Information Structure & Thematic Structure in Discourse Analysis

Information Structure and Thematic Structure: Given+New, and Theme and Rheme

From a semantic point of view, information and thematic structures are closely related. Under normal conditions, the speaker/writer will choose the Theme from within what is Given and will locate the New within the Rheme. Thus, the speaker can use thematic and information structure to produce a wide variety of rhetorical effects, such as in:

  • “How old is Joan?”
  • A1: “She is forty.”
  • A2: “Forty she is.”

In A1, we find the prototypical case (she (Joan) Given and Theme) is going to be forty (New and Rheme). In A2, we find that the theme and the New is forty, whereas (she is) is the rheme and the Given element (used to emphasize).

Marked and Unmarked Focus

The principle of end-focus tells us that the unmarked option for the focus is to fall on the last lexical item of the clause. The focus will be marked when it does not fall on the last lexical item. A focus is marked when the speaker wants to contrast or correct something that has been said or implied in the previous discourse or in the situational context. E.g.:

  • “Are you going to Andrew’s engagement party on Friday night?”
  • Paul’s engagement party I am going to on Friday night, not Andrew’s.”

Here, the New element is being marked because the answer corrects the previous question. Andrew is the Given element. The boundary between the Given and the New relies on context. Thus, if we listen to an utterance out of context, we will not be able to tell which part of the information is Given and which is New. E.g.:

  • a) “Where are you going?” “I am going (Given) to Paul’s engagement party on Friday night (New).”
  • b) “Where are you going to on Friday night?” “I am going to/Friday night (Given), to Paul’s engagement party (New).”

Considerations about Halliday’s Information Structure Analysis

According to Brown & Yule, phonological prominence is used by speakers to mark any kind of information that requires being paid attention to, but it does not only and exclusively mark the information focus. For this reason, they question the way Halliday simplifies the assumption by which the only function of pitch prominence is to mark the focus of new information within the tone group. Although most information structure analysts accept Halliday’s analysis in general terms, there are other scholars like Ward & Birner or Prince that also discuss some points of view of Halliday’s Information Structure Analysis. We can say that the New information is going to be prominent and the Given will be produced without prominence. Nevertheless, we must bear in mind that the information structure is also carried out by the phonological system, the syntactic system (e.g., word order), and the textual system (e.g., the organization of the different paragraphs in a text).

Define and Explain the Concepts of Theme and Rheme, Indicating their Degree of Communicative Dynamism

In the thematic structure of a clause, we find two main elements: the theme and the rheme.

Halliday: The theme is what the speakers/writers use as their “point of departure,” what the message is concerned with; the rheme is the rest of the message.

The meaning of the clause can change to some extent depending on the theme chosen by the speaker or writer. We can say the same thing starting with a different theme each time, like for example:

  • It is that house I want to rent.”
  • That is the house I want to rent.”
  • The house I want to rent is that one.”

(Themes underlined)

From the point of view of discourse analysis, the fact of being able to choose the theme points out that the speaker/writer will make different assumptions about the stage of knowledge of his/her hearer.

The theme always contains an element called experiential theme that describes our experience of the world (actions, events, processes, etc.). This element functions as subject, object, or circumstantial adjunct. E.g., “The student is late.”

There are also non-experiential themes; these can be divided into two main kinds:

  • Interpersonal themes: Divided into: continuatives, adjuncts of stance, vocatives, and appellatives, e.g., “Please, stop that noise / Children, come to eat please.”
  • Textual themes: Include connective adjuncts and discourse markers that connect a clause to the previous part of the text. E.g., “Finally, after all those discussions, they reached an agreement.”

A marked theme is the one that doesn’t coincide with the expected first constituent of each mood structure. In a declarative, the unmarked option would be to start with the subject (“The house is big”), vs. “It’s big, this house” (marked theme).

When two or three types of theme co-occur in the same utterance, we talk about multiple themes. These can appear in the typical sequence: textual-interpersonal-experiential (theme) (T) in other words (I) Andrew, (E) I (rheme) am really annoyed with you; or interpersonal-textual-experiential, if the former is marked e.g., (theme) (I) well (T) but (T) then (E) we (rheme) should call the police; the only condition is that the experiential theme must always come at the end.

We call absolute themes to the ones that are detached from the main clause and do not fulfill any function in the nearby NP. One subtype of absolute theme is dislocation; the difference between them is that the former is independent while the latter is a constituent of the clause, normally the subject. Depending on where the dislocated element is placed, it is called left-dislocated theme (“That scream, where did it come from?” vs. “Where did that scream come from?” (non-dislocated form)) or right-dislocated theme: “It’s fantastic, this book” vs. “This book is fantastic.”

Communicative dynamism tries to judge the different levels of contribution within a structure, in particular of those linguistic elements related to the concepts of theme and rheme.

Various factors determine communicative dynamism; one is the linear modification factor, in which the degree of communicative dynamism depends on how much a word is related to the purpose, for example in (theme) “Where did you go on Sunday? We went to a Japanese restaurant.” The element with the highest degree of communicative dynamism is “went to a Japanese restaurant,” while “we” (theme), has the lowest degree. Another factor in which theme and rheme are fundamental is the semantic factor. The theme is the part of the sentence which adds least to the advancing process of communication and that has the lowest degree of communicative dynamism, whereas the rheme carries the highest degree of communicative dynamism. Two other factors that determine communicative dynamism are the contextual factor and the prosodic prominence (in the spoken language).

Provide Two Examples of Clauses Where the Thematic Structure (Theme/Rheme) is Indicated and Briefly Analyzed.

Children, I want to tell you something. (Multiple theme underlined, rest rheme) (Non-experiential theme (vocative) + experiential theme)

On the TV (Experiential theme (circumstantial adjunct)) they have announced it will rain tomorrow.

But that (Multiple theme underlined, non-experiential (conjunctive) + experiential theme) will not stop us from visiting the downtown.