Thematic Progressions as Readability Factor in Academic Writing of L2 Writers

Abstract

Textual organization in academic writing is considered as the most complex in a

hierarchy of language functions as presented by Popper (1979:116) .He purposely did

not include interpersonal and creative functions of language to point out presence of

‘objective knowledge’ or ‘knowledge without a knowing subject’ – the absence of

schema. Leech (1983:49), stratifying Popper’s theory presented a progression of how

‘human knowledge evolves from lower to higher functions’ . The two lower functions,

signaling and the expressive functions, both common to human and animal languages,

does not imply descriptive and argumentative functions. Argumentative function

presupposes descriptive functions by regulating it with the ideas of ‘truth, content, and

verisimilitude placing both in the uppermost rank. However, Popper believes that

recoding and storing of this ‘objective knowledge’, primary knowledge from events,

science, mathematics or finance more so their stored knowledge from technology and

libraries can sometimes be hampered through the system of writing – a hampering which

results to incomprehension on the part of its intended audience. This paper analyzed

one aspect of this “hampering”, that is readability of text structures , by using Frantisek

Danes thematic progressions in the three paragraphs extracted from business academic

texts written by L2 writers and the Theme-Rheme notion of the Functional Sentence

Perspective. The three Rheme problems of Bloor and Bloor helped in determining the

reasons why readability was hampered.

Introduction

The influence of Text structure, especially their variations to readability is an area

of continuous study not only for L2 speakers but also for native speakers. More

specifically, the study of the text organization in relation with reading comprehension

has been the focus of several researchers for the past decades or presumably the past

century. In 1844, Weil coined the term ‘point of departure’ and ‘enunciation’ to show the

structural relationship within a clause to fulfill the clause’s intention of communicating

and of being understood by its intended audience. In a somewhat microstructure level

leading to grammatical focus in text comprehension, Bloor (1992) states that

grammatical regularities are not independent of words but are inherent within words and

in their relationship with each other. Words are constructed within grammar and by

linking them in ‘hierarchical combinations¡’( Weil’s point of departure and enunciation¡,

we can express our thoughts to others. Bloor is guided by De Beaugrande (1997) who

refinedly presented the basic truth in analyzing the organization of text structures

specifically in the academic genre:

The top goal of the science of text and discourse proposed here

is to support the freedom of access to knowledge and society through

discourse. This goal has become enormously urgent in our

modernizing¡¯ world, where social progress demands that the

 increasingly diverse social classes and cultures develop more

cooperative practices for sharing knowledge and negotiating social

roles; and discourse must surely be our central modality for doing so.

It is with De Beaugrande’s top goal of the science of text and discourse, the

freedom of access to knowledge , that this analysis was done. Tertiary level academic

books are the sources of knowledge that serve as the major influence for the success of a

student. Content-based academic writing basically paragraphs from selected business

textbooks of L2 writers were therefore used as the materials for this study.

The readability factor of text structures possesses the notion that text structures,

especially their variations, influence reading comprehension, To define variations in text

structures, Pearson and Camperell ( 1992 ) used exemplification approach by listing the

following clauses:

(i). The lad rode the steed to victory.

(ii) The steed was ridden to victory by the lad.

(iii) The young man rode the horse to a first place finish.

(iv) The horse was ridden to a first place finish by the young man.

Pearson and Camperell explained that although there are only two explicit

variants in the four clauses, that is, active and passive voice, the difference between (i)

and (ii) and (iii) and (iv) is more on the lexical or semantic variations owing to the trans-

position of the ¡topics¡¯ where in these examples the focus are on the subjects of the
clause. In addition, it is evident that related words were used as in ‘lad’ for ‘young man’

to show another aspect of the variations.

Structures such as the above are just presented to show how a simple clause could

acquire its own variation which could affect meaning of text structure. In expository

prose, the majority of which is found in academic texts, structures are dealt with in a

more complex presentation, more so perhaps, when perceived by our freshmen college

students. This notion is considered with the assumption that in comparison with the

educational system of native speakers (from where L2 writers derive their primary source

of knowledge), our tertiary level students whose ages range from 16 to 17 years old, are

practically only in the same level of a native speakers’ upper secondary level which in

our country is commonly referred to as high school level. [ This assumption is just cited

as an additional implication for readability studies specifically, the complexity factor of

presentation of clauses in academic writing paralleled with the developmental stage-age

and physical and psychological maturity of the student. This is not dealt with in this

study.]

To illustrate an example of complexity in structures in academic texts, the

following paragraph (numbered sequentially) from a basic marketing textbook written by

an L2 writer shows how the term “‘mass market” is described:

(1) The numerous population that makes up the consumer market dictates

among others that, for reasons of economy, these buyers be dealt with as large

groups.

(2) Hence, the designation “mass market”.

(3) It is only when they are perceived and appealed to as groups that the

consumer market takes the appearance of an organized structure.

(4) That is to say, the ways in which groups differ from one another and also

interrelate depend largely upon the basis that has been taken for differentiation by

those entrusted with marketing management.

(5) This basis, it may be helpful to point out, serves as the basis for market

segmentation.

As you can see, complexity of structures exist once several concept of verb

structures are embedded in clauses to relate them with the main clause. Moreover, from

an abstract definition of the word “mass market”, the supposedly rule for defining that is,

from general to specific, was a failure on the part of the writer although it is evident from

sentence number four that the writer was trying to give specificity of the term which also

failed to achieve its goal. The hierarchy of text structures in the paragraph, from abstract

to specific, toppled into a disarrayed meaning.

According to Pearson and Camperell, examining hierarchy of text structures is the

scheme used by researchers to preserve meaning of structural variations . Some

concentrated on the entire text (macrostructures) while others use the relationship of

structures within and between sentences. Pearson and Camperell explained its process by

stating that ‘clauses are scaled according to their structural importance within the

hierarchy’. In these studies the concept of Theme and Rheme as a strategy for

observing coherence is given focus. Although the flow of the Theme and Rheme notion

was used in this study,, Danes’ thematic progression is more aptly fit to analyse

complex structures normally found in academic writing .

 Historical Overview

As mentioned, the notions of theme and rheme was initiated by Henri Weil

(1844) observing that : “There is ¡a point of departure, an initial notion which is equally

present to him who speaks and to him who hears, which forms, as it were, the ground upon which

the two intelligences meet; and another part of discourse which forms the statement

(enunciation), properly so called. This division is found in almost all we say.”

With his influence, thematic organization of the clause was established by

the Prague school of Linguistics . This group of linguists considered that the clause has

a communicative dynamism achieved through the progression of information from older

to new information. They called this the functional sentence perspective point of view.

Frantisek Danes (1974, 1989) classified the three main types of thematic

progression:

a. communicative articulation which he called Theme (topic) and

Rheme as the comment for the topic

b. informational bipartition

known unknown

old /given new

contextually bound non-bound information

starting point core

basis nucleus

presupposition focus of utterance

c. different degrees of communicative dynamism of utterance constituents

These Prague linguists also argued that if the grammatical subject however is related to the

theme, and if all the information is new in each sentence of a paragraph, then no theme exists

(Mathesius, 1928). Firbas (1992) restated Mathesius theory this time avoiding the sense that no

theme exists in a sentence where all the subject or the topic is the same. He supported Danes

notion of communicative dynamism which accounts for the relationship between given and new

information and what the sentence is all about. In hierarchy, the Prague approach considered

Theme as the carrier of the lowest degree of communicative dynamism (CD) which means it

contributed least to the communication function. This information is understood from context

and possesses given information.

. Halliday (1968, 1985) however, preferred Theme and Rheme departing from Firbas and

others with his concept of a separate thematic structure of the clause (theme and rheme) from the

information structure (given and new).

[¡] although they are related, Given ¨C New and Theme ¨C Rheme

are not the same thing. 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 have accessible to you.

(Halliday, 1994:299)

In other words, Theme might contain familiar, old or given information in the listener or reader’s

point of view, but is the point of departure of the speaker or writer’s message meaning, theme

provides the settings for the Rheme of the sentence which contains unknown or new information.

Again in the writer’s point of view, new information is knowledge that he must extend in the

Rheme for his reader to grasp the progression of the argument. In this concept, the topic

therefore, is not necessarily the Theme. Theme may not be the subject of the clause even if it is

the first element occurring in a clause followed by the remainder clause which is the Rheme:
Theme Rheme

Viewed from a narrow economic sense, needs are necessities

As such, these include a minimum of food, ¡

necessary to sustain life.

Milk is a good example¡ necessity for the

baby

The above division shows that the subject may or may not be the Theme of the

sentence; nor is Rheme equated with the predicate as shown in the first example where

we have the main clause as the Rheme. The last example with ‘Milk’ as the subject

overlaps also as the Theme of the sentence. Halliday refers to this kind of theme as

unmarked Theme and repeats the term in unmarked sentences where the subject is also

the Theme.. Marked Sentences, therefore possess a Theme that is separated from the

subject which could be pre-posed adverbial groups, prepositional phrases, verbal group

(participial or infinitive phrases excluding gerunds for they may be subjects of the

sentence) or a dependent clause. These structures appear first in a clause as given

information with all the rest as the Rheme of the clause, the newsworthy function of the

clause.

It follows therefore, that the writer’s knowledge of where to place the boundary

between the Theme - Rheme in a very complex sentence is an important element to

achieve coherence. In cohesive writing, given information in a clause is to be presented

in the Theme position to signal a reader what information follows. As the reader interacts

with the text, predicting or guessing what comes next based from the given information is

a process which a motivated reader performs. The reader’s failure to follow the

progression of an idea from Theme to Rheme affects its readability resulting to both the
reader’s non-comprehension of the text and the writer’s failure to communicate salient

academic knowledge to college students.

Bloor & Bloor (1992) identified three common problems in assigning the

boundary between the Theme and the Rheme:

1. the problem of the brand new theme ¨ where new information is in the Theme

position.

Ex. The expanding number of out-of-school youths affects economy.

Considering that this sentence is the first sentence in the first paragraph, the Theme

‘expanding number of out-of school youths’ is a brand new theme which can break down

the communication level at the start.

2. the problem of the double Rheme where a sentence has two Rhemes with one of

the Rheme not mentioned previously.

Ex. The expanding number of out of school youths had a big impact on the economy

and the parents are faced with unemployment.

There are two Rhemes after the Theme, “had a big impact on the economy “ and “the

parents are faced with unemployment. Danes illustrated that complexity in text structures

results in ‘complicated utterances’ sometimes produced by coordination, apposition,

nominalizations, and relative clauses.

3. the problem of the empty Rheme is the failure to present new information in

Rheme position.

Ex. Lack of funds for education is a serious problem.

‘A serious problem’ as Rheme gives no information whatsoever, an information which

was mentioned before or shared by the intended readers.

Theoretical Framework

Thematic Progression (Eggins, 1994) is defined as the information exchange

between successive Theme and Rheme combinations in a text. A text’s thematic

organization is based largely in semantic coherence, but it is common knowledge that

texts could not be perfect, showing incoherence and sometimes displaying an abrupt end.

Coherence rules do not come in black and white, adding to the difficulty in teaching of

prose writing especially academic writing. The mass of information unfolding as the

writer produces text forces her to make choices in the style of delivery which determines

what utterance theme to include.

Danes important contribution to the Theme-Rheme notion is to use Theme as the

point of departure of a sentence to help expand and connect the text structures that

follows. He applied his three classifications listed above as three processes of Thematic

progression :

(1) Simple linear progression. Each Rheme becomes the Theme of the next sentence.

T1 …….. R1

T2 = R1 ……R2

T3 = R2…….R3
 (2) Constant (Continuous ) Theme where Themes are results of a ‘hypertheme’

T1………….R1

T2………….R2

T3…………R3

(3) Thematic progression from Derived Themes

The narrative type of text mainly uses one Theme for all the sentences usually by

using pronominals after the first theme (topic) in the opening sentence. The

thematic development of an academic text needs more cross-referential links form

the Rheme of one clause to the Theme of the next because of the text’s complex

arguments wherein ideas result from an idea in the previous sentence. It is for

this reason that the Theme-Rheme aspect of subject – verb boundary wasn’t used

in this study.

Diagnosing Thematic Progression of Business Academic Paragraphs

The first text to be analysed is the academic text example earlier given in

this paper. It was extracted from a basic marketing textbook. Points of Departure

(Themes) which eventually also become Rhemes are divided by numbers in parentheses

with the Theme of the first sentence underlined.

Text A

The numerous population that makes up the consumer market dictates among

others that, for reasons of economy, these buyers be dealt with as large groups (1) .
Hence, the designation “mass market”(2). It is only when they are perceived and

appealed to as groups (3) that the consumer market takes the appearance of an

organized structure (4). That is to say, the ways in which groups differ from one

another and also interrelated (5) depend largely upon the basis that has been taken

for differentiation by those entrusted with marketing management (6). This basis, it

may be helpful to point out (7), serves as the basis for market segmentation (8).

Discussion of TP types for Text A:

• Clause one has “ The numerous population…market” is the theme while

the rest that follows is the Rheme. = Simple linear - TP!

• Clause (1) to Clause 2 = Simple linear – TP1

• Clause (2) to Clause (3) = Derived Themes – TP 3

• Clause (3) to Clause (4) = Simple linear – TP1

• Clause (4) to Clause (5) = No TP

• Clause (5) to Clause (6) = No TP

• Clause (6) to Clause (7) = Derived Themes – TP 3

• Clause (7) to Clause (8) = No TP

Analysis for Thematic Progressions:

Clause one is a simple linear with the Theme and Rheme totaling as the

point of departure for the next sentence. The Rheme ‘that buyers be dealt with as
large groups” is carried on in the next sentence which is Clause 2 “…mass

market”.

Clause (3) shows that “they” is a derived Theme from the Theme of

sentence 1 “numerous population” making the combined clauses a TP 3 type.

Clause (3) and (4) is a simple linear TP1 with a new information in the Rheme

clause(4), “that the consumer market takes the appearance of an organized

structure”.

Clause (4) to (5) however shows no TP since the word “differed” in

(Clause 5) is an antonym of “organized” from Clause (4) , which could be a

cohesive device if the clause did not begin with a textual, “That is to say”.

Here is an example of how coordination can sometimes confuse the

meaning of the text. Bloor’s problem of double rheme is evident in Clause (5)

again because of the use of the coordinator “and”, and the problem of empty

rheme in the word “ways” of Clause 5. Specific examples can be given for

“ways” by preceding it with the exemplification signal words “such as”.

Clause (5) to Clause (6) does not have TP again as a result of the problem

of empty rheme for “basis” and the double rheme for Clause (5) “basis” and

“marketing management”.

Clause (6) to Clause (7) is a TP 3 since “basis” is derived from one of the

double rheme (Themes) in Clause (5) but again, Clause (7) has an empty rheme

with the word “basis”.

Lastly Clause (7) to Clause (8) is a Simple linear TP 1, however the

combination, although trying its best to conclude the paragraph by using the
 words “market segmentation” to relate with “mass market” failed still because of

the problem of empty theme-rheme.

Theme-Rheme structure of Text A.

Theme and Rheme clauses are now clustered in one sentence, meaning

main Theme-Rheme of each sentence., thereby using the term ‘sentence’ .

Sentence 1 Theme 1 Rheme 1

The numerous population… dictates among others that, for
reasons of economy, these buyers be
dealt with as large groups.

Sentence 2 Theme 2 Rheme 2

Hence, the designation [is] “mass market”.

Sentence 3 Theme 3 Rheme 3

It is only when they [?] are perceived that the consumer market takes
and appealed to as groups the appearance of an
organized structure.

Sentence 4 Theme 4 Rheme 4

That is to say, the ways in which groups depend largely upon the
differ [?] from one another and also basis that has been taken for
interrelate differentiation by those
entrusted with marketing
management.

Sentence 5 Theme 5 Rheme 5

This basis, it may be helpful to point out serves as the basis for market
segmentation.
 Discussion:

In this approach, we use the main Theme-Rheme to analyse the Thematic

Progression of the text. If we again define coherence on the Theme-Rheme notion, we

know that this cohesion device considers the Rheme of the Theme to be the second

Theme of the next sentence.

As you can see, the first sentence gives us the first Theme-Rheme combination.

However, the defining function of the second sentence, “hence, the designation , mass

market” does not conform to the Thematic Progression. The nominalization

‘designation” was not the newsworthy item presented in Rheme 1.[ It is to be noted that

the division of clauses for sub-Themes and sub-Rhemes were also used to show types of

Thematic Progression which therefore existed in Sentence 2 ] If you noticed however,

the arrow from the first Rheme points to Rheme 2 which should not be the case. The

writer should have used “Mass Market” as the next theme unless the term ‘designation’

means ‘dealing with large groups’.

Sentence 3 gives us ‘they’ as the ‘topic’ but the writer’s use of the ‘be verb’ to

make ‘they’ equal with ‘large groups’ again is not enough to base this Theme ‘they’ from

the Rheme of the preceding sentence. [The reason why I linked the arrow point from

Rheme 2 to ‘groups’ of Theme 3.] In our traditional grammar parlance, we call this a

pronoun broad reference since the antecedent “buyer” of ‘they’ is found in the first

sentence and other pseudo-antecedents appeared within the sentences which can confuse

the reader.

Theme 4 “the ways “ is not the information given in Rheme 3 “organized

structure”, This is the first type of problem Bloor and Bloor presented- the problem of
new Rheme placed in the Theme position which in addition, resulted to another

problem in its Rheme 4 ‘basis’ which is a problem of empty Rheme and of double

Rheme when it mentioned ‘marketing management’.

With the above , the readability hampers and is make worse by the repetition of

the empty Rheme 4 ‘basis’ in Theme 5 is transformed into an empty Theme . The writer

might have followed Theme-Rheme placement but an empty Rheme to be effective as a

succeeding Theme should be a ‘point of departure’, a context aid for the reader to signal

that a newsworthy text is coming up. Unfortunately even in assessing the

macrostructures, that is, paragraph to paragraph, the writer still failed to follow our text

with a newsworthy paragraph. The use of the words “two factors “ as the theme of the

first sentence of the following paragraph will add to the burden of non-readablity of the

test. The reader in selecting the word ‘basis’ which appears thrice, is still in the process

of guessing or predicting from where in the text it can be deciphered. Expanding on the

word ‘basis’ directly and not using ‘factors’ as its synonym made this academic text an

unmotivating business textbook for tertiary level.

References:

Beaugrande, R.A.(1981). Introduction to Text Linguistics., www.beauagrande.com

Bloor, M., and Bloor, T. (1992). Given and new information in the thematic
organization of text: An application to the teaching of academic writing.
Occasional Papers in Systemic Linguistics, 6,33-43.

Downing, Angela. (2001) Thematic Progression as a Functional Resource in Analysing

Texts:Circulo de Linguistical Aplicada a la Communicacion/Circle of
Linguistics Applied to Communication 5, February 2001.

Fries, C.. (1983). On the status of theme in English: Arguments in discourse, In J.S.
Petofi & E, Sozer (Eds.), Micro and macro connexity of text. Hamburg: Helmut
Buske Verlag.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1968). Notes on transitivity and theme in English (part3). Journal of
Linguistics, 4(2), 179-215.

Pearson, P. D. & K. Camperell . Comprehension of Text Structures. Comprehension and

Teaching : Research Reviews.

Popper, K.R. (1979). 2nd ed. , Objective Knowledge. An Evolutionary Approach. Oxford:
University Press.

Wang, Lixia. (2004)/ Theme and Rheme in the Thematic Organization of Text:
Implications for Teaching Academic Writing. Journal of Linguistics 9

Weil, H. (1844). In Super, C.W. (Ed). De L’ordere des Mots dans les langues Anciennes
Compares aux Langues Modernes. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (trans.) (1978).
Text A

The numerous population that makes up the consumer market dictates among

others that, for reasons of economy, these buyers be dealt with as large groups .

Hence, the designation “mass market”. It is only when they are perceived and

appealed to as groups that the consumer market takes the appearance of an

organized structure . That is to say, the ways in which groups differ from one

another and also interrelated depend largely upon the basis that has been taken for

differentiation by those entrusted with marketing management . This basis, it may

be helpful to point out , serves as the basis for market segmentation .