National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences
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- Mr. Brown
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| Self Assessment Exercise Use your own texts to illustrate the four Thematic Progression Patters discussed in this Unit. 3.6 Identifying Themes in Discourse There are some specific ways a theme can be identified in a clause. We have seen that themes are not just chosen. They are chosen to agree with the message and they are chosen so that the entire text can be seen a unified whole. One major way a theme can be identified is through identical wording. This means, the writer of speaker simply repeats the same word as theme in subsequent clauses. For example 53 9.1. Mr. Brown is my boss. Mr. Brown is a very nice man. In the sentence above the theme Mr. Brown is repeated in the second sentence. Another way is through the use of synonymous expression, ie occurrence of an element which communicates information similar in meaning to an expression in the preceding context, eg: 9.2. My little boy came home from school weeping. The lad was beaten by a bully. The theme can also be identified by semantic inference. Words that are related to the ones used earlier can still be used as themes of subsequent clauses (seethe example under split rheme) 5.0 Conclusion The organization of information in any text is essential because it determines the kind of meaning being communicated. The choice of what element to start with and which ones to come later show what a writer places emphasis on. Equally important is the way one theme progresses into another within a larger text, that is texts that flow form one paragraph to another. Different kinds of Thematic Progression patterns have been identified to be peculiar to different kinds of writing. For instance, stories will naturally choose the constant theme pattern, since they are about some individuals or a particular event. This is to ensure that the story is followed by the listener or reader, as these persons or events keep recurring in the text. Download 0.49 Mb. Share with your friends:
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