according to Collins and Hollo (2000),that the passive form can be derived by:

 Converting the object of the active (the spike in sales) into the subject if

the passive;

 Making the subject of the active (Rising oil prices) into the axis of the

by-phrase;

 Making the VP passive, by adding auxiliary be to VP before the main

verb and converting the main verb into the V-en form

The usage of the passive form is one of the grammatical devices available in English, and plays a significant role in applying communicative principles such as end-focus and end-weight

When the writers use passive construction, they have to consider motivation for its use According to Downing et al (1992), from the point of view of the textual organization of what the writer wants to focus, there are three possibilities that may condition the choice between active and passive:

i The Agent is New information, so will be placed last

ii The Agent is not New and is silenced Some other element is New and placed

last

iii An element which is not Agent is desired as Theme

Passivization can be divided into two types: passivization with an agent and passivization without an agent Frequency of occurrence and percentage of contribution

of these in English economics news is shown in the table below:

Table 5: Frequency of Occurrence and Percentage of Contribution of

Sub-categories of Passivization in English Economic News

Sub-categories of passivization Quantity

(in number)

Quantity (in percent)