A contribution to a descriptive functional-semantic framework for Theme analysis

• Published in: Word (Worcester) 2002-08, Vol.53 (2), p.173-183
• Main Author: Foz, M. Carmen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Descriptive studies and applied theories; Linguistics; Text linguistics
• ISSN: 0043-7956; 2373-5112
• DOI: 10.1080/00437956.2002.11432526

The initial aim of the research project to which the work presented here belongs was to explore the extent to which Theme analysis is a heuristic method for detecting the writer's intention and point of view in a text. With this objective in mind, the analysis of five Chairmen's Statements and five Directors' Reports was carried out to prove the thesis that in English, within the context of business reports, thematic choices affect the achievement of interactionality or pure referentiality in texts. This analysis involved a quantitative and qualitative study of the types of functions of themes appearing in these business reports (cf. Foz 1999). In order to describe such differences, I implemented some modifications to Halliday's (1985) model that have been suggested by several systemic linguists (Berry 1995; Davis 1994a and b; Gibson 1993) concerning the delimitation of Theme. I then applied discourse-functional and semantic criteria for the analysis of the Themes. This paper presents examples extracted from the two types of reports, to illustrate semantic and functional features of various sentence initial elements, that appear with significant frequency in The Chairmen's Statements. These demonstrate that they were selected by the writer in order to achieve more interactive texts.