The analysis of theme and rheme in little house on the prairie = sự phân tích về đề ngữ và thuyết ngữ, thông qua truyện ngôi nhà nhỏ trên thảo nguyên

Vinh universitydepartment of foreign languages trÇn thanh tó The analysis of Theme and Rheme in "Little house on the Prairie"... vinh universitydepartment of foreign languages The analys

Vinh university

department of foreign languages

trÇn thanh tó

The analysis of Theme and Rheme

in "Little house on the Prairie"

vinh university

department of foreign languages

The analysis of Theme and Rheme

in "Little house on the Prairie"

studied sentences which are preferably taken out of the context Moreover, the commontraditional practice of language teaching and learning has been on the analysis of singlesentences, normally at the levels of phonology, vocabulary, and grammar Nevertheless,the recent linguistic tendencies of research have been on discourse analysis whichcontaining factors affecting the communication and also the functioning of syntactic,pragmatic, and social aspects These works are concerned with the meaning of not onlysentences but also utterances and discourses.

The traditional view has been gradually replaced by the one that completeunderstanding of stretches of language can only be obtained if they are considered "intheir full textual, social and psychological context" (see Cook 1990, cited in Hồ NgọcTrung, M.A thesis,1991:1) Obviously, it has been observed that incomplete sentencescan still make sense when occurring in some particular context With this view, hence,linguists and researchers have shifted their attention from complete sentences todiscourse

There are more than five thousand languages used in the world That can be a "VSO"

or an "SVO" language Also, English is often called an " SVO" language, in that the

declarative clause requires a verb at its centre, a subject before it and any object after it"(McCarthy, 1991:51) Besides, in English, there are various ways in which the basicclause element of subject, verb, complement/ object, adverbial can be rearranged by

putting different elements at the beginning of the clause, known as fronting devices

It is in the English language that what we decide to bring to the front of the clause (by whatever means) is a signal of what is to be understood as the framework within which what we want to say is to be understood and we call the Themes (or Topics) of

the clause Alternatively, the Theme can be seen as the "point of departure" of the

message (Halliday, 1994:38) However, concentrating on Themes of clauses does nottell us much about the rest of the clause, known as transmitting what we want to say

within the given framework or "the part in which the Theme is developed" (Halliday,

1994:37), called the Rheme (or Comment) or the Clause When we consider them in relation to each other, we have Theme- Rheme structure Undoubtedly, though

realizations may vary from language to language, the first position in the clause isimportant in many of the world's languages Thus, because of its importance in the way

it is also the speaker's/ writer's choice where to start in presenting the message (alsohow to "stage" the information) that determines which part of the message is put first,

studying Theme- Rheme is worth-doing work As it has a rather great influence on theformation of the discourse in general and of the message in particular.

The Theme- Rheme structure can be identified in both written discourses or spokennarratives and anecdotes, and a story book is the combination of both as it is a storywritten down and conversations are included Hence, personally we think that studyingTheme- Rheme, especially in a book published, can be useful to users of English

For those reasons, we have decided to choose "The Analysis of Theme- Rheme in

"Little House on the Prairie" to be the theme of our study

It is hoped that, this study, to some extent, is interesting enough and helpful tolearners and those who want to master more on English

2 Aims of the Study

The aims of the thesis are:

- To identify how Theme- Rheme can be realized in English language

- Then, to give an overview understanding on the Theme-Rheme structure, especiallythe classification of Themes From that, provide English users with an insight intoTheme-Rheme for their studying and using

- To study the utilities of Theme- Rheme in the book "Little House on the Praire" withcertain and notable types

3 Scope of the Study

Clearly, Theme and Rheme have been studied and stated by many linguists Thoughpoints of view of many linguists and scholars of different schools can be included in thisthesis, of which, Halliday (1994) should be considered the main source and the basicreference for the study to be proceeded

Strictly, we have tried to present an overview of Theme and Rheme with all fieldsrelated However, due to the time constraints and within the framework of a graduationthesis, we would like to analyze how some certain types of Themes are used in the book

"Little House on the Prairie", not all about Theme and Rheme, although "The Analysis

of Theme and Rheme in "Little House on the Prairie" is shown as the theme of thestudy

4 Method of the Study

- A great number of documents and materials are searched and selected, especiallyworks in English for theoretical background.

- A description of Theme- Rheme structure is made basing on the ideas of linguists fromdifferent linguistic schools, particularly of Halliday

- Analytic and systematic method

- Quanlitative method is used most of the time for a sufficient theoretical background, incombination with quantitative method to analyze some types of Themes in "LittleHouse on the Prairie"

5 Design of the Study

The thesis comprises of three main parts:

Part 1: Introduction

This part refers to the rationale, aims, scope, methods and design of the study

Part 2: Development

This part is subdivided into three chapters:

Chapter 1: Theoretical background

are considered "in their full textual, social and psychological context" (ibid.).

Context-free sentences do not help to achieve successful communication since thelanguage in use does not exist in isolation from its users and the context in which it isbeing used.

Therefore, it is of necessity that when communicating, we must "go beyond theformal structure of language as a context-free system of usage and use the languagewhich is context-sensitive" (Bell, 1991:161) This language, the knowledge of which, asWiddowson (1977) explains, can not be automatically followed from the knowledge ofsentence, is known as discourse (Cited in Hồ Ngọc Trung, M.A thesis, 1999:11)

Though the concept of Discourse is still discussed, Discourse can be defined as astretch of language consisting of several sentences which are perceived as being related

in some way, in terms of the ideas they share and in terms of the jobs they performwithin discourse - that is, their functions (Nunan 1993, cited in Discourse Analysis,Vinh University- FLD, 2006:3)) Basically, it may be defined as "the language in use forcommunication"

The study of discourse is often referred to as Discourse Analysis And asMcCarthy (1993:10) states, Discourse analysis is fundamentally concerned with therelationship between language and the contexts in which it is used, that is, it involvesthe study of language in use

As far as the scope of discourse is concerned, Discourse refers not only to spokeninteractions, interviews, but also to written and printed words such as newspapers,articles, letters, stories, recipes, instructions, notices, comics billboards, etc (seeMcCarthy 1993)

1.1.2 Discourse and Text

So far, the terms "Discourse" and "Text" have been used as though they aresynonyms and there have been many ways of viewing the terms "discourse" and "text".Now, it is time to look at these terms a little more closely with the following statementsare cited in Discourse Analysis (Vinh University- FLD, 2006:4)

Crystal (1992:72) distinguishes that "Text" should be reserved only for writing and

"Discourse" for speech Discourse is "a continuous stretch of (especially spoken)language larger than a sentence, often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon,argument, joke or narrative" (Crystal, 1992:72), while "Text" is "a piece naturaloccurring 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" (Crystal 1992:72)

Cook (1989:158) considers "Text" as "a stretch of language interpreted formally,without context", whereas "Discourse" is "stretches of language perceived to bemeaningful, unified and purposive"

Halliday and Hasan (1976:1), however, use these two notions interchangeably.They use "Text" to actually refer to "Discourse" for they say that "a text is unit oflanguage in use" and "it may be spoken or written, prose or verse, dialogue ormonologue"

Brown & Yule (1983:6) point out that texts are the representation of discourse andthe verbal record of a communicative act: "We shall use text as a technical term, to refer

to the verbal record of a communicative act"

In short, we can understand "Text" as the term used to refer to any written record

of a communicative event, while the term "Discourse" refers to the interpretation of thecommunicative event in context

1.1.3 Cohesion and Textuality

English offers a limited set of opinions for creating links between the clauses andsentences of a text, otherwise known as Cohesion The concept of cohesion is closelyconnected with discourse In Richard et al's view, Cohesion is defined as thegrammatical and lexical relationships between the different elements of a text E.g: Between different sentences:

"She claims Leo Tolstoy as a distant cousin Her father was Alexei Tolstoy- the famous

"Red Count" who sided with Lenin's revolutionaries Now, Tatyana Tolstoy has put pen to paper, in her case to demonstrate that someone from the family can write compactly In her case…"

(Guido Telemans 1998-1999, quoted in Tô Việt Thu, M.A thesis, 2001:10)

As seen in the example, the underlined items are all interpretable to the items in theprevious sentences

Between different part of a sentence:

"Because my introduction was too short, I had to rewrite it"

(ibid.)

It is obvious that there is a link between "my introduction" and "it" in that sentence: "It"

is used to refer to "my introduction"

Coherence, as Nunan (1993), is "the feeling that sequences of sentences orutterances seem to hang together" For example:

A: Clare loves potatoes

B: She was born in Ireland

(ibid.)

The respond in B seems unrelated to the former sentence, but it becomes coherent if Aalready knows the stereotype ethnic association between being Irish and lovingpotatoes

Thus, cohesion is only a guide to coherence and coherence is something created

by the reader in the act of reading the text The two categories here represent theessential elements that make the text or discourse coherent and different from randomones

To sum up, cohesion refers to the grammatical and lexical relationships betweenthe different elements of a text whereas coherence refers to the relationships linking themeanings of utterances in a disc or of the sentences in a text Coherence is embodied by

a system of cohesive devices and cohesion is mainly used to embody coherence

Halliday and Hasan (1976) identified five different types of cohesion They arereference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion In Halliday (1985a),however, these have been further refined and the five categories have been reduced tofour, with substitution being seen as a sub- category of ellipsis (cited in DiscourseAnalysis, Vinh University- FLD, 2006:14)

Examples for types of Cohesion:

- Reference (Anaphoric, Cataphoric reference):

This is the most famous singer, Elvis Presley (Cataphoric reference)

- Ellipsis (Nominal, Verbal, Clausal):

How did he come? By bus (He came by bus) (Clausal ellipsis)

- Substitution (Nominal, Verbal, Clausal):

Minh has a black bag I have the same (Nominal substitution)

- Conjunction: People drive carelessly As a consequence, there are more and more

accidents

- Lexical ties: Repetition, synonyms, antonyms, super ordinate, hyponym, co-ordinate.

1.2 Information Structure viewed by Linguists:

Information structure within discourse was first seriously studied by scholars ofthe Prague School before the Second World War, within the framework of "FunctionalSentence Perspective" developed by a group of Czech linguists, notably Mathesius andFirbas According to the linguists of Functional Sentence Perspective, there are twothings that successive sentences in a text have to do Firstly, they must be informative.Secondly, they must be relevant So what do "informative" and "relevant" mean? Theanswer is that "being informative involves presenting "new" information to the reader,while being "relevant" involves associating that "new" information with informationwhich is already known to the reader, "given" either by preceding co-text or by thesituational context" (Carl James, 1980:109).

Halliday is the person who elaborated and developed those aspects of Praguework According to Halliday (1994), information consists of two categories: giveninformation or just the given and new information or just the new Halliday suggeststhat New information is that which the addressor assumes is not known to the addresseeand Given information is that which the addressee is assumed to have known because ofeither the physical presentation in the context or the previous presentation in the

discourse E.g: Lan is a student "Lan" is the Given and "is a student" is the New

However, let us take an example from Cao Xuân Hạo (1991:37):

Bố tôi chưa gặp bố anh (My father has not met your father)

In the above example, the addressee might not know the addressor's father but mustknow his father, so "My father" should be treated as New information and "Your father"

as Given information (to the addressee) Besides, it is obvious that "Your father" hasbeen neither physically presented in the context nor mentioned before in the previousdiscourse, but it is still viewed as given to the addressee Hence, best of all is to takeChafe's general view of given information as "the knowledge which the speakerassumes to be in the consciousness of the addressee at the time of the discourse" (cited

in Brown & Yule, 1983:180)

Given information is often carried by some syntactic forms According to Brown

& Yule (1983), the syntactic forms which are regularly discussed in association with

"given" information include lexical units which are mentioned for the second time,particularly those in definite expressions E.g.:

a, 1 Yesterday I saw a little girl get bitten by a dog.

2 I tried to catch the dog, but it ran away.

(Chafe, 1972:52, cited in Brown & Yule, 1983:182)

b, 1 Mary got some beer out of the car.

2 The beer was warm.

(ibid.)

Lexical units which are presented as being within the semantic field of a previouslymentioned unit, again particularly those in definite expressions E.g.:

a, 1 Mary got some picnic supplies out of the car.

2 The beer was warm.

b, 1 Yesterday, Beth sold her Chevy.

2 Today, Glen bought the car.

c, 1 I bought a painting last week.

2 I really like paintings.

d, 1 Robert found an old car.

2 The steeling wheel had broken off.

(ibid.)

The syntactic forms are also prominals used both anaphorically following a full lexicalform in the preceding sentence as in:

a, 1 What happened to the jewels?

2 They were stolen by a customer.

b, 1 I saw two young people there.

2 He kissed her.

c, 1 Yesterday, I saw a little girl get bitten by the dog.

2 I tried to catch the dog, but it ran away.

(ibid.)

and exophorically (to refer to the physical context of situation) where the referent ispresent, as in:

a, 1 (Sag produces a cleaver and prepares to hack off his left hand)

2 He never actually does it.

b, 1 Look out.

2 It's falling.

(ibid.)

They can be pro-verbals, though less commonly discussed, as in:

1 William works in Manchester.

2 So do I.

(ibid.)

(The expression claimed to be "Given" is underlined in each case)

From the previous examples, we find two predominant forms of expression used

to refer to an entity treated as given, pronominals and definite noun phrases

Furthermore, as stated in Halliday (1994), there is a significant variation betweentwo terms Given and New: Given is information that is presented by the speaker asrecoverable while New is information that is presented as not recoverable to thelisteners To make it clearer, "what is treated as recoverable may be so because it hasbeen mentioned before; but that is not the only possibility It may be something that is

in the situation; or in the air, so to speak; or something that is not around at all but thatthe speaker wants to present as Given for rhetorical purposes The meaning is: This isnot news" (Halliday, 1994: 298)

What is more, Halliday is the person who further followed the Prague School in theway he supposes that "one of the functions of intonation in English is to mark off whichinformation the speaker is treating as New and which information the speaker is treating

as Given" (Brown & Yule, 1983: 154)

Halliday assumes that messages can be organized into chunks called information

units "The information unit is what its name implies: a unit of information" (ibid., 296).

And the speaker is free to decide how he wants to package the information, that means

he is "free to decide where each information unit begins and ends, and how it isorganized internally" (ibid., 200) For example, when the speaker wants to convey the

information " John has gone into the garden with Mary" to the listeners, he can organize

the information in one, two or three chunks respectively as follows:

a, John has gone into the garden with Mary.

b, John- has gone into the garden with Mary.

c, John- has gone into the garden with- Mary.

(Brown & Yule, 1983: 155)

Moreover, Halliday also states that the "internal organization" of the information isrelated to the way in which given and new information is distributed within the unit Hesuggests that the unmarked sequencing of information structure is taken to be "given-new" in which the given information will be ordered before new information by thespeaker We have, a typical discourse, then, proceeds roughly as follows:

Given…New Given…New Given…New

Thus, naturally, information units which are initial in a discourse will contain only newinformation

In speech, information units are realized phonologically by tone units (or tone

groups) Many phonologists believe that each tone unit is made up of by a series of

prominent and non-prominent syllables A prominent syllable is the one that has the

stronger sound because it is uttered with greater intensity, duration or pitch variation bythe speaker

Besides, in a tone unit, there is at least one main prominent syllable which ismarked by a jump in pitch, either rising or falling This syllable is viewed as having

nuclear prominence (called tonic) as opposed to non-nuclear prominence And it is

often the last prominent syllable in the unit Let's look at the following example:

/Where's that friend of yours/

(McCarthy, 1991:99)

In that example, WHERE is a non-nuclear prominent syllable, whereas friend in bold is

a nuclear prominence The others are non-prominent

That is not the end of the story, to the school of linguists who see intonation asbeing related to the information structure of utterances, the tone unit is central Amongthem, Halliday (1985) is principal Halliday holds the view that intonational unit isconcerned with the Information Structure In other words, "Tone groups areinformational units, the speaker decides how to segment the information to betransmitted and encodes each segment as a separate tone group" (McCarthy, 1991: 99).What the speaker decides is "New" (in the sense of "newsworthy") will be projected bythe nuclear prominence in the tone unit Considered to be "Given" is the rest of the tonegroup (though only in the sense of "the background or framework in which thenewsworthy items operate" rather than "given" meaning "already mentioned orunderstood"- ibid., 1991: 100)

There has been a focus on the information structure that consists of the notionsGiven and New as these notions will remind us of the grammatical idea of Theme andRheme in the clause, which we shall study in this thesis

In English, there are different ways to express the New and Given

Firstly, to express the New, we can use some means such as:

- The construction: " It is…that" E.g.:

It is in New York that he met her for the first time.

- Some limiting or emphasizing adverbs such as "only, even" E.g.:

Only the children, unaware of that, are those who lose their freedom and their sense of surroundings (Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 104)

- The indefinite article "a/ an" This indefinite article is capable of being used to signal

something that is new owing to its basic meaning of "indefiniteness" E.g.:

Suddenly up the hill came a young guy.

(Compare: Suddenly up the hill came the young guy)

(ibid., 104)

- The construction " There is …" This is an existential construction that is also a powerful

device to introduce a new referent E.g.:

There is a lot you will lose by not taking the risk.

(ibid., 104)

Secondly, some ways of showing the Given in a sentence are as follows:

- " As for/ As far as…concerned" These are primarily used to bring prominence to the

given of the sentence E.g.:

As far as I am concerned, this is not the right thing to do.

(ibid., 105)

- Inversion E.g.:

I wrote two letters One I put in my pocket The other I posted.

(ibid., 105)

Here, it is obvious that the New is what happened to the letters

- The definite article "The" In the contrary to the indefinite articles, "The" serves as a

powerful means of indicating the Given due to its "definiteness" nature E.g.:

Yesterday I saw a red car parked in the car park The car was later towed away by the police.

(ibid., 105)

- Pronouns as a means of substitution E.g.:

I saw two young people He kissed her.

Those are means used in written language to express the Given and New In spokenlanguage, what is common is the stress or pitch prominence As stated in Clark & Clark(1977:93), "sentences signal given and new information by stress or accent on particularwords The words with the focal stress, or a phrase containing it, always conveys thenew information" E.g.:

This is not THE grammar but A grammar of modern English.

(cited in Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 105).

Nevertheless, it is helpful for us to bear in mind that "the Given" is not always thepart of information that is presupposed to be known to the addressee Let's take thesentence "She must have loved him something awful" If we consider it the firstsentence in the news story, it is obvious that the Given "she" can only be identified later.Hence, Halliday suggests a new interpretation of the Given/ New distinction That is

"Given is specified as being treated by the speaker as recoverable either from theprevious discourse or the discourse that follows, and new is said to be focal rather thanthe fact that it can not have been previously mentioned" (Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 105)

1.3 Thematic structure

1.3.1 Thematic structure

According to Saussure, one of the first linguists who raised the importance of thelinear character of language, language units must follow one another in a certain order.Hence, there has to be a beginning point and a finish point, too We shall consider this

by taking two sentences in Brown & Yule (1983: 125) as an example:

1 She married and became pregnant.

2 She became pregnant and married.

It is obvious that there are implications that may be drawn by reordering the sequence ofsentences In other words, what is positioned first may have a bearing on theinterpretation of text, and in this light it is possible to talk about that structure ofdiscourse or text

As stated in Halliday (1994), a Clause is defined as a unit in which three different

kinds of meanings are combined Those are: the Clause as a Message, the Clause as an

Exchange and the Clause as a Representation.

The structure of the Clause as a Message is the one in which the clause has

meaning as a message, a quantum of information The Theme functions in this structure

and it is the point of departure for the message, the element the speaker selects for

"grounding" what he is going on to say (Halliday, 1994: 34)

While in the structure of the Clause as an Exchange, a clause has meaning as an

exchange, a transaction between speaker and listener The Subject functions in this

structure and it is the warranty of the exchange, the element the speaker makesresponsible for the validity of what he is saying (ibid.)

In the structure of the Clause as a Representation, a clause has meaning as a

representation, a construal of some process in ongoing human experience The Actor

functions in this structure and is the active participant in that process It is the elementthe speaker describes as the one who does the deed (ibid.)

Let's take an example from Halliday (1994: 34) to distinguish Theme, Subject and Actor:

Subject

Those three distinct structures, though each expresses one kind of semanticorganization, are mapped on to one another to produce a single wording

Halliday (1994) also suggests that of the various structures which, when mapped

on to each other, make up a clause, the one which gives the clause the character as amessage is known as THEMATIC STRUCTURE

It can be said that clauses in all languages have character of a message, that is, "ithas some form of organization giving it the status of a communicative event" (Halliday,1993:37) This can be achieved by different ways As in many other languages, theclause in English is organized as a message by assigning to one part of it a specialstatus One element in the clause is clearly defined as the Theme; this then combineswith the remainder in order that the two parts together constitute a message

Theme and Rheme is another pair of terms that is also introduced by the Prague Schooland they are commonly used Theme is derived from the Greek root "The-" that means

"that which is set or established" and Rheme stems from "Rhe-" that means to "say" or

"tell" C Hockett offered: Topic- Comment to refer to Theme- Rheme However, it isnot appropriate enough

We can name this function Theme as the linguists of the Prague School do Andlike all other functions, it will be written with an initial capital

In short, Theme is usually expressed by the left-most constituent of the sentence

It refers to what the speaker nominates as the Subject (though not necessarily theGrammatical Subject) of what he will speak about later in Rheme In other words,Theme is the starting point of the utterance or point of departure of the message Inmany cases (Unmarked), the Theme of a Declarative sentence will be the grammaticalSubject, that of the Interrogatives is the Interrogative word and that of the Imperatives isthe Imperative form of the verb And Rheme is the remainder of the message, and alsothe part in which the Theme is developed Those two terms are explained by Halliday(1994)

Hence, as a message structure, a clause consists of a Theme accompanied by aRheme, and the structure is expressed by the order (whatever is chosen as the Theme isput first) E.g.: (quoted in Halliday, 1994: 38)

Theme Rheme

In the structural configuration Theme- Rheme, a clause is organized as a messageconsisting of a Theme combined with a Rheme, the Theme is the starting-point for themessage and as stated, it is the ground from which the clause takes off intocommunication That is the reason why part of the meaning of any clause depends onwhich element is chosen as its Theme Consider two following sentences:

1, A half penny is the smallest English coin.

2, The smallest English coin is a half penny.

(Halliday, 1994:38)

It is clear that there is a difference between two sentences above The difference can be

characterized as "Thematic", the two clauses differ in their choice of Theme: In the first,

"a half penny" is Theme (which means "I'll tell you about a half penny") while in the

second, "the smallest English coin" is Theme (which gives rise to the meaning "I'll tell

you about the smallest English coin") So by analyzing them with " I'll tell you about…,”

we can see that they are two different messages

It is worth paying attention to Brown & Yule (1983)'s remark that a strikingfeature of English and many other languages is that there exists a wide range ofsyntactic forms available to express the same content Consider the following examplequoted in Nguyen Hoa (2000:97):

a, John bought a radio in Hong Kong.

b, A radio was bought in Hong Kong.

c, It was John who bought a radio in Hong Kong.

d, What John bought was a radio.

e, It was in Hong Kong that John bought a radio.

f, It was a radio that John bought in Hong Kong.

In the above example, there is no doubt that the content (propositional content) is thesame In each case, it is the same buying done by John, and it is the same radio that hebought and it is the same Hong Kong where he bought the radio Nevertheless, it isobvious that different assumptions should be included Such as: (a) and (d) could be theanswer to what John did But (b) is different It would be about what happened to theradio rather than John And (c) may be a correction to the idea that somebody elsebought the radio (e) gives rise to the implication that it is in Hong Kong rather thanother places that he bought the radio And (f) emphasizes that it is the radio that hebought, not another object

It is also worth knowing that Theme is not necessarily the subject of thesentence because the subject, obviously, is not always the left-most constituent of thesentences As a matter of fact, adverbials can frequently occur in this position.Therefore, they are the Theme For example:

Once upon a time, there were a prince and a princess living in a village.

Very carefully, she puts the ring in the box.

Without saying a word, she left the party.

Because of Lan, we made such a serious mistake

In short, it makes sense to say that the constituent which is thematised is what thesentence is about For example, in the first example above, we say something about

"what happened once upon a time"

Besides, there is another place that we need to mention that is Theme may be seen

as having two functions: First, to connect back and link into the previous discourse,maintaining a coherent point of view; second, to serve as a point of departure for furtherdevelopment of the discourse For the first function that the Theme can be used to linkideas as conveyed in sentences, we can take a very effective example from Brown &Yule (cited in Nguyễn Hòa, 2000: 49)

a, The Prime Minister stepped off the plane.

b, Journalists immediately surrounded her.

or:

c, She was immediately surrounded by journalists.

To continue the sentence (a), people would tend to use (c) rather than (b) because it canmaintain the same subject (or discourse topic entity)

In conclusion, if a title or a heading can predispose the reader's comprehension of

a text, what the speaker puts first or thematises in his sentence can have a considerableinfluence on the way we interpret discourse Therefore, it is not useless for us to studyTheme and Rheme

1.3.2 Theme- Rheme and Given- New

Knowing that Thematic Structure is the one that "gives the clause its character as amessage" (Halliday, 1994: 37), it is not difficult to acknowledge that there is a closerelationship in semantic field between Information structure (what we have mentionedpreviously) and Thematic structure And other things considered to be equal, a speakerwill tend to "choose the Theme from within what is Given and locate the focus, theclimax of New somewhere within the Rheme" (ibid., 299)

Despite their relationship, Given- New and Theme- Rheme are not the same thing

as stated in Halliday (1994:299): "The Theme is what I, the speaker, choose to take as

my point of departure The Given is what you, the listener, already know about or haveassessable to you" Hence, it can be said that in short, Theme- Rheme is speaker-oriented while Given-New is listener-oriented

However, both of Theme-Rheme and Given-New are speaker-selected AsHalliday (1994) states that the speaker is the person who assigns both structures,mapping one on to the other to give a composite texture to the discourse and therebyrelate it to its environment

The similarities and differences between Information Structure and ThematicStructure is summed up in the table:

Information Structure Thematic StructureSimilarities - Speaker selected

- Having textual functionsDifferences - Information units

- Speaker's or Writer'schoice to meet informationrequirement

- Listener-oriented

- Theme- Rheme

- Speaker's or Writer'schoice to signpost themessage

which "functional" has the sense of the interpretation of texts, of the system, and of theelements of linguistic structure), a clause has three metafunctions: Clause as a Message,Clause as an Exchange and Clause as a Representation Theme- Rheme is a structurethat can be identified in Clause as a Message Thus, in our thesis, the theory aboutFunctional Grammar, especially within the metafunction Clause as a Message, is usedand presented as a whole

To sum up, the revision of Halliday's theory is made Besides, the analysis ofnumbers of clauses in some chapters in the book "Little House on the Prairie" isproceeded in order that we can see how the Theme- Rheme structure is manifested

2.3 Data Source

Firstly, for theoretical background, not only one work of some scholar is used butalso others are selected and utilized in the study They can be written in English orVietnamese, such as works of Halliday, Brown & Yule, Diệp Quang Ban, etc

Secondly, the author would like to give an explanation for my choosing "LittleHouse on the Prairie" as the source to study how Theme and Rheme is realized Tobegin with, "Little House on the Prairie" is one of the nine Little House books written

by Laura Ingalls Wilder including: Little house in the Big Wood; Little house on thePrairie; Farmer Boy; On the Banks of Plum Creek; By the shores of Silver Lake; Thelong winter; Little Town on the Prairie; These Happy Golden Years; and The First FourYears

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls was the second child in the family She was born onFebruary 7, 1867, in Pepin, Wisconsin When she was about one year old, her parentslost all their money, so they left Wisconsin for the free land offered to homesteaders inthe West (the Big Woods near the village of Pepin on the Easter shores of theMississippi River) She lived a rugged pioneer life with her family as they moved fromplace to place Laura died on Feb 10, 1957 at her Rocky Ridge home, the last survivingmember of pioneering Ingalls family

Working on her memoirs, Laura wrote a manuscript entitled "Pioneer Girl" thatled to the start of the Little House series "The stories centered on the male unrest andfemale patience of pioneers in the mid-1800s and celebrated their peculiarly American

spirit and independence" (from http://showcase.netins.net/web/littlehouse.timeline.htm,

on April 25, 2007) The first book, "Little House in the Big Woods" was published in

1932, when she was 65 The Little House series really reflected the author's life

Moreover, I was deeply impressed by the movie "Little House on the Prairie"that I watched when I was still very small though The promise of a new life on theWestern frontier beckons Laura Ingalls and her family as they make the long journeyacross unsettled territory The vast Kansas Prairie is beautiful, but hidden dangers aswell The Osage Indians want the settlers to leave the land, and wild wolves and hungrypanthers threaten the Ingalls family Faced with danger and uncertainty, Laura's familymust decide if the pioneer life is right for them "Little House on the Prairie" shows us asimple, strong loving family who stayed together and solved their problems with thepower of love and understanding One more time, when I have a chance to read books

in the Little House series, I am really interested As for the above reasons, I myselfchoose the book "Little House on the Prairie" as the source of data to do the study

2.4 Principles of Analysis

In our study, a linguistic description and analysis of Theme and Rheme is carriedout Since the study mostly follows the qualitative method, the theoretical discussionand analysis of data chosen observe the following principles:

First, the theoretical background is discussed inductively, and the research questions(such as: In which theory can Theme and Rheme be identified? How are Theme andRheme realized in clauses? How are they manifested in "Little house on the Prairie"?)govern the general purpose of the investigation

Second, samples are purposefully selected and specific situations are studied

Third, the research design is flexible and develops throughout the study

Fourth, logical analysis can control or account for alternative explanations

Fifth, use similar cases to find out the generalization

Also, in our study, both monolingual and bilingual works are the main sources ofexamples Besides, the samples are drawn from a varied topical environment rangingfrom literature to everyday conversations and from scientific writings to personalcommunication The examples are classified into relevant headings and subheadings inappropriate quantity for investigation

Last, conclusions are tentative and subject to ongoing examination

2.5 Procedure

Due to the limitation of time and framework of a graduation thesis as well as ourchoice of this new theoretical question, the procedure details of the process aresummarized as follows:

- After choosing the research theme, outlining the research

- Preparing a checklist of what to do in each stage of the study

- Collecting data from literature reviews and describing theoretical background(to the problem under investigation)

- Identifying the generalization, recognizing unsolved problems (analyzing data)and suggesting the issues for further study

Chapter 3: The analysis of Theme and Rheme

in “Little House on the Prairie”

3.1 General Characteristics of Classification of Theme:

In terms of the functions in use, besides the representation function (that is,expressing experiential meaning) and the exchange function (that is, having themeaning as an exchange, a transaction), a clause has the textual function Within thetextual function, the clause operates as a message, which constitutes a text (a discourse),

in the relationship with others that are related to it within a discourse (or co-text) as well

as outside the discourse (context of situation) Messages, in linguistics, can beunderstood as information encoded in words (in spoken language) or letters (in writtenlanguage) and transferred from the addressor to the addressee Functioning as amessage, a clause takes neither the representative meaning nor the interpersonalcharacteristic as its grounding However, the structural grounding of a clause as amessage is the choice which part of the clause to be its departure point and which part isthe rest The departure point of a clause is called Theme and the rest is called Rheme

So, it is obvious that Theme-Rheme is the structure of a clause in the textual function

In short, a clause studied with the textual function has the role as a message and itsgrounding is the structure Theme-Rheme The structure Theme-Rheme of a clause can

be considered in the following fields:

-Unmarked Themes and Marked Themes

-Types of Themes: Topical Themes, Interpersonal Themes, and Textual Themes-Theme and Mood

3.1.1 Unmarked Themes and Marked Themes

The Themes are often identified as the part chosen to be the departure point for

a clause and in different types of clauses, elements that the addressor decides to have thefront-position are various For example, Nouns and Noun Phrases often function as thesubject and are placed at the beginning of the declarative clauses The Theme that iscoincided with the Subject of the clause is called the Unmarked Theme A Theme that

is something other than the Subject in a Declarative clause is referred to as a MarkedTheme

The Subject is the element that is chosen as Theme unless there is a good reasonfor choosing something else It is interesting to note that in everyday conversation, the

item most often functioning as Unmarked Theme (Subject/Theme, often in a declarative

clause) is the first personal pronoun “I” Because much of our talk consists of

messages concerned with ourselves, and especially with what we think and feel Next

comes the other personal pronouns “You, we, he, she, it, they” and the impersonal pronouns “it” and “there” Then comes other nominal groups-those with common

nouns or proper nouns as Head-and nominalizations Providing these are functioning asSubject, then having them as Theme is still the Unmarked choice

While the most usual form of marked Theme is an adverbial group (today,

suddenly, somewhat distractedly) or prepositional phrase (in the morning, in the room, without much hope), functioning as adjunct in a clause Least likely to be thematic is a

Complement, which is a nominal group that is not functioning as subject, and it issomething that could have been a subject but it is not Thus, a complement is the “most

Marked” type of Theme in a Declarative clause For example, “Little girls” in “Little

girls that I loved”, Or “This responsibility” in “This responsibility we accept wholly”

(taken from the end of Bally and Sechehaye’s Preface to Saussure’s Course in GeneralLinguistics, cited in Halliday, 1994:45 ) This is a nominal element which, beingnominal, has the potentiality of being subject; which has not been selected as Subject;and which nevertheless has been Thematic

Sometimes even the Complement from within a prepositional phrase functions

as Theme, especially in idiomatic combinations of preposition and verb: for example

“That” in “That I could do without” or “Two things” in “Two things we need to

comment on" (Halliday, 1994:45)

Perhaps the type of Complement/Theme that stands out as “most marked”, however, is a

pronoun, such as “Me” in “Me they blame for it” This is, as it were, the opposite end

of the scale of thematic tendency from the unmarked Subject/Theme “I”

Now, let us look at the table taken from Halliday (1994:44) for examples ofUnmarked Theme and Marked Theme in the Declarative clause Theme-Rhemeboundary is shown by #

Function (in clause as exchange)

Class Clause example

I # had a little nut-treeShe# went to the baker'sThere#were three jovial Welshmen

A wise old owl# lived in an oakMary# had a little lamp

London Bridge# is fallen down

What I want# is a proper cup ofcoffee

Marked

Theme

Adjunct adverbial group;

prepositionalphrase

Merrily# we roll along

On Saturday night# I lost my wife

3.1.2 Theme classification

A clause has three metafunctions They express experience, show theinterpersonal relationship and create a discourse So the starting point of a clause canalso be elements to fulfill that role According to this point of view, the Theme of aclause can be classified into Topical Theme (belonging to Experiential function),Interpersonal Theme (that of Interpersonal function), and Textual Theme (to fulfillTextual function) Notably, Theme-Rheme relationship is that of the formation of aclause in a discourse or of a clause when it is placed in a discourse Hence, there is norequirement for the content of Theme to coincide with that of Rheme

3.1.2.1 Topical Theme

As mentioned above, in its role as a Representation, the clause sets up a model

of human experience, in terms of processes that take place around us and inside us.Processes are analyzed by the grammar in terms of three components: the processitself; the participants in that process, like the Actor and Goal in the example:

Boys throw stones

Actor Process Goal

(Halliday, 1994:29);

and any circumstantial factors such as time or place The principle relevant to theThematic structure is this: the Theme always contains one, and only one, of theseexperiential elements This means that the Theme of a clause ends with the firstconstituent that is either participant, circumstance, or process Since a participant inthematic function corresponds fairly closely to what is called the “topic” in a Topic-Comment analysis, we refer to the experiential element in the Theme as the TopicalTheme.

A clause, in its guise as a message, is a two-part structure consisting of Rheme; the Theme always comes first- “Theme” is simply the label that people use tosuggest what meaning is attached to first position in the clause But the initial position,that it is the first constituent that constitutes the Theme, has now been made moreobvious for understanding: the Theme extends from the beginning of the clause up to(and including) the first element that has a function in transitivity This element is called

Theme-the “Topical Theme”; so we can say that Theme-the Theme of Theme-the clause consists of Theme-the Topical

Theme together with anything else that comes before it

We have told that to express the experiential metafunction, the topical Theme

can have components: Participants, Circumstance and Process Besides, “an expression

containing a WH- item is always a participant or a circumstance, and hence itself constitutes the Topical Theme” (Halliday, 1994:53) It is the WH- element that

expresses the nature of the missing piece: E.g: how, who, what, when, etc., so in a Interrogative, the WH- element is put first no matter what other function it has in the

WH-mood structure of the clause, whether subject, adjunct or complement The meaning is

“I want you to tell me the person, thing, time, manner, etc.” And “in a

WH-Interrogative, the Theme is constituted solely by the WH- element: that is, the group

or phrase in which the WH- word occurs.” (Halliday, 1994:46) E.g

Who How many miles

Or Relative: a relative group or phrase functions as a whole as Theme of the clause in

which it occurs; for example, nominal group: whose house, whatever objections;adverbial group: however badly; prepositional phrase: in which, with whom, forwhatever reason Thus, relatives are like WH- interrogatives in the way that they have

dual function: on the one hand as Subject, Adjunct or Complement and on the otherhand with a special value of the own-either questioning (interrogative) or marking oneform of dependence (relative).

It is noteworthy that the “the Theme always includes one, and only one,experiential element This may be preceded by elements which are textual and/orinterpersonal in function; if so, these are also part of the Theme The typical ordering isTextual-Interpersonal-Experiential; in any case, the experiential element (the TopicalTheme) comes last-anything following this is part of the Rheme” (Halliday, 1994:53)

3.1.2.2 Textual Theme

The Textual Theme is any combination of (1) Continuative, (2) Structural and(3) Conjunctive, in that order

(1) A Continuative is one of a small set of discourse signalers: yes, no, well, oh,

now, which signal that a new move is beginning: a response, in dialogue, or a move to

the next point if the same speaker is continuing

(2) A Structural Theme is any of the obligatorily thematic elements (ones

which if they are present at all, they have to be thematic) Those are Conjunctions andWH- relatives Conjunctions are items which relate to a preceding clause in the samesentence (the same complex clause) They are similar in meaning to conjunctiveAdjuncts; but Conjunctions are different from conjunctive adjuncts in that, whileconjunctive adjuncts set up a semantic relationship with what precedes, conjunctions set

up a relationship which is (not only semantic but also) grammatical-that means, theyconstruct the two parts into a single structure unit They constitute a distinct class ingrammar

Relatives are also items which relate the clause in which they occur to anotherclause, in a structural relationship But unlike conjunctions, relatives do not form aseparate word class They are either nouns or adverbs Thus, they function as Subject,Adjunct or complement-either alone, or within the structure of a group or phrase Theyare listed in the following tables (cited in Halliday, 1994:50)

Table 3.1: Conjunctions

co-ordinator and, or, nor, either, neither, but, yet, so, then

subordinator when, while, before, after, until, because, if, although,

unless, since, that, whether, (in order) to

even if, in case, supposing (that), assuming (that), seeing(that), given that, provided (that), in spite of the fact that,

in the event that, so that

Table 3.2: Relatives

definite

indefinite

which, who, that, whose, when, where, (why, how)

whatever, whichever, whoever, whosever, whenever,wherever, however

However, we should note that the group or phrase containing the relative issimultaneously the topical Theme

(3) A Conjunctive Theme is one of the Conjunctive Adjuncts, wherever such an

Adjunct occurs preceding the topical Theme Conjunctive Adjuncts are those whichrelate the clause to the preceding text The principle types are set out in Table 3.3

Table 3.3: Conjunctive Adjuncts (cited in Halliday, 1994:49)

- in any case, anyway, leaving that aside

- briefly, to sum up, in conclusion

- actually, in fact, as a matter of factadditive

-also, moreover, in addition, besides

- on the other hand, however, conversely

- instead, alternativelytemporal

- likewise, in the same way

- therefore, for this reason, as a result, withthis in mind

- in that case, under the circumstances,

- nevertheless, despite that

- in this respect, as far as that's concerned

3.1.2.3 The Interpersonal Theme

The interpersonal theme is any combination of (1) vocatives, (2) modal, (3)mood-marking

(1) A Vocative is any item, typically (but not necessarily) a personal name, used

to address; it may come more or less anywhere in the clause, and is thematic ifpreceding the topical theme

(2) A Modal Theme is any of the modal Adjuncts, whenever it occurs preceding

the topical theme Modal adjuncts are set out in Table 4 (cited in Halliday, 1994: 49)

Table 3.4: Modal Adjuncts

- usually, sometimes, always, (n)ever, often, seldom

- occasionally, generally, regularly, for the most part

- of course, surely, obviously, clearlyopinion

how reliable?

how valid?

how sensible?

how expected?

- in my opinion, personally, to my mind

- frankly, to be honest, to tell you the truth

- honestly, really, believe me, seriously

- please, kindly

- evidently, apparently, no doubt, presumably

- (un)fortunately, to my delight/ distress, regrettably,hopefully

- at first, tentatively, provisionally, looking back on it

- broadly speaking, in general, on the whole, strictlyspeaking, in principle

- (un)wisely, understandably, mistakenly, foolishly

- to my surprisingly, as expected, by chance

(3) A mood-marking Theme is a finite verbal operator, if preceding the topical theme;

or a WH- interrogative (or imperative Let’s) when not preceded by another experiential

element (i.e when functioning simultaneously as topical theme) We shall understandmore about the finite verbal operator by considering what is stated by Halliday(1994:45) The finite verbal operator is the element that embodies the expression ofpolarity “yes or no?” in a yes/no question and functions as Theme In English, the finite

operator expresses positive or negative: is, isn’t; do, don’t; can, can’t; etc So in a

yes/no interrogative the finite operator is put first, before the subject The meaning is “Iwant you to tell me whether or not.”

Now, let us look at examples (cited in Halliday, 1994:56) for types of Themethat we have studied above:

(a)

continuative vocative finite topical Rheme

textual interpersonal experiential

conjunctive modal topical

RhemeTheme

3.1.3 Theme and Mood

The answer to the question “What is the element that is typically chosen asTheme in an English clause?” is that it depends on the choice of mood

In this part, we do not have the intention of studying mood Rather we want tomake the relationship between theme and mood easier to understand So we restrictourselves to independent clauses, those that can stand by themselves as a completesentence

Every independent clause, surely, selects for mood Some, like “John!” and

“Good night!” are Minor clauses; they have no thematic structure and so will be left out

of account The others are Major clauses “An independent Major clause is eitherindicative or imperative in mood; if indicative, it is either declarative or interrogative; ifinterrogative, it is either polar interrogative (“Yes/No” type) or content interrogative(“WH-“ type)” (Halliday, 1994:43) For examples:

Indicative: Declarative: Bears eat honey Bears don’t eat honey.

Interrogative: yes/no: Do bears eat honey? Don’t bears eat honey?

Interrogative: WH-: What eats honey? What do bears eat?

Imperative: Eat! Let’s eat!

Now, we shall consider each of these Moods in turn

Firstly, we study Theme in Declarative clauses As discussed in unmarked and marked

theme, in a declarative clause, the typical pattern is one in which there in coincided withsubject If Theme is also Subject of the clause, we have Unmarked Theme E.g:

No one # seemed to notice the writing on the wall.

My master # allowed me two pence a day.

I # like the Walrus best.

If a Theme that is something other than the Subject, we refer to it as a marked theme.For example:

You # I blame, that # I meant.

This responsibility # we accept wholly.

There is one sub-category of declarative clause which has a special thematic structure,

namely the exclamative These typically have an exclamatory WH- element

as Theme Examples (cited in Halliday, 1994:45):

Secondly, Theme in Interrogative clauses

The typical function of an interrogative clause is to ask a question; and from thespeaker’s point of view asking a question is an indication that he wants to be toldsomething So the basic meaning of a question is a request for an answer although inreal life, people can ask questions for many kinds of reasons Therefore, the natural

theme of a question is “What I want to know.”

As referred to above, there are two main types of questions: one where what the

speaker wants to know is the Polarity “yes or no?” e.g Can you tell me what

happened? Is Mr Hung at home? The other where what the speaker wants to know is

the identity of some element in the content, e.g Who will you visit in London? Where

have you gone? In both types, the word indicating what the speaker wants to knowcomes first

In a Yes/No question, which is a question about Polarity, the element that

functions as Theme is the element that embodies the expression of polarity, namely the

Finite Verbal Operator It expresses positive or negative: Is, isn’t; do, don’t; can,

can’t; etc

The Finite Operator is put first in a yes/no interrogative, before the Subject The

meaning is “I want you to tell me whether or not” In a Yes/No interrogative, the

Theme includes the finite verb; but it extends over the Subject as well Finite verb plusSubject form in a two-part Theme E.g: (cited in Halliday, 1994:46)

Can

Is

Should

you anybody old acquaintance

find me an acre of land?

at home?

be forgot?

In a question, which is a search for a missing piece of information, the

WH-element that expresses the nature of the missing piece: who, what, when, how, etc is

put first no matter what other function it has in the mood structure of the clause,whether Subject, Adjunct, or Complement Hence, it has the status of a Theme.

In a interrogative, the Theme is constituted solely by the element: that is, the group or phrase in which the WH- word occurs For example:

own e.g “What” in “What shall I mend it with?” or “Which house” in “Which house

do they live in?”

Lastly, we shall consider how Theme can be recognized in Imperative clauses.

“The basic message of an imperative clause is either ‘I want you to do something’ or ‘I

want us (you and me) to do something’ (Halliday, 1994:47)

The second type usually begins with “Let’s”, as in “Let’s do this exercise.” Here,

“Let’s” is obviously the unmarked choice of Theme In the first type, “You” can be

made explicit as a Theme, for example: “You keep quiet!” and it is a Marked Theme However, “Keep quiet!” is the more typical form with the verb in thematic position.

The function of the verb in the mood structure (Clause as Exchange) is Predicator.Here, hence, it is the Predicator that is the Unmarked Theme

In Negative Imperatives, the principle is the same as with yes/no interrogatives: the

Unmarked Theme is “don’t” plus the following element, either Subject or Predicator.

Here, again there is a marked form with “you”, e.g.: “Don’t you talk to him”, where the

theme is “don’t + you”.

Interestingly, there is also a marked contrastive form of the positive, e.g: Do take

care The Theme is " Do+ the Predicator " Take"

Now, look at examples to see how Theme is identified in Imperative clauses (cited in Halliday, 1994: 47)

Answer

You kids

First

Don't leave

all five questions!

keep out of the way!

catch your fish!

any belongings on board the aircraft!

Don't let's

Let's

quarrel about it!

not quarrel about it!

In short, the question which element of the clause is typically chosen as the Theme depends on the choice of Mood This can be summarized as follows: (cited in Halliday, 1994:47)

Mood of clause Typical Theme

Nominal group functioning as Subject

First word (finite operator) of verbal group, plus nominal group functioning as Subject

Nominal group, adverbial group or prepositional phrase functioning as Interrogative (WH-) element

Verbal group functioning as Predicator, plus preceding

"don't" if negative

"Let's" , plus preceding "don't" if negative.

Nominal group or adverbial group functioning as exclamative (WH-) element

However, it is useful to note that when some other element comes first, it constitutes a

"marked" choice of Theme; such Marked Theme usually either express some kinds ofsetting for the clause or express a feature of contrast In such cases, the element thatwould have been the unmarked choice as Theme is now part of the Rheme E.g:

1,

Talent

Capital

Mr Micawber has

Mr Micawber has not

Nominal group as Complement

Theme Rheme

2,

Until the arrival of that remittance I am cut off from my home …

Prepositional phrase as adjunct

3.1.4 Theme in Dependent, Minor, and Elliptical clauses:

We have considered Theme in independent, major and explicit clauses Thus, now weshall have a summary of thematic organization of clauses other than those

Firstly, it is Theme in Dependent clauses In the first place, if finite, these typically

have a conjunction as structural Theme (e.g: because, that, whether), followed by atopical theme For example (cited in Halliday, 1994:62):

(I asked)

(They knew)

(He left)

whether That because

pigs

in spring his work

have wings the snow would melt was done

structural topical Rheme

Theme

On the contrary, if the dependent clause begins with a WH- element, that element constitutes a Topical Theme (as the Wh- element also has a function in the transitivity structure of the clause).

(I asked)

(They knew)

(Caesar,)

Why Which side Whose army

no-one was around their bread was buttered never lost a battle

Topical Theme Rheme

In the other place, if non- finite, there may be a conjunction or preposition as structural Theme which may be followed by a Subject as Topical Theme; many non- finite clauses have neither, in which case they consist of Rheme only See the example below quoted in Halliday (1994:62)

being locked (We had no way in)

to work off our machine (You need a cable) not blaming them ( I'm still disappointed)

To avoid delay (have your money ready)

Structural Topical Rheme

Theme

Secondly, Theme in Embedded clauses is what we shall study now Embedded clauses

are those which function inside the structure of a nominal group, as defining relativeclauses such as:

Who came to the dinner in "The man who came to the dinner"

The dam broke in "The day the dam broke"

Requiring travel permits in "All personal requiring travel permits".

Thematic structure of such clauses is the same as that of dependent clauses.Nevertheless, because of their down-ranking, the fact that they do not function asconstituents of a sentence, their thematic contribution to the discourse is inconsiderable,and for practical purposes can be ignored

Thirdly, we consider Theme in Minor clauses Minor clauses are those with no mood or

transitivity structure, typically functioning as calls, greetings and exclamations, such as:

John! Good morning! Well done! These clauses have no Thematic Structure either.

Lastly, we see how thematic structure is identified in Elliptical clauses.

In the first place, with anaphoric ellipsis Here some part of the clause is presupposed

from what has gone before, for example in response to a question The resulting formsare very varied For example, some are indistinguishable from Minor clauses:

Yes No All right Of course.

And because these presuppose the whole of the preceding clause, they have no thematicstructure

Others, which presuppose only part of the preceding clause, have their own thematicstructure; the thematic structure will depend on which part is presupposed See examplesfollow: (Halliday, 1994:63).

“Fire, fire!” ” said Goody Blair

( Where is it? )“Fire, fire!” ”Theme

3

Down the town,

“Fire, fire!” ” said Goody Brown

( It s down the town )“Fire, fire!” ’s down the town”) ”Theme

“Fire, fire!” will I” said Goody Fry

( So will I go see it )“Fire, fire!” ”

conjunctive finite topical

Theme

3.1.5 Theme and Rheme of the Complex sentence

As has been stated above, Theme and Rheme belong to the status of clause structuredifferentiation Thus, with complex sentences (where two or more clauses are combined,then the main clause and subordinate clause(s) may have the following structuringpatterns of Theme/Rheme distinction: see examples follow:

1,

I don't know who you are

Theme Rheme(Subordinate clause)

he played the guitar very well.

Theme3 Rheme3 (sub.clause) Theme1 Rheme1 (main clause)

3.2 The Analysis of Theme and Rheme in "Little House on the Prairie".

From what have been discussed above, it is not difficult for us to note that three types ofTheme can be identified according to the theory of functional linguistics: topical,Interpersonal, and textual Topical Themes have to do with the information conveyed inthe discourse Interpersonal Themes, on the other hand, reveal something of the attitude

of the speaker or the writer And Textual Theme is the link between the clause containsthat Theme and the rest of the discourse E.g:

Oh, where is Jack? (p.18)

Interpersonal theme Topical theme

Then, Pa's voice frightened Laura (p.16)

Textual theme Topical theme

Obviously, the choice of Theme is very important because "It represents the angle fromwhich the speaker projects his/ her message and partially the condition how the messagedevelops The initial element acts as a signal to the hearer, directing expectationsregarding the structure that is likely to follow or about the mental representation of whatthe message is likely to be" (ibid., 14) The choice is also affected by the speaker'sassumption regarding what the hearer knows or does not know about the state of affairsdescribed

Although there is much to study about Theme and Rheme, within the scope of agraduation thesis, we would like to examine how Unmarked Theme and Marked Theme

as well as three types of Themes are shown in the book "Little House on the Prairie"

As mentioned above, "Little House on the Prairie" is only one of the series of nineLittle House books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder and this book has twenty-six parts.They are also twenty-six events and stories of what happened during the time the familywas on the Prairie In this study, we would like to analyze some parts of this book First of all, we consider first two parts of the book: "Going West" and "Crossing theCreek" to see how Unmarked and Marked Theme are used There are 163 sentences inthe first chapter and that number in the second chapter is 156 Thus, we have 319sentences, of which we have 422 clauses As stated above, in the scope of a graduationthesis, simple clauses are studied, not clause complex and sentences Therefore, with

422 clauses in the two chosen chapters, we shall, first of all, study how unmarked andMarked Themes are manifested, and then we investigate three types of Theme: Topical,Interpersonal, and Textual used

Our analysis of approximate 422 clauses taken from the two parts in "LittleHouse on the Prairie" shows that there are about 224 clauses using Unmarked Theme.The result is given in the following pie chart:

Marked theme Unmarked theme

53,08%

46,92%

Chart 3.1: Unmarked and Marked Theme

As can be seen from the pie chart above, the rate of Unmarked and Marked is notconsiderably different Unmarked theme and Marked theme account for 53.08% and46.92%, respectively This indicates that although contexts are not the same, the writer'schoice for putting an element (Subject or others) at the first position (Theme) is ratherrelevant Some examples for Unmarked and Marked theme can be as follows:

Unmarked theme:

- They were going to the Indian country (p.1)

- The grass grew thick and high (p.2)

- I've decided to go see the West (p.2)

- The bare trees stood up against the frosty stars (p.3)

- Ma and Mary and Laura ate bread and molasses in the wagon (p.5)

- Kansas was an endless flat land covered with tall grass blowing in the wind (p.9)

- Pa did not answer (p.15)

Marked theme:

- In the long winter evenings he talked to Ma about the western country (p.2)

- So Pa sold the little house (p.2)

- In the thin dark before morning Ma gently shook Mary and Laura till they got up (p.3)

- But Pa was on the wagon- seat (p.5)

- Then once more the wagon was level (p.13)

- Only the tall wild grass covered the endless empty land (p.20)

Out of 422 clauses, there are 182 Topical Themes standing at the initial position inthe clause containing it That number of Textual theme is 154, and the rest with 86themes is that of Interpersonal Theme A good illustration for the use of those types ofThemes would be the following examples:

1, Textual themes:

* Continuative:

- Oh, Charles, must we go now? (p.2)

- Oh, where's Jack? (p.18)

- Well, all's well that ends well (p.18)

- Yes, Laura, he can (p.13)

* Structural:

- So Pa slod the little house (p.2)

- But in the east the sky was pale (p.3)

- So they all went away from the little log house (p.4)

- And that was the last of the little house (p.4)

- Then slowly the land came black (p.9)

- Whatever you say, Charles.

- Because they must cross the lake that day (p.5)

* Interestingly, in the two chapters we study, no Conjunctive Theme (belonging to

Textual theme) is used In other words, there is no clause that puts Conjunctive Adjuncts

such as: That is, In other words, In conclusion, As a matter of fact, On the other hand,

Meanwhile, In this respect, etc., and even "however", which can be considered a

popularly used word in English This could be explained by the assumption that chapters

in "Little House on the Prairie" are in the form of description, and conversations, if ithas, are also informal Meanwhile, those Conjunctive Adjuncts are mostly used informal speech That might be the reason for the absence of Conjunctive Theme in thematerial examined

2, Interpersonal Themes:

* Vocative:

- Ma, can't we get out and run behind the wagon? (p.10)

- Girls, can you see those trees ahead? (p.11)

- Charles, you're wet to the skin (p.18)

* Modal:

- Quite often Laura heard the ringing thud of an ax … (p.1) (p.1)

- At last the wagon was pulling up a slope of earth again … (p.1) (p.6)

- Sometimes they had to stay several days in one camp (p.7)

- In the thin dark before morning Ma gently shook Mary and Laura till they got up (p.3)

- Everything from the little house was the wagon (p.3)

- Over their long red-flannel underwear she put wool petticoats and wool dresses and long wool stockings (p.3)

- All the cousins were told to kiss Mary and Laura (p.4)

In general, Textual themes used take up 36.5% of occurrence in those two chapters.The use of Interpersonal Themes dominates 20.4% And the occurrence of Topicalthemes rates the most with 43.1%

The result of the above survey can be graphically illustrated by the following chart: