TEXTUAL EQUIVALENCE

A general overview based on the hallidayan approach to information flow

1.      Thematic structure: theme and rheme

Theme is what the clause is about. It has two functions: (1)it acts as a points of orientation by connecting back to previous stretches of discourse and thereby maintaining a coherent point of view and, (2) it acts as a points of departure by connecting forward and  and contributing  to the developmnt of later  stretches.

Rheme is  what the speaker says about the theme. It is the goal of discourse. As such , it is the most important elements in the structure of the clause as a message because it represents the very information that the speaker wants to convey to the hearer. It is the rheme that fulfils the communicative purpose of the utterance.

Eg.:                                                              

·         Tom     likes travelling

theme      rheme

·         Smoking  is dangerous for our health

theme            rheme

·         Our friend   invited us

  theme          rheme

·         Aristotle  though that the earth  was stationary

Theme      rheme

·         He       believed this because he felt

theme        rheme

a.      Thematic structure: grammatically vs acceptability

The grammaticaly of a sentence is things that conform to the linguistic rules or syntactic rules (Fromkin and Rodman 1998:106). Basically, according to these linguists, the gramatically is usually considered as the structure of sentence, the order in which they are combined together to form sentences. A sentence can conform to the syntactic rule, if it constructs in a grammatical form ( Fromkin and Rodman 1998 :107).

e.g :

·         The boy found the ball

The sentence must have the string of words that conform to the rule of syntax, such as subject the boy, predicate found, object the ball. The predicate is a transitive verb, so it must need a noun as an object, not an adjective or an adverb after such predicate. Conversely, an intransitive verb (as the predicate) does not need a noun (as the object) after such a verb, so it must need an adverb. As provided by Fromkin and Rodman (1998:107).

·         Disa slept soundly

Nevertheless, Lyons (1971:140) describes there are other kinds of acceptability and unacceptability which have nothing to do with whether an utterance is meaningful or not. In other words, the grammaticality do not depend on whether the sentence is meaningful or not (Fromkin and Rodman 1998:108)

b.      Thematic structure marked versus unmarked sequence

            According to Bell (1991), marked theme in English is signaled by predicating, preposing, clefting or fronting of the theme and combination of these options (other languages have, of course, different ways of marking theme). Bell (1991) also distinguishes unmarked and marked theme by giving some examples. He says that the ‘expected’, ‘unmarked’, ‘unmarkable’ theme of a main clause may be illustrated by any one of the following examples:

(a) He bought a new car

(b) Did he buy a new car?

(c) What did he buy?

(d) Buy a new car!

            Bell also gives an example for each category related to marked theme:

·         The dog bit the man, it did.

where the theme has been pre-posed by repeating it.

            There are, of course, alternative ways of doing this, as shown by the following examples:

·         The dog, it bit the man

·         It bit the man, the dog did

Ø  Fronted theme

·         Fronting of time or place adjunct :

e.g : - On 4^th March 1996

        - In China

        - There hours later

·         Fronting of object or complement

e.g : - Object : A great deal of publicity the book received in China

          Complemant : Well publicized the book was

·         Fronting of predicor

e.g : - They promised to publicize the book in China, and publicize it  they did.

c. A brief assessment of the Hallidayan position on Theme

Any approach to describing information flow in natural language will generally recognize that clauses organized in terms o theme and theme. But, as already noted, different linguist give different accounts of the way in which theme and theme are realized discourse. Each account is naturally biased towards the native language of the linguist in question as other language with which s/ he may be familiar. One of the main differences between the other Hallidayan and other approaches is that Haalliday has always insisted that, at least in English.

2.      Information structure : given and new

            Given information represent the common ground between speaker and hearer and gives the letter a reference point to which she/he can relate new information.

e.g :

·         What are we doing next week ?    We’re   swimming in Paris

                                                     Given          New

·         What’s happening next week ?     We’re swimming in Paris

                                                               NEW

·         What are we swimming next week?  We’re swimmimg   In Paris

                                                              Given                 New

a.      How are given and new signalled in discourse?

The information systems are those concerned with the organizetion of the text into units of information. This is expressed in E nglish by the intonation patters, and it is therefore a feature only of spoken English.

e.g :

// now silver needs to have love //

   Given           New

// I haven’t seen you for ages //

b.      Marked vs unmarked information structure

Unlike thematic structure (at least in English), information structure is not realized by the sequencing of elements. It is realized chiefly by tonicity. In unmarked information structure, the information focus falls on something other than the theme.

e.g : { She ‘wanted to ‘face the ‘problems on ‘Tuesday.}

     pre-head                 head                           tonic    Tail

       She   ‘wanted to     ‘face the    ‘ problems on    ‘Tuesday

c.       Marked information structure and marked rheme

Hallidayan linguists have always concentrated on marked theme and do not seem to have considered that a rheme can also be marked. But the notion of marked rheme may prove helpful in accounting for the communicative force of some uttarance.

3.      The Pregue School Position on Information Flow : Funcional Sentence Perspective

The main premise in FSP theory is that the communicative goals of an interaction cause the structure of a clause or sentence to function in different kinds of perspective. “ Functional sentence perspective”, working with the concepts of the “theme” of a sentence (that which is spoken about in the sentence) and of the “rheme” (that which is said about the theme in the sentence).

·         The tension between word order and communicative function : a proplem in translation?

Interprative arrangement              Linear arrangement

I him used to know                      I used to know him

            I them wrote to know                   I wrote to know them

CHAPTER III

CLOSING

A.    Conclusion

The terms theme and rheme have been defined according to various criteria: The theme is often understood as ‘known,’ ‘given,’ ‘previously mentioned,’ or ‘presupposed’ information present in the context, while the rheme is defined as the negation of these characteristics. Although each of these criteria is relevant to a certain extent, they nevertheless do not suffice for a proper definition. For one thing, the terms used in the definition are themselves imprecise and need clarification. Another problem is that there are numerous counter examples: in the question-answer pair Who did you see? Your mother, the mother is known to both of the speakers, but is nevertheless the rheme of the answer.