Choix du Thème et Progression Thématique dans le 'Extended Essay' du Baccalauréat International Tome 1 (de 2 tomes) Mémoire de deuxième année de Master Recherche Lettres, Langues & Cultures Étrangères Aire Culturelle du Monde Anglophone Présenté à l’Université Aix-Marseille Par monsieur Paul White Sous la direction de madame Linda Pillière Session septembre 2015 Abstract The aim of this research project was to analyse 26 examples of the International Baccalaureate's (IB) Extended Essay in History according to North's (2005) categorisation of orienting Themes (textual, interpersonal and experiential) and topical Themes as well as McCabe's (1999) realisations of thematic progression, in particular the simple linear progression and constant progression structures. Many studies have found correlations between Theme choice, particularly use of circumstantial Themes, and thematic progression, particularly the use of simple linear progression and constant progression, and a writer's first language, their level of proficiency in English, and also disciplinary variation. Other studies have focused on the pedagogical possibilities surrounding teaching students, especially non-native English learners, how to use Theme in their academic writing. The basic hypothesis of the present study was that the successful use of Theme choice and thematic progression correlates to the subject grades received by IB students. The corpus consists of 26 extracts of 25 t-units (clause complexes) each, all written for the History Extended Essay, which received subject grades ranging from A to E. The texts were sourced from a international secondary school in the South of France, and also from the IB's publications '50 Excellent Extended Essays and 50 more Excellent Extended Essays' (2011). None of the participants had received any kind of instruction regarding how to use different Themes and thematic progression in their texts. Regarding Theme choice, the analyses carried out focused on correlating the use of all orienting Themes, textual Themes, interpersonal Themes and experiential Themes with subject grades. In relation to thematic progression, the analyses undertaken searched for correlations between the use of simple linear progression, constant progression, and the ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression with subject grades. Positive, statistically-significant correlations were identified between the use of all orienting Themes and subject grades, and the use of simple linear progression and subject grades. Where no statistically-significant correlations were first identified, further research uncovered correlations for some sub-categories. For example, although the use of experiential Themes did not correlate with subject grades, the use of long experiential Themes (consisting of 10 words or more) was found to be significant. The occurrence of these long experiential Themes often coincided with the use of the simple linear progression, which in providing local cohesion allowed the writer to use the topical Theme either to present new information without compromising cohesion, or to provide an extra level of cohesion through the use of constant progression. As for the analysis of constant progression itself and subject grades, although no correlation was found, a sub-category which I define as 'inference constant progression' did correlate with subject grades. The essence of this subcategory is that it involved Themes linking back to previous Themes not through simple repetition of the same words, or through substitution of a previous Theme with a pronoun, but instead used synonyms, possessive adjectives, semantically-related words, and rephrasing to connect one Theme to a previous one. This allows a writer to expand their use of vocabulary at the same time as creating tight cohesive links through subtle shifts in the focus of the argument between t-units referring to the same subject. Finally, although no correlation was found between the ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression and subject grades (see Soleymanzadeh and Gholami, 2014), some observations about the complex interaction of the use of orienting and topical Themes, together with the use of new Themes, simple linear progression and constant progression were highlighted. The main points to emphasize are that both elements which promote cohesion like simple linear progression and constant progression, and those involved in breaks in cohesion like new Themes, work together in the orienting and topical Theme positions to create complex arrangements in highly-cohesive texts. I therefore argue that analysis of cohesion in academic writing needs to go beyond fixations on correlations of global categories (like simple linear progression or circumstantial Themes and cohesion) and instead look for both sub-categories of these functions as well as interaction patterns between all these elements, whether taken individually they are considered to assist in cohesion or not. Finally, it is hypothesized that further research into the use of cohesion in the Extended Essay could lead to the production of pedagogical materials which could help the tens of thousands of students around the world who must write an Extended Essay as part of their IB qualification each year. The referencing system used in this dissertation is the Harvard system (see http://guides.is.uwa.edu.au/harvard) Key words: Functional grammar, Orienting Themes, Topical Themes, Thematic Progression. Contents 1. What is Theme? 1.1 The Origins of and Controversy surrounding Theme 1 1.1.1 The Historical Origins of Theme 1 1.1.2 Theme as content topic 1 1.1.3 Theme as Given/Known 3 1.1.4 Theme/Rheme in Communicative Dynamism 4 1.1.5 Theme as initial position 5 1.1.6 Theme as message onset 5 1.2 Halliday's operationalisation of Theme 6 1.3 An alternative operationalisation of Theme 10 1.4 Topical Themes 11 1.5 Thematic progression 12 2. Studies in the use of Theme in academic writing 2.1 Theme and Thematic progression and cohesion in learner English writing 15 2.2 Language background and Theme use 16 2.3 Proficiency level and Theme use 17 2.4 Disciplinary differences in the use of Themes 17 2.5 Instruction in the use of Theme and textual cohesion 19 3. Corpus and procedure 3.1 The corpus 22 3.2 Analytical framework 3.2.1 T-units as the unit of analysis 26 3.2.2 Orienting Themes identified 27 3.2.3 Which types of TP counted 32 3.2.4 Hypotheses 38 4. Findings and Discussion 4.1 Orienting Themes 4.1.1 Total orienting Themes 40 4.1.2 Textual Themes 42 4.1.3 Interpersonal Themes 43 4.1.4 Experiential Themes 45 4.2 Thematic Progression 4.2.1 Simple linear progression 49 4.2.2 Constant progression 53 4.2.3 Ratio of Simple linear progression to constant progression 58 4.3 Combinations of Theme Choice and Thematic progression 59 5. Conclusion 5.1 Conclusion 62 5.2 Pedagogical implications 63 5.3 Improvements and further study 64 6. Bibliography 65 List of Tables 1. The difference between Theme and content topic 2 2. Examples of Theme in declarative clauses 7 3. Predicated Themes 8 4. Textual and interpersonal Themes 9 5. Halliday's example of the most extended Theme 9 6. Examples of marked Themes 10 7. Subject grades received 23 8. Two paratactically linked clauses presented in reverse order 26 9. Two hypotactically linked clauses presented in original and reversed order 26 10. Some examples of conjunctive adjuncts 29 11. Some examples of modal adjuncts 30 12. Examples of circumstantial adjuncts 31 13. Examples 1 & 2 of omitted topical Themes 36 14. Examples 3 & 4 of omitted topical Themes 36 15. Example of use of rhetorical questions 44-45 16. Example 1&2 - Long experiential Themes 46-47 17. Example 3 & 4 - Long experiential Themes 47 18. 4 examples of simple linear progression 50-51 19. An example of the use of simple linear progression in orienting Themes 52-53 20. 4 examples of inference constant progression 55 21. 3 examples of repetition constant progression 57-58 22. The interaction of Theme choice and thematic progression 60-61 List of Charts 1. Use of orienting Themes 40 2. Median use of all orienting Themes 41 3. Total orienting Themes used 41 4. Use of textual Themes 42 5. Use of interpersonal Themes 44 6. Use of experiential Themes 45 7. Use of long experiential Themes 46 8. Use of simple linear progression 49 9. Use of simple linear progression in orienting Themes 52 10. Use of constant progression 53 11. Use of types of constant progression 54 12. Ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression 59 List of Figures 1. Simple Linear Progression 13 2. Constant progression 13 3. Circumstantial adjuncts 30 4. Circumstantial, modal and conjunctive adjuncts 32 5. Derived Theme 33 6. Split Rheme 34 7. An example of split-Theme 34 8. Gradient of content integration of Framing Adverbials 64 1. What is Theme? 1.1 The Origins of and Controversy surrounding Theme 1.1.1 The Historical Origins of Theme In 1844, Weil proposed that the structuring of the clause reflects the train of thought of the speaker/writer (henceforth the term speaker will stand for both). This enabled Weil to identify a partitioning of the clause between what is already known to the speaker and listener/reader (henceforth the term listener will stand for both) and what is foregrounded by the speaker as new information. The known information already shared between speaker and listener constitutes a "point of departure, an initial notion which is equally present to him who speaks and to him who hears..." (Weil, 1844, p.29). For Weil, the point of departure is synonymous with the initial position in the clause structure and contains information known to both speaker and listener. Weil therefore combined psychological, syntactic and sociological aspects of communication in this first simplistic definition of what was later named Theme. These various concerns of communication were to form the basis of the many academic disagreements and debate which have surrounded this linguistic concept right up to the present day. 1.1.2 Theme as content topic Almost a century after Weil's observation of a two-part structure in the clause, the Prague School linguist Vilem Mathesius first formulated the categorisations of Theme and Rheme as part of his theory 'Functional Sentence Perspective'. For Mathesius "... an overwhelming majority of all sentences contain two basic elements, a statement and an element about which the statement is made" (Mathesius, 1975, p.81). The statement is realised in the Rheme, and it is made in relation to the Theme. For a recent definition, Michael Halliday of the Sydney School defines Theme in the 2014 edition of his 'Introduction to Functional Grammar' as: Theme is the element that serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that which locates and orients the clause within its context. The speaker chooses the Theme as his or her point of departure to guide the addressee in developing an interpretation of the message; by making part of the message prominent as Theme, the speaker enables the addressee to process the message. (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.89) This is a lengthened and revised definition compared to that used in all previous editions of 'A Introduction to Functional Grammar' up to 2004 (Halliday, 1985, 1994; Halliday and Matthiessen 2004). The above definition limits Theme to the point of departure, related to syntactic and social factors, in particular the use of the empathy regarding the listener's perspective when the speaker 1 aims to convey a particular interpretation of a message. The earlier definition of Theme was broader: "The Theme is what is being talked about, the point of departure for the clause as a message" (Halliday 1967b, p.212). This earlier definition gave rise to problems concerning the conflation of Theme with the 'content topic' of the text, that is 'what is being talked about' ('content topic' must not be confused with the functional grammar definition of 'topic' discussed below in section '1.1.3 Theme as Given/Known'). To illustrate this, Table 1 below shows an extract of text from the corpus of the current study. The difference between Theme and content topic Theme Rheme In July 2005, four terrorist attacks occurred in London, deliberately planned to killed innocent bystanders. The explosions are believed to have been ordered and organised by the Islamic AlQaeda organisation and leaders of the Madrassas. have not all been fully investigated due to their autonomy. These extreme "brain washing" schools Those which have been researched rely heavily on mindless repetition of selected extracts from the Koran, delivered with both verbal and physical threats. Table 1 - Illustrating the difference between Theme and topic, lines 1a21 to 1a24 of the corpus of this study. Although there is a shift from a focus on 'terrorist attacks' in the Rheme of the first sentence and the Theme and Rheme of the second to 'brainwashing schools' in the last two sentences, both of these arguments relate to the text's central concern, the 2005 London terrorist attacks. However, the first sentence has a time adverbial in the Theme position. The content topic of the text is not exclusively July 2005, so this Theme reflects much more ambiguously what the text is about. Downing states that since content topic and Theme often do not coincide, the definition of content topic can be a "rather elusive category" (Downing, 1991, p.121). Witte gives an example sentence about which there could be disagreement concerning identifying the content topic: Without care from some other human being or beings, be it a mother, grandmother, sister, nurse, or human group, a child is very unlikely to survive. (Witte, 1983, p.319) Witte identified 'a child' to be the content topic of this sentence. However, given that there is a long Thematised prepositional phrase before the grammatical subject, it is possible to imagine that the argument could be 'the consequences of a lack of care', or even 'the historical, limiting role of women in society'. In most cases this ambiguity is resolved by reading the surrounding text. Nevertheless, the conflation of Theme as point of departure for a message and content topic can be regarded as overly generalising, especially when considering what Halliday defined as highly 2 marked Themes (see section '1.2 Halliday’s operationalisation of Theme'). 1.1.3 Theme as Given/Known In the preceding paragraphs the term 'content topic' has been used to signify the general semantic content of a text, however many researchers have instead used the term 'topic' here. Mathesius' position is that the point of departure is "that which is known or at least obvious in the given situation and from which the speaker proceeds" (Mathesius, 1939, p.171). While initially stating that Theme was analogous with given or known information, he later specified that "...theme need not be a known piece of information" (In Daneš 1989, p.25). However, many researchers have taken Theme to be synonymous with Given (see Gutiérrez Ordóñez 1997; Whitley 1986). The main problem with this is that what is Given is determined by the listener, and therefore depends on what any particular individual is able to infer from any given message. Halliday states that: 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. Theme + Rheme is speaker oriented, while Given + New is listener-oriented. (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p.120). For Halliday Given and New form part of the information unit, which while often overlapping the grammatical clause, does not necessarily do so. In fact, the information unit is defined semantically and can be identified through changes in the use of tone groups by the speaker. Both the structures of Theme and Rheme and Given and New are selected by the speaker, and very often are realised in the same elements in a clause. However, this is not always the case. As an example, Halliday and Matthiessen show how playing with the two systems can result in the speaker "putting the other down, making him feel guilty and the like" (ibid, p.120). // ^ are / you coming / back into / circu/lation // (ibid, p.120) Here, 'into circulation' is treated as the norm, and therefore Given information, while the New information culminates in the tonally emphasized 'back'. This inversion of the information unit has been mapped onto the Theme-Rheme structure to produce rhetorical effects. This approach differentiates Halliday's stance on Theme from the Prague School linguists such as Mathesius and Firbas, who at times have conflated Theme with Given. Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) make a functional distinction between Theme and topic as understood from a functional grammar perspective: 3 The label ‘Topic’ usually refers to only one particular kind of Theme, the ‘topical Theme’ (see Section 3.4); and it tends to be used as a cover term for two concepts that are functionally distinct, one being that of Theme and the other being that of Given (ibid, p.89) Halliday states that when Theme and Given are operationalised in the same word group, the combination creates a Topical Theme, meaning that the definition of Theme cannot be simply information which is given/known. The separation of Theme and Given has not however been the position taken by many other linguists. Fries (1981) commenting on this distinction, labelled the Prague School approach as 'combining' and Halliday's as 'splitting'. 1.1.4 Theme/Rheme in Communicative Dynamism Jan Firbas, a Prague School linguist, states that the point of departure "is not the beginning of the sentence, but the foundation-laying element of the lowest degree of Communication Development.." (Firbas, 1987, p.145). The elements in a clause can be graded according to their communicative dynamism (henceforth CD), with context-dependent elements having the lowest level of dynamism while new information has the highest. While this scale of CD often increases linearly through the progression of a clause, and therefore is mirrored in the Theme/Rheme organisation, this is not necessarily always the case. Two other factors can interfere with this linear progression, the context and semantic structure. If something is retrievable from the immediate context, that is situational or textual, and is placed near the end of the clause, it can over-ride the default increasing of CD towards the end of the clause. In relation to semantic structure, some words can be context-independent, and if placed in the Theme position also work against the default increasing of CD through the clause. McCabe (1999) explains: "some subjects are context independent, especially in the case of verbs which denote appearance or existence on the scene, e.g. A boy came into the room" (ibid, p.59). While Firbas's theory lends much greater flexibility to the interaction between Theme and Given, in practice it is very difficult to operationalise when performing analyses on real texts. Martin comments on this problem when he says that the theory fails in that "it generally proves more practical to draw a line between Theme and Rheme" (Martin, 1992a, p.151). In addition, Hawes and Thomas (1997) refer to the difficulty also in assigning a precise level of CD for different elements in a clause. Since Theme cannot be defined sociosemantically by identifying it with the content topic, or as Given information, and is difficult to identify precisely using CD, many researchers have settled for a purely syntactic definition. 4 1.1.5 Theme as initial position Many linguists (see Barcelona Sanchez 1990) have mis-interpreted Halliday's description of the use of Theme in English, defining Theme as a solely syntactical function, that of being at the beginning of a clause. Halliday does state that "...the element selected by the speaker as Theme is assigned first position in the sequence" (Halliday, 1976, p.179), but later remarked that this previous quote was "intended to say how the Theme in English is to be recognized [but] was taken as a statement of how it is to be defined" (Halliday 1988, p.33 in Fries and Francis 1992, p.45). So, for Halliday, Theme occurs in the initial clause position in English, and is often realised through information which is Given or known by both speaker and listener, but these two elements do not suffice to define the function of Theme. 1.1.6 Theme as message onset Mauranen notes that despite all the theoretical ambiguity regarding Theme, it has remained an intriguing concept for researchers due to "its interesting position at the interface of grammar and discourse" (Mauranen, 1993a , p.104). While Theme is found in the initial position in the English clause, its real functional definition relates to its role of structuring information within the clause and between the individual clause and the text/context, or 'co-text', in which it is embedded. While this formulation of the concept of Theme hints towards psychological factors involved, Halliday has always preferred to focus on the social co-text in which the language act takes place. Halliday's long time collaborator Christian Matthiessen (1995) did however explore the psychological underpinnings of Theme, formulating his theory of Theme as contributing to the creation of an 'instantial system' between speaker and listener. This system is created through selection of elements from a general system. From the speaker's point of view, an instantial system is the system of selections s/he has to make in producing the text; from the listener's point of view, an instantial system is the system that s/he can create out of the interpretation of the unfolding text. (Matthiessen, 1995, p.22) Theme plays a very important part in this construction of knowledge through any particular instantial system as it "enables the process of interpretation by guiding the listener to a particular node in the instantial network, making it unnecessary for him/her to search the whole network" (ibid, p.27). Theme is thus psycho-sociological in nature, relating both to the construction of knowledge between speaker and listener, but also strongly reflecting the communicative intention of the speaker. Enkvist states that “What is optimal in textual terms depends on the speaker/writer's intentions and motives, on the text type and on the text strategy" (Enkvist, 1984, p.58). Many 5 semantic and syntactic choices in the construction of a text contribute to the success or otherwise of the communication. However, as McCabe notes, Theme plays a fundamental role in "the expression of the speaker's perception of reality and the concerns of the speaker to communicate that perception of reality to the listener" (McCabe, 1999, p.66). Theme orients the listener as to the direction of the clause, the place of the new information presented in the clause in relation to the surrounding discourse, and can also highlight cohesive or interpersonal considerations on the part of the speaker (see section '1.2 Halliday's operationalisation of Theme' for a discussion of textual and interpersonal Themes). Returning to Halliday's definition of Theme which combines initial clause position with the point of departure for the message of a clause, Davies explains that Theme initiates "the semantic journey", adding that if a different starting point is chosen a different journey results (an oral statement by Davies in McCabe, 1999, p.62). The organisation of elements in a sentence, and therefore the choice of Theme, strongly influences the way the message can be understood by the listener. McCabe takes the semantic sensitivity of the Theme position into account when she gives her definition of Theme: The definition of Theme used in this study places Theme at the point where the grammar of the clause meets the surrounding text and also relates to the thought in the speaker's mind. (ibid, p.54) The initial clause position is not explicitly mentioned in her definition as it is simply a phenomenological truism of English, but not necessarily of other languages, and so not of Theme as a function. The function of Theme, labelled as 'message onset', includes its role in the grammar of its encompassing clause, how it connects the information contained in this to its co-text, and how it reflects the communicative intentions of the speaker. The coincidence of Theme with given/known information between speaker and listener doesn't form part of the definition. To be able to operationalise Theme as an analytical tool, the following section will focus on the concerns of the researcher when analysing Theme in texts. The concerns covered are the range of Theme, that is the dividing point between Theme and Rheme, the functional content of Theme (textual, interpersonal and experiential), and Thematic Progression (henceforth TP). 1.2 Halliday's operationalisation of Theme As regards the extent or range of Theme, Halliday remarks: the Theme contains one, and only one... experiential elements. This means that the Theme of a clause ends with the first constituent that is either participant, circumstance or process. (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.105). Halliday and Matthiessen define an experiential element as "a representation of some process in ongoing human experience; the Actor is the active participant in that process" (ibid, p.83). This 6 'Actor' can be realised in different ways. As a participant it is realised by a noun-phrase which often coincides with the grammatical subject, but can also often be a noun-phrase which is thematised in the initial clause position before the subject. As a circumstance it is realised through adverbial groups and prepositional phrases. Finally, as a process it is represented through a verbal group, which although in a declarative clause is not usually found in the Theme position, is thematised in interrogative and exclamative clauses in English. If a nominal, adverbial, verbal group or prepositional phrase occurs in the thematised clause initial position before the grammatical subject, the latter is not assigned thematic status. This results in what Halliday terms a 'marked Theme', whereas the occurrence of grammatical subject as Theme he calls an 'unmarked Theme'. Table 2, taken from Halliday and Matthiessen's 'Introduction to Functional Grammar' (2014) summarises the difference between the unmarked Theme and the marked Theme. Examples of Theme in declarative clauses Function Class unmarked Theme subject Class example nominal group: pronoun as Head I # had a little nut-tree she # went to the baker's there # were three jovial Welshmen nominal group: common or a wise old owl # lived in an oak proper noun as Head Mary # had a little lamb London Bridge # is fallen down nominal group: nominalization what I want # is a proper cup of (nominalized clause) as Head coffee marked Adjunct adverbial group merrily # we roll along Theme prepositional phrase on Saturday night # I lost my wife Complement nominal group: common or a bag-pudding # the King did make proper noun as Head Eliot # you're particularly fond of nominal group: pronoun as all this # we owe both to ourselves Head and to the peoples of the world [[who are so well represented here today]] this # they should refuse nominal group: nominalization what they could not eat that night # (nominalized clause) as Head the Queen next morning fried Table 2 - Examples of Theme in declarative clause. Theme-Rheme boundary is shown by # (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p.100) Referring to an example of unmarked Theme given in Table 2, Halliday defines 'there' in 'there were three jovial Welshmen' as an existential clause. 'There' only indicates the existence of something which is then presented in the Rheme, leading to these types of clauses to be called 'presentative' or 7 'presentational' clauses (Van Valin and LaPolla, 1997, p.208). Although it could be argued that 'there' does not function as other non-existential subjects, it is certainly not a marked Theme, such as 'merrily', 'on Saturday night', 'a bag-pudding', 'Elloit', 'all this', 'this' and 'what they could not eat that night', all of which precede a clearly identifiable grammatical subject. For this reason, 'there', and also 'it', in existential clauses are defined as grammatical subject and included in the analysis of unmarked Themes. Two other example sentences of a complex structure given in Table 2 are 'what I want is a proper cup of coffee' and 'what they could not eat that night the Queen next morning fried'. In traditional grammar, the structure of 'wh- relative clause + be + complement' is defined as a pseudo cleft (Huddlestone and Pullum, 2005). Halliday and Matthiessen instead define it as a thematic equative, "it sets up the Theme + Rheme structure in the form of an equation, where Theme = Rheme" (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.93). Regarding the examples from Table 2, the relative clauses 'what I want' (i.e. the thing I want) and 'what they could not eat that night' (i.e. the thing(s) they couldn't eat that night) function as a nominal groups within the clause, they are an examples of 'nominalisation' (see ibid, p.94). The difference between them again is that while both fall into the thematic position, 'what they could not eat that night' is followed by the grammatical subject of the main clause, 'the Queen'. It is therefore useful to consider 'what I want' as a nominalised subject as again it helps to distinguish between marked and unmarked clauses. One final element which utilises the existential subject 'it' is the predicated Theme, more commonly referred to as a cleft sentence. Predicated Themes it was Jane that started it it wasn’t the job that was getting me down is it Sweden that they come from? it was eight years ago that you gave up smoking Table 3 - Predicated Themes (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p.122) Halliday and Matthiessen's description of this function is that it identifies "one element as being exclusive at that point in the clause" (ibid, p.122). These are more examples of equative constructions, however there is a difference to the nominalisation examples in Table 2. Nominalised Themes automatically map the Theme + Rheme structure onto the Given + New, meaning that the Rhematic element "becomes strongly foregrounded information" (ibid, p.122), something which is unexpected or improbable. Predicated Themes on the other hand can carry new information at the same time as maintaining a contrastive meaning, i.e. 'that person, place, time instead of another'. As in the case of nominalised Themes, only the whole construction of the predicated Theme is considered as fulfilling the Theme role, i.e. 'it was Jane', 'it wasn't the job', 'is it 8 Sweden' and 'it was eight years ago'. There may however be other elements for Halliday which precede the single experiential element (participant, circumstance or process). These are textual and interpersonal Themes, the inclusion of which can result in multiple Themes. Table 4 below summarises the sub-categories of textual and interpersonal Themes. Textual Interpersonal continuative modal or comment adjunct conjunction vocative conjunctive adjunct finite verb operator (yes/no interrogatives) Table 4 - Textual and interpersonal Themes (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p.107) Regarding textual Themes, continuatives signal a move in the dialogue, that is a response or introduction of a new point in a monologue (e.g. yes, no, well, oh, now...), conjunctions link clauses together (parataxis links one clause to another through expansion, hypotaxis binds one clause to another through projection), and conjunctive adjuncts perform the same function as conjunctions but are realised through adverbial groups or prepositional phrases. In relation to interpersonal Themes, modals or comment adjuncts signal the speaker's judgement or attitude, vocatives are typically names, or other items, used to address someone, and finite verb operators are the small group of auxiliary verbs thematised in unmarked yes/no interrogatives. The example that Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) use for the most extended Theme is given in Table 5 below. well but then surely Jean wouldn't the best idea be to join in? cont stru conj modal voc finite topical Theme Rheme Table 5 - Halliday's example of the most extended Theme (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014:107) In the example given in Table 5, the first experiential element, 'the best idea', coincides with the position of grammatical subject and is named the topical Theme. However, while there is the conflation of Theme and grammatical subject after textual and interpersonal Themes, when a circumstantial Theme, or adjunct (such as 'merrily we roll along' or 'on Saturday night I lost my wife' from Table 2 above), or a marked nominal group, or complement (such as 'Elliot' or 'a bag 9 pudding' from Table 2 above) occur in the Theme position, the following grammatical subject is not included in the thematic analysis. 1.3 An alternative operationalisation of Theme Objections to Halliday's limitation of the range of Theme to one experiential element relate to the utilisation of Theme as a tool in discourse analysis. There are various studies of Theme in languages other than English that use alternative formulations of the concept. Steiner and Ramm (1995) show that in German Theme does not need to include an experiential element and Hasselgård (1998) argues that the finite verb can be thematic in declarative clauses in Norwegian. In another cross-lingual study, Martin and Rose argues that including the subsequent participant after a circumstantial Theme 'enables us to map a text's method of development, and to relate it to comparable texts in other languages.' (Martin and Rose, 2003, p.133). Likewise, Arus, in a comparative study of Theme choice in English and Spanish, states that there are some 'thematized circumstances that exhaust the thematic potential [and other] thematic circumstances which do not.' (Arus, 2006, p.13). While these studies are interesting as they relate to the function of Theme, which should in Halliday's view be applicable to any language, there are many other studies that argue for a re-formulation of the application of Theme in English. Various studies (Davies 1997; Fries 1995; MacDonald 1992 1994; Gosden 1992 1993; Lowe 1987) argue that unmarked Themes are used for 'topic continuity' (that is, continuity of the main argument of a text), whereas marked Themes are used for change, discontinuity. The marked Themes in Table 6 below are taken from the corpus of the present study. They are used to focus on temporal settings, while the subjects instead indicate the main participants in this text, gay men and women. Examples of marked Themes Marked Theme Rheme Subject Until the late 19th century, most gay men and women Even up until the early years of most gay men and women the 20th century, did not realize that there was a term for their attraction to others of the same sex. were afraid of not only what others would think of them Table 6 - Lines 2c8-2c9 taken from the corpus text‘Why historically, has San Francisco been regarded as the home of the gay rights movement?’ Thematising the grammatical subject allows then both for the analysis of topic continuity in a text 10 as well as the identification of the main participants. Using the Hallidayan operationalisation, only 'Until the late 19th century', 'Even up until the early years of the 20th century' would be considered Thematic. While these are certainly connected to the argument of the text, the association of San Francisco with the gay rights movement, they do not track the central content topic, the experiences of gay men and women. Charolles (1997, 2005) identifies these types of adverbial phrases as 'indexation links', as they provide cohesion not just to the sentence in which they are found, but to the text from that point on (see the second sentence in Table 6 above). Despite this special function of cohesion, these adverbial phrases are connected to but do not track the central concern of the text as the topical Themes do. For the current study, I will use North's (2005) distinction between orienting and topical Themes. Orienting Themes include textual, interpersonal, experiential Themes. The last category covers any experiential element (mostly circumstantial adjuncts) which do not perform the role of participant in the clause. The topical Theme fills participant roles within the clause, and as North declares "is normally the grammatical subject, or occasionally another element such as a thematized complement or predicated Theme" (North 2005, p.437, see also Table 2 for thematized complements and Table 3 for predicated Themes). No marked complement Themes and only one predicated Theme (see line 3g12 in the corpus) were found in the corpus of the present study. For this reason, apart from the exception mentioned above, for the purposes of the present study the topical Theme can be thought of as being realised exclusively through the grammatical subject. 1.4 Topical Themes MacDonald says ‘the subject slot is...the most important spot for determining what a writer is writing about and how questions about epistemology, construction or agency enter into the writer’s thinking’ (MacDonald, 1992, p.539). If orienting Themes show the rhetorical importance of thematising elements for the purposes of building coherence in a text, topical Themes reveal most clearly what the main concerns of the writer are. Forey analysed the use of Theme in workplace texts, finding that "the highest frequency of occurrence of Theme choices in the present corpus were unmarked Themes, and the majority of these were simple Themes" (Forey, 2002, p.128). Simple Themes are analogous to the topical Theme when realised through the grammatical subject. Regarding the textbook 'Working with discourse' (Martin and Rose 2003), Forey also notes that "the choice of Subject/Theme is pertinent because the writer may include evaluation within their choice of Subject" (Forey, 2002, p.128-9). Including the topical Theme allows the present study to consider all types of thematic structuring, from the use of unmarked orienting Themes which 11 contribute to local cohesion, to topical Themes which track the main concerns of the writer. 1.5 Thematic Progression The formulation of the idea of TP in the 1970s and 80s was motivated as a response to attacks on the conceptual validity and unity of the idea of Theme itself. According to Levinson "terminological profusion and confusion, and underlying conceptual vagueness, plague the relevant literature to the point where little may be salvageable" (Levinson, 1983, p.25). To this and other such positions, Halliday replies that: The problem is that it takes too long to present the grammar step by step in this way; so we tend to start with the labels, and it is forgotten how they were arrived at and what they are for. Thus, when we investigate the proportionality in English set out above, we find that the variation in sequence means something: ‘being first expresses a function in the clause, and we give this a label ‘Theme’... (Halliday, 1994, p.xxxii) The tendency to want to impose 'traditional grammar' labels on the constituents of functional grammar devalues the descriptive power of this system. As Van Huffel points out, "the essence of Theme... should be that it functions within text" (Van Huffel, 2007, p.15). Daneš (1974), who was part of the Prague School, was the first to identify that Themes can relate to other clauses in different ways. Fries (1981) validated this theory of TP through the observation of different types of TP correlating with different genres of text. More recently, Wei Jing notes in her review of research articles from 1983-2013 into Theme-Rheme: "The earliest articles focused on Theme types in learner English, and later, scholars examined thematic progression" (Wei Jing, 2014, p.76). The growing popularity of thematic progression as a means of analysing texts reflects a general acceptance of its validity as a method for highlighting cohesive strategies. The following studies focus on two patterns of TP in professional and student writing. Referring to three articles which have influenced the present study (Daneš 1974; McCabe 1999; North 2005), Soleymanzadeh and Gholami state that: The bigger this ratio of simple linear progression (SLP) to constant progression (CP), the better would be an essay according to argumentative essay writing norms (Soleymanzadeh and Gholami, 2014, p.1813) Figures 1 and 2 below illustrate these two types of TP, as identified by Daneš (1974), with examples given from the corpus of the present study. 12 Simple Linear Progression Theme Rheme Following the first slave ship of 1691, their numbers grew at an incredibly fast rate to support the massive growth of cotton and other labour intensive agriculture. These agricultural areas lay largely in the southern states. It was these southern states that primarily formed the centre of African American presence, where they were numerically by far the majority ethnic group. Figure 1 - Simple Linear Progression, from lines 3g9-3g11from the corpus of the present study Constant progression Theme Rheme The First World War was fought across Europe, the European colonies and the surrounding seas from 1st August 1914 until 11th November 1918. It created a major struggle which altered enormously the political, economic, social and cultural nature of Europe. This war was felt in one way of another throughout the world as each nation from every continent indirectly or directly entered the war. Figure 2 - Constant progression illustrated with lines 3e14-3e16 from the corpus of the present study Figure 1 illustrates simple linear progression where the Theme of the second and third sentences are taken directly from the Rheme of the preceding sentence. The choice of Theme in the second and third sentences of Figure 2 show an example of constant progression as these Themes are directly related to the Theme of the preceding sentence. Fries (1983) found that academic texts employ a high percentage of SLP as this enables expansion and explanation which is important when discussing complex issues. SLP is integral to the meta-functions of defending or opposing an idea while convincing the reader to agree with the argument that Reid (1988) identified as central to academic argumentative texts. Ren, Cao, Yuanyuan and Li carried out a pedagogical study to help students improve text unity through their 'Thematic Operational Approach'. In analysing a sample corpus of academic writing exercises, they found that "that the most frequently used pattern is simple linear progression " (Ren et al., 2009, p.144). However, Watson-Todd, Khongput, Darasawang identified the problem of a lack of SLP (which they term sequential progression), "texts with a relatively low proportion of sequential progression could be viewed as potentially problematic" (Watson-Todd et al., 2007, p.9). Finally, various other studies (Jalilifar 2010; Wang 13 2007; Almaden 2006; Belmonte & McCabe 1998) have found an overuse of CP as compared to SLP in student undergraduate writing. They highlight the particular difficulties that non-native English speakers find in building cohesion into their academic texts. These issues and more, such as English learner writing cohesion, language transfer, language proficiency, disciplinary variation and the effect of instruction, will be investigated in greater detail in the following section. 14 2. Studies of the use of Theme in academic writing 2.1 Theme and Thematic progression and cohesion in learner English writing As regards the construction of a text by English learner writers, Thompson says that thematisation greatly contributes to "how speakers construct their messages in a way which makes them fit smoothly into the unfolding language event" (Thompson, 2004, p.141). This smooth unfolding of the language event depends heavily on the overall semantic organisation of a text. As Martin explains: The idea behind Theme and Rheme need not be confined to the clause only, but can be extended to the paragraph, section, or entire text, depending on the number of layers in the text (Martin, 1992a, p.156). However, the operationalisation of this principle, that is selecting Themes appropriate to the culture of a particular academic field, presents difficulties especially for non-native English speakers. Hoey (2005) notes that only experienced readers who are fully integrated into an academic discipline are culturally primed to expect the structural and semantic organisation of Theme and Rheme. Regarding experimental studies, Ma (2001) showed that English learners who achieved higher grades used proportionally more SLP and CP patterns of TP. Wang (2010) extended this study by showing that to achieve higher overall grades students not only need to employ a range of TP (in this case CP, SLP, split-Theme and split-Rheme (see section '3.2.3 Types of TP counted' for explanations of split-Theme, split-Rheme)), but also use particular types of Theme, like the multiple Theme and the clausal Theme (i.e. subordinate clause experiential Themes). These two studies demonstrate that the successful use of Theme in academic writing cannot be accounted for through a simple ratio like SLP to CP as suggested by Soleymanzadeh and Gholami (2014). Typical problems that non-native English speakers encounter include using Themes which are not connected to the preceding or following Themes, resulting in a lack of cohesion (Zhang, 2004; Cheng, 2002). The distinctions between highly coherent non-native academic writing and that of low coherence can be seen particularly clearly in Theme choice and thematic progression. Melios found in English learner writing that: high scoring coherent essays employ dense and complex nominal groups in ideational themes, a wide variety of textual themes, and different forms of thematic progression... [while] low scoring papers frequently overuse unmarked themes of simple nominal groups or pronouns and overuse theme reiteration in a way that makes the text difficult 15 to follow and appear to lack development (Melios, 2011, p.iv). The forms of TP used by the writers of the high scoring essays included the use of SLP and CP, while low scoring essays used only topical Themes, with some CP which was achieved only through repetition. As evidenced by some of the above studies, non-native students often have to contend with language transfer from their mother tongue when trying to select Themes and build TP. To successfully employ Theme and Rheme in constructing a coherent and cohesive text, the English learner must know both which types of Themes (textual, interpersonal and experiential) are most common to a particular discipline as well as be able to use these in certain disciplinaryspecific patterns of TP. 2.2 Language background and Theme use In relation to correlations of first language and Theme choice, the selection of adverbial groups used to link clauses together has received much attention. These adverbial groups are analogous to Halliday's category of circumstantial Themes. Chinese students often misused linking adverbials, mistaking 'on the contrary' for 'however' (Crewe, 1990), or using 'on the other hand' without intending to employ contrast (Field and Yip, 1992). Green, Christopher and Lam found that Chinese learners had a greater tendency to place "topic-fronting devices (beginning For and Concerning) and logical connectors (Besides, Furthermore and Moreover) to introduce new information" (Green et al., 2000, p.99). This led to a breakdown in cohesion as the default information structure of Given + New was too often inverted. Likewise, Rowley-Jolivet and CarterThomas (2005) found that native speaker presenters at scientific conferences used more locative adverbs (here, there) in the Theme position, which entails subject-verb inversion to maintain the Given + New structure, in oral presentations than non-native speakers. This allowed the native speakers to employ SLP structuring in linking following clauses to the initial clause which described a visual support. When comparing Hong Kong English learners' writing with that of professional native speakers, the learners overused 'moreover, nevertheless, therefore' (Milton and Tsang, 1993), while Swedish students of English underused resultative (therefore, thus, accordingly) and contrastive (however, despite, nonetheless) linking adverbials (Altenberg and Tapper, 1998). Herriman states that related to Swedish English learners: They would, in particular, benefit from an increased awareness of how Themes and Theme progressions may be used to manage the logogenetic build-up of information as it accumulates in their texts. (Herriman, 2009, p.24) A final study found overuse of linking adverbials both by Chinese and British students, the former 16 overusing 'so, and, also, thus, but', while the latter overused 'however, so, therefore, thus, furthermore' (Bolton, Nelson and Hung 2002). Crewe (1992) hypothesized that such overuse of linking devices may indicate a tendency for surface logic, an attempt to disguise the poor structuring of the underlying text. 2.3 Proficiency level and Theme use In Jalilifar's study of Iranian student's oral proficiency in English, he found that "students’ level of language proficiency monitor the use of linear and split thematic progression chains" (Jalilifar, 2010, p.31). Likewise Medve and Takač (2013) also found that the use of SLP increased in line with increase in proficiency levels of students. However, Wei (2013a) found that as learners' proficiency increases, their use of Themes becomes more like that of native speakers', particularly related to the frequency of topical Themes, textual Themes, interpersonal Themes and Theme markedness. The difference in the findings of these two studies is related to the register of the speech involved, with Jalilifar (2010) and Medve and Takač (2013) concentrating of academic oral activities whereas Wei (2013a) focused on general language fluency. However, other studies such as Soleymanzadeh and Gholami (2014) found no links between students' IELTS scores and scores based on TP. They suggest including TP in the marking grid for the IELTS exam. Also, Donohue and Erling (2012) found no correlation between a diagnostic language test 'Measuring the Academic Skills of University Students' and student grades in three subjects. Despite these observations, it seems likely that proficiency has as much or more influence on Theme use as linguistic background. One area in which both high proficiency native and non-native speakers might struggles is adopting the Thematic tendencies of their particular discipline(s). 2.4 Disciplinary differences in the use of Themes The following studies have been carried out at undergraduate level into inter-disclipinary differences in Theme use. Ebrahimi and Khedri (2011) compared research article abstracts in Chemical Engineering and Applied linguistics, finding that Chemical Engineering abstracts employed both interpersonal (14% to 5%) and textual (27% to 23%) more than Applied Linguistics abstracts. They also found that SLP and CP were used more in the Chemical Engineering abstracts. Idding (2008) investigated the different uses of Theme in the Humanities and Biochemistry, finding that while the percentage use of textual Themes was the same in both subjects, the Humanities students used more interpersonal Themes, and also more unmarked, topical Themes (i.e. simple 17 Themes). From the two studies, it seems clear that the academic writing in the humanities tends to employ less orienting Themes as well as less thematic progression strategies when compared to teh natural sciences. Ghadessy (1999) compared article abstracts from 30 different academic disciplines, finding that Geography articles used many more simple Themes than Finance (84.6% to 47.4%), while Finance used many more multiple Themes that Plant Pathology (52.6% to 10%) and Sociology used more unmarked Themes than Film and Cinema studies (100% to 70.6%). Although he presented a more complex picture through involving so many disciplines, again the tendency of Geography and Sociology to use more simple Themes than other disciplines is evident. Whittaker (1995) investigated the use of Theme by authors of academic articles in Economics and Linguistics. She found that these academic disciplines employ many experiential Themes, while both used very few interpersonal Themes (under 10%). This can be attributed to the need to present arguments as objectively as possible in both disciplines. The differences found in these studies indicate a high level of disciplinary variation concerning what is normally thematised in a clause, though clearly more research is need to map these more precisely. The studies also reveal some general characteristics of academic writing, such as the rare use of interpersonal Themes. Given that the corpus of the present study consists of 26 history papers, some papers which looked at the use of Theme in the humanities follows. Some studies which relate more closely to this include Taylor (1983) and Lovejoy (1998) who both found that circumstantial Themes in academic textbooks were more common in history textbooks, and in the case of Lovejoy also psychology textbooks, as compared to textbooks of the natural sciences. This is consistent with the studies above which showed limited use of textual and interpersonal Themes in the humanities (Ebrahimi and Khedri, 2011; Idding, 2008). Another study involving history papers was written by North (2005), in which she compared Theme choice according to the academic disciplines of the participants. She found that the higher grades achieved by students with a background in arts compared to those whose background is in the natural sciences, which was correlated to their greater use of orienting, especially circumstantial Themes referring to the views of historians. One possible reason why the arts and not the science students wrote in this way is that the former have "a greater tendency to present knowledge as constructed and contested, rather than as a plain matter of fact" (ibid., p.449). This reflects the epistemological approach of the arts students, in which they are used to creating "interplay between data and argument" (Becher 1989, p.87). North concludes that "variation in disciplinary culture is reflected in academic writing, leaving its trace in the linguistic and rhetorical features of disciplinary texts" (North, 2005, p. 431). Concerning students 18 of history, Greene highlights how arguments must be built through the weighing up of competing arguments, where "what is said is inseparable from who said it" (Greene 2001, p.527). 2.5 Instruction in the use of Theme and textual cohesion The consideration given to cohesion in many academic writing textbooks focuses almost exclusively on the use of textual Themes, that is 'reference words' or 'transition expressions', which are analogous to Halliday's conjunctions and conjunctive adjuncts (see Bailey 2015; Haynes 2010; Gillett, Hammond and Martala 2009; Hartley 2008; Butler 2007; Kotzé 2007; Murray and Moore 2006; Davis and Liss 2006; Savage and Mayer 2005; Zemach and Rumisek 2005; Jordan 2003; Leki 1998; Hogue 1996). For example, Hennessey claims in his book 'Writing an Essay' that cohesion and unity can be achieved through “using a network of connectives” (Hennessey, 2002, p.71). Likewise, Donald, Moore, Morrow, Wargetz and Werner state that “coherence is achieved through transition”, meaning “a transitional word or phrase” (Donald et al., 1995, p.270). Alonso and McCabe (2003) openly criticize this approach, stating that while academic writing materials focus on cohesive devices, little attention is given to TP in example texts. One widely used textbook, 'Writing Academic English' by Oshima and Hague (2006), does contain one exercise (see Oshima and Hague, 2006, p.37) which focuses on how a key element of a paragraph topic sentence is picked up in the other sentences of the same paragraph. This does not constitute a thorough focus on TP, failing to highlight the flow, or lack thereof, between each sentence with the next. The main focus of these textbooks is generally on specific argumentation approaches such as description, classification, comparison/contrast, persuasion, cause and effect, definitions, examples, and on broadly structural elements such as topic sentences, introductions, conclusions, paragraph ordering, and also on the process of writing, including note-making, researching, planning, drafting, and reviewing, all of which come under the field 'Academic literacies'. There is a wide variety of research carried out on the subject of academic literacies. Coffin and Donohue (2012) carried out a review study focusing on the differences of the approach to academic writing between academic literacies and systemic functional linguistics (henceforth SFL). They state that while academic literacies has focused on "ethnographic investigation... identifying practices, student identities, and conflicts that individual language users experience in university writing" (Coffin and Donohue, 2012, p.64), SFL instead focuses on "linguistic analysis to establish the nature of disciplinary discourse... research and pedagogy have concentrated on texts, language in use and the language system" (ibid, p.64). While both are acknowledged as contributing to issues surrounding academic 19 writing, the latter forms the basis of the current study due to its ability to reveal structures and practices in academic texts which might be used to produce teaching materials. Returning to the published academic writing textbooks mentioned at the start of this paragraph, Bohnacker observes that "discourse-driven word order patterns are... largely ignored in descriptive grammars, teacher training and language teaching materials" (Bohnacker, 2010, p.133). This oversight can have negative consequences on their readers' ability to formulate a text which conforms to both general academic style as well as that of their particular discipline, which can be revealed through SFL analyses. While TP has been overlooked in academic writing textbooks, there are many research studies focused on the pedagogical importance of teaching TP. For instance, Wang (2007) identifies the problem of the brand new Theme: The problem of a brand new Theme is extremely common in the work of inexperienced writers, who put new information in Theme position. For example, the illiteracy rate is quite high in some rural areas. Here Theme 'The illiteracy rate' is in Theme position in the sentence, however this is the first mention of this information. Where this goes wrong, the communication can suddenly break down at the sentence level (Wang 2007, p.167). By fully incorporating this typical student error into the flow of her research article, that is without using inverted commas, Wang gives a powerful example of the type of the confusing effect of the type discontinuity typical in student academic papers. She concludes her article by imploring academic writing teachers to look beyond traditional grammar notions to more discourse-based approaches, such as TP. In a review of academic English teaching at the University of Sydney, Jones noted that students had difficulties "not so much in grammar and sentence structure as in the ability to fashion a coherent argument where sentences and ideas relate to one another without missing links of meaning" (Jones, 2007, p.145). Meanwhile, Watson-Todd et al. (2007) investigated the relationship between connectedness of discourse, of which TP is central, and professor feedback to students at a Thai university. They found that professors' comments on students' writing reflected more "the actual content and the form of argumentation more than on the connectedness" (WatsonTodd 2007, p.20). While it could be argued that subject teachers will always be more concerned with the contents of an argument rather explicitly with its structure, this neglects the evidence that certain types of TP, particularly the use of SLP, correlate with student attainment and academic journal writing style (see sections '2.1 Theme and Thematic progression and cohesion in learner English writing' for student attainment studies, and section '2.4 Disciplinary differences in the use of Themes' for journal writing styles). 20 In relation to TP intervention studies, Ebrahimi and Ebrahimi (2012a) separated students into three groups who followed different academic writing courses. The results were that students who had only followed a traditional grammar course were unlikely to use SLP and CP, those who had additionally completed a course on paragraph writing performed better, while those who had also followed an essay writing course were the most proficient in handling Theme choices and TP. Ren et al. found in their pedagogical experiment that at the end of the study the participants not only "know how to use the acquired thematic progression consciously and properly in their writing, but are even able to notice new TP patterns... themselves. They are satisfied with their progress in their writing" (Ren et al., 2009, p.144). In the article 'Teaching coherence to ESL students: a classroom enquiry' by Lee (2002), the value of raising students awareness of coherence is seen as vital for improving general academic style. Likewise, Watson-Todd et al. argue that "a greater awareness of the usefulness and manifestations of connectedness may allow tutors to give specific comments on cohesion and coherence for the benefit of students' writing" (Watson-Todd et al., 2007, p.22). In Albufalasa's (2013) doctoral thesis into the teaching of thematic structure and generic structure to EFL students, she found that the two experimental groups which included TP instruction "were more successful in using the different thematic patterns across their essays to interweave their ideas to maintain more cohesive and coherent essays" (Albufalasa 2013, p.162). Finally, regarding Martin's statement above that Theme can be analysed at different levels in a text, Xudong (2003) used thematic analysis as a self-revision technique with two students where he found that by analysing macro-level (whole text) Themes and their connected hyper-Themes (paragraph), students were able to understand and improve the cohesion of their texts. The present study will seek to discover whether there is a correlations between content-based subject grades in history and Theme choice and the use different types of TP. If such is the case, this would indicate that the students achieving lower grades could have benefited from instruction in the use of Themes in building a logical, cohesive text. It would also support the above-mentioned studies advocating the explicit teaching of TP, as well as serve to highlight the negative effect from its omission from academic writing textbooks. 21 3. Corpus and procedure 3.1 The corpus The Corpus consists of 26 extracts from the International Baccalaureate (henceforth IB 1) Extended Essay, totalling 12,017 words. The IB provides the most widely recognised primary and secondary level international qualifications in the world. The programme covering the last two years of high school is called the 'Diploma Programme' (henceforth DP) and is the most widely studied of the 3 IB qualifications. There is great emphasis on international understanding and community engagement in all 3 programmes, but especially in the DP. For example, students undertake community work through the 'Community, Action, Service' initiative 2 and are encouraged to reflect on what constitutes knowledge in the 'Theory of Knowledge' course 3. They also have to undertake an individual research project on an issue of their choice, which culminates in the writing of a 4,000 word academic paper, called the Extended Essay (henceforth EE). In the guidelines provided by the IB for writing the EE (Extended Essay Guide, 2013), they state that the EE "acquaints them [IB students] with the independent research and writing skills expected at university" (Extended Essay Guide, 2013, p.2). This is the first time that the majority of the IB students have had to write an academic paper which includes: - Title Page - Abstract - Contents Page - Introduction - Body (development/methods/results) - Conclusions - References and bibliography - Appendices (ibid, p.15) The IB specifies that the paper must take the form of "formally presented, structured writing, in which ideas and findings are communicated in a reasoned and coherent manner, appropriate to the subject or subjects chosen" (ibid, p.2). In regard to the findings of the use of circumstantial themes in history academic papers (North 2005; Greene 2001; Lovejoy 1998; Becher 1989; Taylor 1983), I chose to analyse extracts from 26 history EEs (see section '3.2 Analytical framework' for details of how the length of the abstracts was determined). I obtained the papers from two sources, 21 papers dating from 2009-2014 were obtained from the 'International Bilingual School of Provence' 1 See www.ibo.org 2 See http://www.ibo.org/en/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/creativity-action-and-service/ 3 See http://www.ibo.org/en/programmes/diploma-programme/curriculum/theory-of-knowledge/ 22 (henceforth IBS, see www.ibsofprovence.com) and 5 from the IB publication '50 More Excellent Extended Essays' (2011). The reason for including these latter papers was to extend the range of subject grades in the study. The 21 IBS papers received grades from B to E, with only 1 paper achieving a B, whereas the five papers taken from the IB publications appropriately all received grade As. This means that the grade distribution over the whole corpus was more even, see Table 7 below. Subject grades received Grades A B C Frequency 5 1 9 Table 7 - Frequency of subject grades received in the corpus D E 9 2 All essays are graded by an external examiner who is a subject expert, often a former or present IB teacher connected to a different IB school. These grades are arrived at through the assigning of the best matching descriptors related to 11 criteria: - Criterion A: Research question - Criterion B: Introduction - Criterion C: Investigation - Criterion D: Knowledge and understanding of the topic studied - Criterion E: Reasoned argument - Criterion F: Application of analytical and evaluative skills appropriate to the subject - Criterion G: Use of language appropriate to the subject - Criterion H: Conclusion - Criterion I: Formal presentation - Criterion J: Abstract - Criterion K: Holistic judgement (summarised from Extended Essay Guide, 2013, p.23-28) Although only Criterion G explicitly addresses the language content of the EE, the objective of the current study is to correlate the subject grades arrived at through the assessment of all these criteria with various aspects of thematic choice and progression. Firstly, to ensure that there are not any other variables which influenced the grades assigned, the characteristics of the students who wrote them will be analysed. With respect to language content, the IB states in its grading guidelines that regarding 'Criterion G Use of language appropriate to the subject: This criterion is not meant to disadvantage students who are not writing in their first language—as long as the meaning is clear, the historical content will be rewarded (Extended Essay Guide, 2013, p.97). 23 The IB states both that students must engage in "high-level research and writing skills, intellectual discovery and creativity" (ibid, p.2), but also that they must "present ideas in a logical and coherent manner" (ibid, p.31). However, no specific language expectations are used in the marking criteria. The IB is taken by more non-native English speakers than native English speakers each year. Ballantyne and Rivera report that "There were a total of 88,892 second language candidates for the IBDP across the five year period 2008-12" (Ballantyne and Rivera, 2014, p.4). In relation to the corpus of the present study, there were 10 English native speakers, 9 of whom came from the United Kingdom, with one coming from Canada, and 16 non-native English speakers from Germany (6), France (4), Italy (1), Sweden (1), Poland (1), Lebanon (1), Japan (1), and Costa Rica (1). There was no correlation between first language and subject grades (r=0.1132, p<0.625), which supports the IB's aim to not discriminate based on students' first languages. However, examiners who grade the EE might discriminate based on language use, in particular the use of Theme choice and progression, irrespective of the first language of any particular student. Considering further variables, there were 10 male students and 16 female, although again no correlation was found between grade achieved and gender (r=0.416, p<0.060). The students had a variety of History teachers during their IB History courses, but both this (r=0.1432, p<0.543) and the year in which they completed their EEs (r=0.1632, p<0.459) do not correlate with the subject grades they received. The preparation and guidance afforded to the students during the writing of their EEs at IBS and the approaches used in specialized preparation textbooks did not give any unequal advantage to any individual students. The sessions undertaken with students at IBS regarding the language content of the EE focused mainly on editing exercises aimed at "upgrading student writing to a more formal register" (quotation from an e-mail from Patricia Reboulet, a teacher and EE coordinator at IBS, 2015). Academic writing textbooks, such as those reviewed in the section '2.3 Theme in academic writing', are not used, as they are "laborious and frustrating" (ibid, 2015). Instead, some websites such as Purdue Owl1 are used, especially teaching the referencing of source texts and for attaining the correct overall format. Subject tutors also cover the grading criteria as detailed in the 'Extended Essay Guide' (2013), which includes subject specific language criteria, but as already shown through Criterion G for history papers, does not guide students as to specific linguistic expectations. As regards textbooks, there are two publications currently available: 'The IB extended essay: An A+ in 6 easy steps!' (Céspedes, 2013); 'Three: The ultimate student's guide to acing the extended essay 1 See https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/ 24 and theory of knowledge' (Zouev, 2008). Both titles cover areas such as: - Finding a topic - How to carry out research - Analysis and Evaluation - Citing sources in the text - Writing the abstract/introduction/conclusion etc. While these are no doubt very helpful for many IB students, the books again follow the same basic approach of guiding students through the process of writing, rather than dissecting the finished product that they will be expected to produce for functional linguistic features. The approach therefore is very similar to that of the general academic writing textbooks reviewed in the section '2.3 Theme in academic writing'. All these study supports neglect a significant body of research which highlights the links between disciplinary, and general academic practices, and linguistic features in academic texts of different disciplines (as reviewed in the section all of section '2. Studies of the use of Theme in academic writing'). Referring again to the IB Extended Essay Guide, Criterion E for history states: Students should be aware of the need to give their essays the backbone of a developing argument... Straightforward descriptive or narrative accounts that lack analysis do not usually advance an argument and should be avoided (Extended Essay Guide, 2013, p.97). The title of Criterion E is 'Reasoned argument'; however the construction of such types of arguments and familiarity and mastery of associated linguistic features, especially Theme choice and progression, are mutually reliant factors. If students are aware of how other texts build in logic and reasoning, they come to know not only how to use certain linguistic devices but also how to build a reasoned argument itself. This proposition is backed up by several intervention studies mentioned earlier (Albufalasa 2013; Ren et al. 2009; Watson-Todd et al. 2007; Xudong 2003). As to the texts chosen to be a part of the corpus, all orthographic, punctuation and grammatical errors contained in the original texts have been faithfully reproduced in the corpus of this study. On some occasions some simple assumptions were made about the intention of the writer, for example the repeated use of the word 'German' instead of 'Germany' in 'Paper 1b - ‘How significantly each event contributed to Hitler’s elections as chancellor in 1933’. Given the supporting context, the author considers these assumptions to be of low subjective value and so has not made any special emphasis regarding this in the analysis. 25 3.2 Analytical framework 3.2.1 T-units as the unit of analysis The basic unit of analysis used in the current text is the t-unit. This is defined by Fries to mean 'an independent clause with all hypotactically related clauses which are dependent on it" (Fries, 1994, p.229). The distinction between clauses linked through hypotaxis and those linked through parataxis can be justified through reference to Theme as a concept which functions "because of selections from the range of lexico-grammatical options available for first position" (Fries and Francis, 1992, p.47). That is, although dependent clauses have their own thematic structure, when they are placed in the Thematic position they are assigned the role of Theme of the entire clause complex, or t-unit, because their thematisation reflects a choice by the speaker. On the other hand, the ordering of two paratactically linked clauses cannot be altered, as shown in Table 8 below. Two paratactically linked clauses presented in reverse order Theme Rheme and Otto Van Bismarck became the first chancellor of the new confederation The German Empire was founded in 1871 Table 8 - Lines 1b6 and 1b7 presented in reverse order If instead a dependent clause is thematised at the start of a t-unit, it represents thematisation, as the clause could also have been presented in the Rheme. Table 9 illustrates this by showing an extract from the corpus of the present study in its original format, and then in an inverted format with the dependent clause no longer part of the Theme. Two hypotactically linked clauses presented in original and reversed order Original format Theme Topical Theme Whereas the large majority Africans of immigrants to America, e.g. Europeans and Hispanics arrived by choice, as settlers and economic migrants, Reversed Format Rheme were forced to move to America for use as slave labour. Theme Rheme Africans were forced to move to America for use as slave labour, whereas the large majority of immigrants there, e.g. Europeans and Hispanics arrived by choice, as settlers and economic migrants, Table 9 - Line 3g8 presented in original and reversed order 26 Note that in the reversed format I have swapped the positions of 'to America' and 'there' to maintain syntactic integrity. The impact of the contrast between African and other settlers is more emphatic in the original text in Table 9. By initiating the t-unit not with the situation of the Africans, but with that of the majority of other immigrants, the injustice of the situation of African immigrants is rhetorically underlined. Halliday states that: Themes play a fundamental part in the way a discourse is organized... In this process, the main contribution comes from the thematic structure of independent clauses (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.126). North also states that: "Analysing theme at the level of t-unit rather than individual clause makes it easier to focus on patterns of thematic development in large amounts of text" (North, 2005, p.439). The intimate thematic connections between independent and dependent clauses as well as the practicality of considering them together when analysing long tracts of text is therefore the justification for choosing the t-unit as the unit of analysis for the present study. 25 t-units were selected from each of the 26 EEs which make up the corpus of the present analysis. They were selected from each EE from the start of the introduction. The starting point of the introduction was chosen over including also the abstract, as the real presenting and building of the argument was observed to begin there. The IB Extended Essay Guide states that the introduction should "explain the significance and context of the topic, why it is worthy of investigation and, where appropriate, how the research question relates to existing knowledge" (Extended Essay Guide, 2013, p.97). In contrast, the abstract can consist of "the research question, the scope of the essay... and the conclusion" (ibid, p.98). The abstracts of the selected EEs represent a descriptive rather than argumentative style of writing, with students not required to detail all the logical reasoning that brought them to make the conclusions they did. As such, thematic choice and progression are less vital to be able to write the abstract successfully than they are in the structuring of the introduction and body of the EEs. Some of the introductions contained less than 25 t-units, in which case others were taken from the start of the body of the EE. No difference was observed in writing style between these two sections. 3.2.2 Orienting Themes identified This section contains a more detailed analysis of textual, interpersonal and experiential Themes, as outlined in section '1.2 Halliday's operationalisation of Theme'. For this purpose, 3 tables have been reproduced from Halliday and Matthiessen's (2014) latest edition of 'An Introduction to Functional 27 Grammar'. This approach has been taken in order to avoid both lengthy written descriptions and also lengthy citations. Any concepts in functional grammar which mirror those of traditional grammar are not presented in detail, the focus instead being of functional concepts which group words together in functional grammar which would not be considered to belong to one group under traditional grammar. Topical themes are not analysed because they require no further explanation than that they are realised through a nominal group, which is usually the grammatical subject. Each of the three orienting themes is looked at in order below, textual, interpersonal and then experiential. With regard to textual Themes, continuatives (yes, well, oh etc.) are not outlined here as they are very unlikely to occur in formal, academic writing. Of the other two categories, conjunctions can be separated, as in traditional grammar, under the categories of parataxis and hypotaxis. The category which is however exclusive to functional grammar is conjunctive adjuncts. Halliday and Matthiessen explain their function, "they set up a contextualizing relationship obtaining between the clause as a message and some other (typically preceding) portion of text" (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.157). They are realised through adverbial groups or prepositional phrases, which is how they would be classified under traditional grammar. However, there are two other types of adjunct, modal and circumstantial (exploration of these will follow below) which are also realised through adverbial groups or prepositional phrases, and as such the function 'adjunct' in functional grammar requires some more detailed explanation. Firstly, in relation to conjunctive adjuncts which belong to the textual group of Themes, Halliday and Matthiessen say they form a "logical-semantic relationships of expansion" (ibid, p.158) and that they do this through cohesion, "that is, without creating a structural link in the grammar between the two parts " (ibid, p.158). Table 10 below shows examples for all the categories of this form. 28 Some examples of conjunctive adjuncts I II Type Meaning Examples appositive 'i.e., e.g.' that is, in other words, for instance corrective 'rather' or rather, at least, to be precise dismissive 'in any case' in any case, anyway, leaving that aside summative 'in short' briefly, to sum up, in conclusion verificative 'actually' actually, in fact, as a matter of fact additive 'and' also, moreover, in addition, besides adversative 'but' on the other hand, however, conversely variative 'instead' instead, alternatively 'then' meanwhile, before that, later on, next, soon, finally comparative 'likewise' likewise, in the same way causal 'so' therefore, for this reason, as a result, with this in mind conditional '(if...) then' in that case, under the circumstances, otherwise concessive 'yet' nevertheless, despite that III temporal respective 'as to that' in this respect, as far as that's concerned Table 10 - Conjunctive adjuncts (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.108) As regards interpersonal themes, vocatives (i.e. a name used to address someone) are not expected to occur in the current investigation into academic writing. In regards to the other two categories, finite verbal operators are "the small set of finite auxiliary verbs construing primary tense or modality" (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.108). Modality refers to the cline between positive and negative, realised through the positive or negative forms of auxiliary verbs (is, isn't; do, don't; can, can't etc.). These are considered as interpersonal themes simply because "they are the unmarked Theme of yes/no questions" (ibid, p.108), and questions are by nature interpersonal. In fact, not only questions, but the functional grammar concept of Mood (i.e. affirmative, negative, interrogative and exclamative clauses) is by definition interpersonal. Halliday and Matthiessen give the following examples; "statements (giving information), questions (demanding information), offers (giving goods-&-services), and commands (demanding goods-&-services)" (ibid, p.97). For the reason of simplicity, due to the fact of including the topical Theme, the author has decided to treat all auxiliary verbs or wh-forms as interpersonal when part of an interrogative clause. In relation to modal adjuncts, Halliday and Matthiessen state that they "express the speaker/writer’s judgment on or attitude to the content of the message" (ibid, p.108). Examples of modal adjuncts are given in Table 11 below. 29 Some examples of modal adjuncts I II Type Meaning Examples probability how likely? probably, possibly, certainly, perhaps, maybe usuality how often? usually, sometimes, always, (n)ever, often, seldom typicality how typical? occasionally, generally, regularly, for the most part obviousness how obvious? of course, surely, obviously, clearly opinion I think in my opinion, personally, to my mind admission I admit frankly, to be honest, to tell you the truth persuasion I assure you honestly, really, believe me, seriously entreaty I request you please, kindly presumption I presume evidently, apparently, no doubt, presumably desirability how desirable? (un)fortunately, to my delight/distress, regrettably, hopefully reservation how reliable? at first, tentatively, provisionally, looking back on it validation how valid? broadly speaking, in general, on the whole, strictly speaking, in principle evaluation how sensible? (un)wisely, understandably, mistakenly, foolishly prediction how expected? to my surprise, surprisingly, as expected, by chance Table 11 - Modal adjuncts (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.109) Finally, we come to circumstantial adjuncts, which Halliday and Matthiessen (2014) define as "a process that has become parasitic on another process. Instead of standing on its own, it serves as an expansion of something else" (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.312). To illustrate this, the example given on the same page as the previous quote is laid out below. _______________________________________________________________________ (a) relational, p.circumstantial Jack was building a house ... 1. when? (‘it was during’) throughout the year Extent, p.duration 2. where? (‘it was at’) near the river Location, p.place 3. how? (‘it was by’) out of brick Manner, p.means 4. why? (‘it was for’) for his retirement Cause, p.purpose 5. under what conditions? despite his illness Contingency, p.concession (b) relational, p.possessive Jack was building a house ... 6. who with? (‘he had’) with his daughters Accompaniment, p.comitation (c) relational, p.intensive Jack was building a house ... 7. what as? (‘it was’) as a vacation home Role, p.guise Figure 3 - Circumstantial adjuncts (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.312) The italicised words in the third column in Fig. 3 are examples of categories of circumstantial adjuncts, a full list of which is given below in Table 12. 30 Examples of circumstantial adjuncts TYPE enhancing 1. Extent 2. Location 3. Manner 4. Cause Wh-item Examples of realization distance how far? for; throughout 'measured' nominal group duration how long? for; throughout 'measured' nominal group frequency how many times? 'measured' nominal group place where? at, in, on, by, near; to, towards, into, onto, (away) from, [there, here] out of, off, behind, in front of, above, below, under, alongside... adverbs of place, p.abroad, overseas, home, upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside, out, up, down, behind; left, right, straight...; there, here time when? [then, at, in, on, to, until, till, towards, into, from, since, now] during, before, after adverb of time, p.today, yesterday, tomorrow; now, then means how? [thus] by, through, with, by means of, out of [+ material], from quality how? [thus] in + a + quality (e.g. dignified) + manner/way, with + abstraction (e.g. dignity); according to adverbs in -ly, -wise; fast, well; together, jointly, separately, respectively compari-son how? what like? like, unlike; in + the manner of... adverbs of comparison differently degree how much? to + a high/low... degree/extent: adverbs of degree much, greatly, considerably, deeply [often collocationally linked to lexical verb, e.g. love + deeply, understand + completely] reason why? because of, as a result of, thanks to, due to, for want of, for, of, out of, through purpose why? what for? for, for the purpose of, for the sake of, in the hope of behalf who for? for, for the sake of, in favour of, against ['not in favour of'], on behalf of why? in case of, in the event of 5. Contingency condition extending elaborating projection 6. Accompaniment 7. Role default in default of, in the absence of, short of, without ['if it had not been for'] concession despite, in spite of comitative who/what with? with; without additive and who/what else? as well as, besides; instead of guise what as? as, by way of, in the role/shape/guise/form of product what into? into 8. Matter 9. Angle what about? about, concerning, on, of, with reference to source according to, in the words of viewpoint to, in the view/opinion of, from the standpoint of Table 12 - Types of circumstantial element (Halliday and Matthiessen 2014, p.313-4) 31 To be able to distinguish the functions of the three types of adjuncts, conjunctive, modal and circumstantial, it is necessary to consider them in context of the clause. Halliday and Matthiessen explain that the way to distinguish conjunctive and modal adjuncts from circumstantial is to understand in which clause position each has unmarked intonational prominence. They argue that conjunctive and modal adjuncts are by their nature thematic (i.e. they are unmarked when in the Theme position), but when they occur at the end of the clause "occur finally as Afterthought.." (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014, p.158). An example given in his book is reproduced in Figure 4 below for the purposes of clarity. ___________________________________________________________ (circumstantial) it rains more heavily on the hill (modal, p.comment) it rains more heavily, on the whole (circumstantial) it rains more heavily on the other side (conjunctive) it rains more heavily, on the other hand Figure 4 - Circumstantial, modal and conjunctive adjuncts (Halliday and Matthiessen, 2014 p.158) As Fig. 4 demonstrates, in written form both modal and conjunctive are separated from the clause by a comma, indicating a tonal change in speech. The circumstantial adjuncts however are not divided orthographically from the clause and maintain the same tonal group as the rest of the clause indicating that in Fig. 2 they are located in their unmarked position. Although Halliday argues that when thematised, circumstantial adjuncts exhaust the thematic potential, as has been argued in section '1.3 An alternative operationalisation of Theme', the current study includes both the circumstantial adjunct and also the first participant in the clause found after it as thematic. 3.2.3 Which types of TP counted In addition to the two types of TP detailed in section '1.5 Thematic progression', namely SLP and CP, two further types of TP identified by Daneš (1974) is that of the derived Theme and the split Rheme, shown in Tables 15 and 16 below. 32 Derived Theme War Theme Rheme Soldiers were fighting in the trenches from which they shot at one another with machine guns, heavy artillery and chemical weapons. died in brutal conditions, had any advantages. Millions of soldiers none of the sides Figure 5 - Derived Theme illustrated with lines 3e23-3e25 from the corpus of the present study The three Themes used in Figure 5 show three different Thematised elements which have been derived from an over-riding, implicit Theme, which in this case is 'War', or knowing the argument of this text in detail, more precisely 'The First World War'. This type of TP is controversial as it functions only if the reader is able to infer the derived Theme from the more specific Themes used in the text, usually through hyponymy or hypernymy. Prince describes psychological process underlying derived TP depends on "if the speaker assumes that the hearer could have inferred it, via logical – or, more commonly, plausible—reasoning, from entities already Evoked, or from other Inferrables" (Prince, 1979, p.271). Referring to Figure 5, as mentioned the derived Theme in this case is 'The First World War', however it could have just quite easily been 'Fighting conditions in the history of warfare'. The three t-units could alternatively be analysed as constant progression from the first to the second, and the second to the third. Analysing the TP using only the elements explicitly present in the text, while not completely eliminating the need for inference of semantic hyponymy or hypernymy, does reduce the problem. McCabe explains the problem of derived TP is that "there could feasibly be readers of these texts who do not make these inferences, who may not connect these notions in their cognitive schema of the political world. " (McCabe, 1999, p.172). For this reason of heightened subjectivity, the concept of derived Theme will not be applied in the present study. Instead, when the link between elements of just two t-units is thought to be inferable by an expert subject examiner, it will be assigned SLP or CP status as appropriate. If the inferred link is considered to be too obscure, the Theme of the following t-unit will be assigned status of 'new Theme'. 33 Split Rheme Theme Rheme This quote of John F. Kennedy describes perfectly the conflict between the two superpowers, the United States of America and the USSR, the main participants in the Cold War from 1945 until 1990. The USA was a free two parties democracy with a capitalistic system of economy. was a one-party communist state with an economy 100% ruled by the government. The USSR Figure 6 - Split Rheme illustrated with lines 2a2-2a4 from the corpus of the present study In the case of the split Rheme in Figure 6, two elements from the Rheme of the first t-unit are developed as the Themes of the second and third t-units. In the current study, this type of progression was identified only twice. For this reason, the instances of split Rheme have been categorised as SLP (counted twice for the 2 Themes which connect to the Rheme of the first t-unit) as they function in essentially the same way and taking this approach simplifies the statistical analysis. One final type of TP which could have been analysed in the present study was identified by McCabe (1999, p.175), that of the split Theme. This occurs when two aspects of a multiple Theme are developed as the Themes of the following t-units. However, this structure was occurred only once in the corpus of the present study (shown in Figure 7 below), and to include it in the statistical analysis was counted as two occurrences of CP. An example of Split-Theme Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Today, as the one hundredth anniversary of Alfred Dreyfus’ acquittal passes, many of the same sentiments and prejudices which divided France so long ago seem to be resurfacing. The Dreyfus Affair Zola’s words of wisdom Anti-semitism in France, is as important as ever still maintain their value. and which has a long and bitter history, is on the rise. Figure 7 - An example of split-Theme In Figure 7, the topical Theme of the second t-unit is connected to the orienting Theme of the first, and the topical Theme of the last t-unit is connected to the topical Theme of the first, making the first t-unit a split-Theme. This case does however depend on considering the topical Theme as 34 Thematic, which was not done in all past studies which have found this form (see McCabe, 1999, p.175). In a study of more sophisticated writing than was used in the majority of lower graded papers in the present study, the analysis of both split-Rheme and split-Theme might provide interesting results. All the examples of TP given so far look at connections between adjoining t-units. However, given the complexity of the many historical arguments which make up the corpus of the current study, TP that creates links over greater spans of text will also be included. Dubois (1987) argues that, "To Daneš' (1974) 'linear' and 'constant' types, which are 'simple' and 'contiguous', must be added 'multiple' and 'gapped' development'" (Dubois 1987, p.89). This is particularly useful for mapping topic continuity through the use of the topical Theme, which often displays a gapped CP pattern. The examples given by Dubois (1987) include links over as many as 12 clauses. Given that the corpus of the present study consists of text extracts totalling 25 t-units, which in practice covers one to two A4 pages of text, it was decided that TP links can cover the entire length of the extracts. For a reader who is able to comprehend the intended meaning of the texts, this length of gap is not considered overly burdensome for their short term memory to integrate into a single, coherent argument. All TP links will be evidenced through a numbering system, placed next to a Theme which identifies the preceding thematic or rhematic element that it relates to. The papers have been assigned a numbering system based on the subject grades they received, with 1 being the lowest (equivalent to a 'E' grade in the EE grading system) and 5 the highest (equivalent to a 'A' grade in the EE grading system). Each paper has then been assigned a letter, simply to distinguish each one, and finally a line number. Thus line '2a1' refers to the first paper in the category which received a grade 2, and is the first line in the text. These line references have been used to illustrate the connections found between Themes and Rhemes, some of which, as previously mentioned, stretch over several t-units. Finally, given the high number of empty Themes in the present study, totalling 7% of all topical Themes, their inclusion in the analysis was judged to add value. The reason for this is that the omitted Theme was considered to be easily and objectively identifiable, meaning that despite the omission of a word, they anyway contribute to cohesion. Two examples using two different types of TP are given in Table 13 below. 35 Examples 1 & 2 of omitted topical Themes Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme The lack of freedom Che witnessed through his youth travels in 1951 and in 1953 strongly started to build his revolutionary character Example 1 and (empty) led him to realize he wanted to stand by all those men and women whose struggle he witnessed, Example 2 and (empty) give them a chance to express themselves, to finally dare to claim what they deserved. Table 13 - Omitted topical Themes, lines 3f14-3f16 taken from the corpus of the present study The omitted topical Theme in the example 1 can be easily identified as related to the Theme of the previous t-unit, 'The lack of freedom', thereby creating CP structuring. The omitted Theme of example 2 instead relates back to part of the Rheme in the previous t-unit, creating SLP structuring. This is the only example in the corpus of the present study where two consecutive omitted t-units employ different kinds of TP. A much more common occurrence (78% of omitted topical Themes) was for the omitted Theme to refer back to the Theme of the previous t-unit, through CP, as shown in Table 14 below. Examples 3 & 4 of omitted topical Themes Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme A failed state is defined to be in a situation of total state collapse, it is not able to perform its basic security, and development functions has no effective control over its territory and borders. scientists finally admitted homosexuality existed Example 3 thus and Example 4 Throughout the 1880's and 1890's, and were trying to find an explanation for it. Table 14 - Omitted topical Themes, lines 2b13-2b15 and taken from the corpus of the present study The omitted Theme in example 3 and 4 alike refer back to the Theme of the previous t-unit, thereby 36 creating cohesion through CP structuring. The omitted Theme in example 3 refers back to 'it' in the previous t-unit, which itself refers back to 'a failed state', the Theme of the first t-unit. The omitted Theme in example 4 simply refers back to 'scientists', the Theme of the previous t-unit. 37 3.2.4 Hypotheses Each statistical analysis in the present study focuses on the presence or absence of a linear progression between two variables. For this reason, the most suitable statistical test was found to be Pearson correlation. The dependent variable is subject grades given by the IB external examiners. The independent variables tested are: 1. Use of all orienting Themes (including textual, interpersonal and experiential). 2. Use of textual Themes 3. Use of interpersonal Themes 4. Use of experiential Themes 5. Use of simple linear progression (linking the Rheme of a t-unit to the Theme of another) 6. Use of constant progression (linking the Theme of a t-unit to the Theme of another) 7. Ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression In regard to these variables, the following hypotheses are made: 1. There will be a positive correlation between use of orienting Themes and subject grades. 2. There will be a weak or no correlation between use of textual Themes and subject grades. 3. There will be a weak or no correlation between use of interpersonal Themes and subject grades. 4. There will be a positive correlation between use of experiential Themes and subject grades. 5. There will be a positive correlation between use of SLP and subject grades. 6. There will be a weak or no correlation between use of CP and subject grades. 7. There will be a positive correlation between the ratio of SLP to CP and subject grades. I predict a correlation between the total orienting Themes used and subject grades, while also stating that use of textual or interpersonal Themes will not be found to correlate. The reasoning behind this is that even when simply scanning through the texts, without performing a detailed analysis, I observed an increase in the quantity and length of thematised elements in the papers which received higher grades. However, all the students seemed to employ a reasonable number of textual Themes. This could reflect two issues already covered in the current study; the almost exclusive focus on this area in academic writing textbooks, and the practice of some students to attempt to disguise the poor structure of a text with surface-level cohesive elements. Regarding 38 interpersonal Themes, it was stated in section '3.2.2 Orienting Themes identified' that these are not expected to be found in large numbers, which reflects the attempt to present information as objective, a very basic characteristic of academic writing which all students are expected to have attempted to incorporate into their writing. Finally, I also expect to find a positive correlation between the use of experiential Themes and grade scores. As explained in section '3.2.2 Orienting Themes identified', the natural position for the circumstantial adjuncts, through which experiential Themes are most often realised, is at the end of the clause, meaning they are marked when in the Theme position. It is hypothesized that due to their Thematic markedness, they are considered to be a more complex rhetorical device. I therefore predict that experiential Themes will be used more by students whose writing is of a generally higher level and so who also achieved higher subject grades. As for TP, it is hypothesized that greater use of SLP will correlate positively with subject grades, while use of CP will not correlate with subject grades, and the ratio of SLP to CP will correlate positively with subject grades. The reason for including three correlation analyses in the present study was in reaction to the lack of correlations between the ratio of SLP to CP and grade scores in previous studies (Jalilifar 2010; Wang 2007; Watson-Todd et al 2007; Almaden 2006; Belmonte and McCabe 1998). Furthermore, the inclusion of the topical Theme in the present study is predicted to emphasize the relative use of CP in higher-graded texts, which are expected to employ SLP in the orienting Themes, while maintaining topic continuity through the use of CP in the topical Theme (see Davies, 1997; Fries, 1995; Macdonald, 1992, 1994; Gosden, 1992, 1993; Lowe, 1987). It is hoped that by including all these three analyses a correlation between SLP and subject grades might be found even if the ratio of SLP to CP with subject grades is not found to correlate. The implications of such a result will be discussed later if appropriate, suffice to say here that some previous conceptions of the use of TP and academic writing style may have to be revised according to the results of analytical studies, linked to the contexts in which they were performed. 39 4. Findings and Discussion 4.1 Orienting Themes 4.1.1 Total orienting Themes Although a statistically significant correlation between total use of orienting Themes and subject grades was found, it was not very strong (r=0.423, p<0.030) as evidenced by the relatively shallow trend line in chart 1 below. This conforms to the hypothesis, but in being so weak cannot be considered as a generalisable result. Use of orienting Themes Number of orienting Themes used 25 20 15 10 5 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers from lowest to highest grade Chart 1 - Total use of orienting Themes by subject grade received Looking more in detail, Chart 2 below gives the average number of orienting Themes used according to subject grades attained. A distinct increase in the use of all orienting Themes can be observed in the papers which received a grade 4 or 5, which is principally due to the combined use of textual and experiential Themes. However, as shown in Chart 3 below, there was a large amount of variation between individual papers in the study, especially related to the use of interpersonal Themes. A detailed exploration of the use of the three types of orienting Themes follows in sections 4.1.2-4.1.4 below. 40 Median use of all orienting Themes 18 Use of orienting Themes 16 14 12 Orienting Textual Interpersonal Experiential 10 8 6 4 2 0 1 2 3 4 5 Papers grouped by subject grade Chart 2 - Median use of all orienting Themes 25 25 20 20 15 15 10 10 5 5 0 0 Interpersonal Experiential Textual 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Number of orienting Themes Total orienting Themes used Papers ordered from lowest to highest grade Chart 3 - Use of orienting Themes by paper 41 4.1.2 Textual Themes As hypothesized, there was no statistically significant correlation found between use of textual Themes and subject grades (r=0.327, p<0.102). Chart 4 below shows the distribution of results with a trend line, which although rising slightly according to grade score, remains within a narrow range from 5-7.5. Use of textual Themes Number of textual Themes used 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 4 - Use of textual Themes Due to the adopting of the t-unit as the unit of analysis, many common paratactic conjunctions, particularly 'and' and 'but' were found as textual Themes. In fact, just these two conjunctions account for 32% of all textual Themes found in the analysis of the present study. These were used in the same proportions throughout all the texts, that is no positive or negative correlation was found between the use of these basic conjunctions and grade scores (r=0.028, p<0.890). In relation to studies which found over or underuse of certain linking adverbials (Bolton et al 2002; Milton et al. 1993; Crewe 1992; Field et al 1992), the papers were collectively compared for the overuse of conjunctions and connective adjuncts against the 2-million word, hand-checked 'British National Corpus Sampler Education', accessed through the text coding tool 'WMatrix3' by Paul Rayson at 42 Lancaster University1. In all the texts, there was overuse of the basic conjunctions 'and, but, or' temporal adverbs and conjunctions 'since, before, when, after, until, while', some contrastive conjunctions like 'although, whereas, while' and finally the hypothesizing conjunctions 'if, even if, even though, whether'. The overuse of some of these groups, for instance temporal adverbs and conjunctions and the hypothesizing conjunctions, can be accounted for by the subject matter, that is the papers were written about historical events. Other groups however, particularly the use of basic conjunctions, reflects the fact that the students who wrote these papers were still in High School, the EE being their very first attempt at adopting an academic style in their writing. The texts were also grouped according to the subject grade they received, but no great variation in the use of textual Themes between the collective papers of each subject grade was observed. As observed in section '3.1 The corpus', no correlation was found between student's first languages and their subject grades. However, the lack of differences in the use of textual Themes would appear to contradict studies which showed variation in this according to a student's first language (Christopher et al., 2000), as well as studies linking variety of textual Themes with overall text cohesion (Wei, 2013a; Melios, 2011). The lack of change in the use of textual Themes might also be accounted for by the fact that the students who produced the papers which make up the corpus of the present study were all completing the final year of the IB Diploma Programme, a very vigorous pre-university qualification in which they study the majority of subjects in English and for the most part attend international schools were also the common social language with at least some of their fellow students is English. 4.1.3 Interpersonal Themes As hypothesized, there was no correlation between the use of interpersonal Themes and subject grades (r=0.070, p<0.732). The majority of these interpersonal Themes were questions, with very few comment adverbials used. Chart 5 below displays the irregular and highly individual use of interpersonal Themes in the extracts from the 26 papers. 1 See ucrel.lancs.ac.uk 43 Use of interpersonal Themes Number of interpersonal Themes used 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 5 - Use of interpersonal Themes Very few interpersonal Themes were found in total, as hypothesized, and of those identified 95% were question forms, with only 2 instances of comment adverbials occurring in the same text, 'sadly' (5b9) and 'more importantly' (5b24). This corroborates the findings of other studies which found a limited use interpersonal Themes in the humanities (Embrahimi and Khedri 2011; Idding 2008; Whittaker 1995). In fact, apart from the two comment adverbs mentioned above, the only phenomena observed was the overuse of rhetorical questions in some of the lower graded papers. Table 15 below shows a grade 1 paper containing 11 consecutive rhetorical questions, 6 of which were subject questions, and so have been classified under topical Theme. Example of use of rhetorical questions Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Which Muslims are most susceptible? Islam Who and what rather than other religions? converts them? and where is What information it is used obtained from? Is there What pushes them solid ground for their grievances against the West? to the point where they are prepared to die for their beliefs? Why especially 44 Who or what is really to blame for the terrorist actions? What actions, Para. 2 Should action1a11 if any, should be taken to try and curtail them? be taken by the West, the international community or the islamic community? Are any remedies What justice sustainable? should preside, Democratic or Religious? Table 15 - Overuse of rhetorical questions, lines 1a3-1a14 from the corpus of the present study This is hypothesized to have been employed by some individual students as a rhetorical device used to disguise the lack of clear structuring in their texts. The above is an extreme example, and as demonstrated in section '4.1.3 Interpersonal Themes', the tendency to use interpersonal Themes (95% of which are rhetorical questions) was distributed evenly across the range of subject grades. 4.1.4 Experiential Themes Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no correlation found between experiential Themes and subject grades (r=0.347, p<0.082). As can be seen in chart 6 below, there is a slight increase in the use of experiential Themes according to grade score, but only between the narrow band of 3.5-6. Use of experiential Themes Frequency of experiential Themes 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Papers Chart 6 - Use of experiential Themes 45 Although no correlation was observed with subject grades, a positive, if only moderately strong, correlation was found between length of experiential Theme and subject grade (r=0.448, p<0.021). This supports similar findings related to history texts in other studies, North (2005), Lovejoy (1998) and Taylor (1983). The definition of long experiential Themes used in the present study was those which contained 10 words or more. Chart 7 below shows the distribution of these longer experiential Themes across the texts ordered according to subject grade. Number of experiential Themes of 10 words or more Use of long experiential Themes 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 7 - Use of experiential Themes of 10 words or more These longer experiential Themes consist of finite and non-finite dependent clauses, adverbial clauses of time, prepositional phrases, and conjunctive adjunct phrases. Table 16 below gives 2 examples of the combined use of long experiential clauses with SLP structuring. Example 1&2 - Long experiential Themes Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Example 1 In 1985, the French military refused to accept a statue of Dreyfus for the Ecole Militaire which had been commissioned by the president Francois Mitterand. When it was finally displayed in Dreyfus’ tomb the corner of the Tuileries gardens in 1988,5b7 was defaced with swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti. 46 Example 2 The author of this investigation will therefore argue that the Rwandan genocide in 1994 to a great extent was a result of the colonial legacy. In order to determine the importance of the colonial legacy as a cause of the genocide, the investigation will first examine the origins of the Hutu and Tutsi identities. Table 16 - Long experiential Themes, lines 5a3-5a4, 5a23-5a24 from the corpus of the present study In example 1, the information contained in the Rheme of the first t-unit is picked up in the long experiential Theme of the second t-unit, allowing the writer to then present a new Theme without compromising cohesion. Example 2, on the other hand, uses the same SLP link between the Rheme of the first t-unit and the long experiential Theme of the second, in order to allow the topical Theme to link back to that of the first through CP structuring, which in this case allows the writer to maintain topic continuity while not compromising local cohesion. This observation supports similar findings in other studies (Davies,1997; Fries, 1995; MacDonald, 1994, 1992; Gosden, 1993, 1992; Lowe, 1987). The interplay of orienting and topical Themes with patterns of TP in these two examples lends support to all the researchers who argue for the inclusion of both in thematic analyses (Martin and Rose 2003; Forey 2002; Davies 1997; Fries 1995; Gosden 1992 1993; MacDonald 1992 1994). Table 17 below presents another 2 examples of the interplay of orienting Themes, specifically long experiential Themes, and topical Themes. Example 3 & 4 - Long experiential Themes Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Example 3 According to a modern a group of six youngsters newspaper account, on the 8th of December 1876, who had recently returned from England, after being taken there by Le Lecheur for education, bringing with them football equipment, "met to play the first game on the northeastern side of La Sabana", the main park in San José at the time. Example 4 Already a large and diverse city Shanghai with a substantial foreign population, was the only city with no entry visa requirements for Jewish refugees. Table 17 - Long experiential Themes, lines 5d17, 5e4 from the corpus of the present study 47 Here, both the orienting and topical Themes are new Themes which do not contribute to local cohesion. However, as observed by North (2005), example 3 grounds the information which is to come in the t-unit as constructed knowledge. North contrasts the epistemological approaches of the arts and science students in her study as: embody[ing] divergent views of history, one seeing it as constructed through the interpretation of historians, the other seeing it as dealing with an objective reality in which the facts speak for themselves (North, 2005, p.441). The t-unit in example 3 refers to a primary source rather than a historian, but nevertheless employs the same approach of viewing knowledge as contested. Example 4 does not apply this approach, but in a similar way to example 2 (with the difference that here it is a new Theme) the writer allows for continuation of the main argument through the topical Theme by placing additional information about it in the orienting Theme. Bestgen and Vonk (2000) also corroborate this in an experimental setup where participants read texts in which one clause began with a simple Theme using CP, a new Theme, and a temporal adverb orienting Theme before a new topical Theme. They found that readers took more time to process a new Theme than a simple Theme using CP, but that this difference was not present when the new Theme was preceded by what they term a 'segmentation marker', that is a temporal adverb which helps the reader locate the subsequent information into the general concerns of the text. Sarda, Carter-Thomas, Fagard and Charolles (2014) identify two types of adverbials, 'Discourse Structure Markers' (DSMs) and 'Intersubjective Discourse Markers' (IDMs). DSMs "establish links either with backwards (conjunct) of forwards (adjunct)", while IDMs "do not link up with linguistic elements before or after their host sentence" (Sarda et al, 2014, p.14). Both categories cover all three kinds of orienting Themes used in the present study with the examples of long experiential Themes given in Table 16 which employ SLP fall into Sarda et. al's (ibid) category of DSMs, and the examples given in Table 17 which promote intra-clause cohesion falling into the category of IDMs. When these IDMs occur in the orienting Theme they contribute to cohesion within the clause, while not limiting the possibility of the topical Theme in promoting overall text cohesion. All the long experiential Themes given in Tables 21 and 22 depend on the thematised status for their cohesive functions, as opposed to textual Themes which, due to their grammaticalised status as cohesive devices, "can be used as such in other positions" (ibid, p.20). Consequently, their thematisation reveals the intention of the writer to use them as cohesive devices, which was a strategy used statistically more often in the papers which received higher subject grades. 48 4.2 Thematic Progression 4.2.1 Simple linear progression In line with the hypothesis, a strong correlation was found between use of SLP and subject grades (r=0.645, p<0.0003). As can be seen from the trend line in chart 8 below, the median use of SLP rose from 3.5 for the lowest graded papers to 8.5 for the highest. The way in which SLP was used also changed according to the grade of a paper, as will be examined in the discussion section which follows. Use of simple linear progression 12 Frequency of SLP 10 8 6 4 2 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 8 - Use of simple linear progression This strong correlation supports similar results identified by other empirical studies (Medve and Takač 2013; Melios 2011; Jalilifar 2010). An observation from the current study focuses not only on the total use of SLP, but how it is sometimes used in clusters. Table 18 below gives examples of SLP used multiple times in consecutive sentences in single paragraphs. All Themes using SLP have been placed in italics, with the words they refer to in the previous t-unit have been underlined. 49 4 examples of simple linear progression Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Example 1 After World War One and as of Lebanon 1922 was under French Mandate, during the French Mandate a lot of religious missionaries mainly from France and Europe, all with Christian backgrounds (Church of England, Catholics, Orthodox Church), established bases in Lebanon chiefly due to its large Christian community. The Christian and European communities wanted to promote their religion, language and ways of life through means of education and local welfare to the people. This was done by improving existing facilities for the public in medical areas, public facilities, education and e.t.c. This lead to the expansion and deep rooting of the French language in the country from which mainly the Christian community benefited. The main aim of this essay is to show that, and explain how, music has played a key role throughout African American history in the development of their society. Example 2 The development of black music has facilitated important changes in the advancement and specifically the integration of African American culture. Extending from the emancipation right through to the present day this major role of music is evident in the fluctuation of African American society. Example 3 Following the first slave ship of their numbers 1691, These agricultural areas grew at an incredibly fast rate to support the massive growth of cotton and other labour intensive agriculture. lay largely in the southern 50 states. It was these southern states that primarily formed the centre of African American presence, where they were numerically by far the majority ethnic group. Historians have described the Japanese openness to Jews taking refuge in Shanghai as “among the most difficult historical problems to unravel”. In 1943, a change in Japanese regulations suddenly forced Jewish refugees to leave their homes and (empty) enter a small “designated area” which was under strict curfew. This area became known as the “Hongkew Ghetto”. Conditions in the ghetto were poor, Example 4 Table 18 - 4 examples of SLP, lines 3c17-3c19, 33g1.3g3, g10-3g12, 5e12-5e15 f The single pronoun 'this' or 'these' can be used to create SLP by referring back to the previous tunit(s), as can be seen in example 1 of Table 18 above. In fact, of all the SLP Themes identified in the present study, 28% contained the word 'this/these' or 'this/these + noun', the noun helping to identify the referenced words, for example 'this major role' in the last t-unit of example 2. Example 3 once again shows two SLP Themes, with the minor difference that the last t-unit contains a predicated Theme. Example 4 contains 4 SLP Themes, one of which is an empty Theme, which refers to 'Jewish refugees' from the Rheme of the previous t-unit. There were more examples of isolated rather than grouped SLP Themes in the corpus as a whole, with 60% SLP structuring occurring alone, while the other 40% occurred with an adjacent t-unit with SLP, that is in clusters. The analysis presented some more complex combinations of TP used, which will be looked at in the section '4.3 Combinations of Theme choice with TP' below. With respect to the correlation mentioned in section '4.3.1 Orienting Themes' between the length of an experiential Theme and subject grade, a similar, slightly stronger correlation was found between the use of SLP in orienting Themes and subject grade (r=0.492, p<0.010). Chart 9 below shows the distribution of the frequency of SLP in orienting Themes across the papers in the study. 51 Use of simple linear progression in orienting Themes 6 SLP in orienting Themes 5 4 3 2 1 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 9 - Use of SLP in orienting Themes Although it can be seen that 11 papers did not use SLP structuring in their orienting Themes at all, a gradual increase in those which did does seem to follow the trend line. However, this correlation is not as strong as that for the overall use of SLP, reflecting the fact that some papers which used high levels SLP in total (5b, 5c, 5e, see 'Chart 8 - Use of simple linear progression' above) employed them mostly in the topical Theme position. An example of the use of SLP in orienting Themes is given in Table 19 below, again SLP Themes are italicised while the Rhemes they relate to have been underlined. An example of the use of simple linear progression in orienting Themes Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme A fourth source, Fernando Naranjo Madrigal, brings both versions together, p."From 1876 a few Costa Rican and English sportsmen were already playing on the fields of 'La Sabana'... in 1897 Oscar Pinto Fernàndez arrived [in Costa Rica] from England, where he had been carrying out his studies... Pinto had the idea of playing football [here Naranho goes on to quote Salas]" 52 Basically, what this would seem it to show is that while the sport was originally introduced in 1876, Even then, it was not until 1897 that it caught the public imagination. struggled to impose itself completely, as can be seen from a fragment of newspaper from 1901, p."We had already thought [football] was in its grave, turned into a corpse" Table 19 - An example of SLP use in orienting Themes, taken from lines 5d21-5d23 from the corpus of the present study While the orienting Theme in the second t-unit is as a long experiential Theme, that of the third tunit is only 2 words long, indicating that SLP use in orienting Themes does not always coincide with the use of a long experiential Theme. Also, the topical Theme in the second t-unit is the temporal use of 'it', while the topical Theme in the third t-unit refers back to 'the sport' in the orienting Theme of the second, using CP. This illustrates again the combining effects of orienting and topical Themes in creating cohesion in a text. 4.2.2 Constant progression As hypothesized, there was no correlation found between the use of CP and subject grades (r=0.242, p<0.233). As can be seen in chart 10 below, a very shallow trend line indicates a slight increase related to subject grades, but the band is very narrow, from 9-12. Use of constant progression Frequency of constant progression 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Papers Chart 10 - Use of constant progression 53 This contradicts other studies (Melios 2011; Wang 2010; Ma 2001) which found higher levels of CP in texts written by students with a higher level of proficiency in English. Analysing the data more closely, 4 distinct realisations of CP were observed: - Repetition - using the exact phrase as in the Theme of a preceding t-unit - Inference - using Themes which are semantically related but not the same as the Theme of a preceding t-unit - Anaphoric Pronoun - using a pronoun to replace a proper noun - Omission - when the complement of one t-unit implies that the omitted Theme is an implicit repetition of the Theme of a preceding t-unit The difference between 'inference CP' (my own terminology) and derived Theme, which was not included in the present study, is the length of t-units over which they can apply. Inference links have been applied over the full length of 25 t-units of each text included in the present study. Derived Theme on the other hand has only been applied to consecutive t-units (Daneš 1974), making it very applicable to certain genres of text such as legal or scientific reports, but not easily applicable to others, such as the student writing in the corpus of the present study. Chart 11 below shows the distribution of the four realisations of CP. Use of Types of constant progression 18 16 Total types of CP used 14 12 Omission Inference Pronoun Repetition 10 8 6 4 2 0 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 11 - Different realisations of constant progression 54 Of these 4 categories, only 'inference CP' resulted in a strong positive correlation with subject grades (r=0.599, p<0.001). Below are 4 text extracts containing examples of this type of CP taken from the corpus of this study. In relation to possible accusations of a heightened level of subjectivity in inference Themes, the examples illustrate that a reader without even subject-specific knowledge could identify the Themes as being connected. Inference Themes have been italicised, with the Themes they relate having been underlined in Table 20 below. 4 examples of inference constant progression Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme The governing elite were scared of the dark masses. thought that these dark masses could be controlled by fear, as the Empress Alexandra once said, p.Russia should always be controlled under the whip. Example 1 They The Ruling class didn't want to educate the peasants because they could possibly threaten their own privileges. Alfred Nobel had a great respect for “hard sciences” in that he knew “these disciplines obviously exert enormous power over world affairs and human life.”. was amazing Example 2 His foresight and ever since his death these sciences have expanded greatly. Later during the Bronze Age, Minoan culture and Mycenaean civilisation developed on the Island of Crete developed on the main land. But during the Heroic age 1300-800 BC, Greece became the first advanced civilisation in Europe. many of the same sentiments and prejudices which divided France so long ago seem to be resurfacing. The Dreyfus Affair is as important as ever Zola’s words of wisdom Anti-semitism in France, still maintain their value. which has a long and bitter history, is on the rise. Example 3 Example 4 Today, as the one hundredth anniversary of Alfred Dreyfus’ acquittal passes, and 55 Table 20 - 4 examples of inference constant progression, taken from lines 2h23-2h25, 3a13-3a15, 3b22-3b24, 5b3-5b6 form the corpus of the present study Four different ways of creating inference were identified, using synonyms, possessive adjectives, words of the same semantic category, and re-phrasing. In example 1 of Table 19 above, the second t-unit uses the pronoun 'they', but the third uses the synonym 'The Ruling class' for the original Theme 'The governing elite'. Example 2 uses two topical Themes with the possessive adjective 'his', to refer to attributes of 'Alfred Nobel'. Example 3 uses two topical Themes, 'Mycenaean civilisation' and 'Greece', which belong to the same semantic category as the Theme of the first tunit, 'Minoan culture'. In this case it could be argued that subject-specific knowledge is necessary to make these connections. However, the semantically related words 'culture' and 'civilisation', together with the repetition of 'civilisation' in the Rheme of the third t-unit means that even though the researcher of the present study didn't have specialized knowledge about this period of history, links intended by the writer between the Themes of the t-units were evident. Although this example which could fall under Daneš (1974) category of derived Theme, the researcher found it more productive to group it with other inference CPs which did not necessarily occur in consecutive tunits. For instance, example 4 uses summarising phrases in only the second and fourth t-units; the topical theme of the second t-unit 'The Dreyfus Affair' re-phrases the words 'Alfred Dreyfus' acquittal' in the orienting Theme of the first t-unit, the third t-unit presents a new Theme, before the fourth t-unit topical Theme 'Anti-semitism in France' rephrases the topical Theme of the first t-unit 'many of the same sentiments and prejudices'. Using inference CP allows a writer to expand the range of vocabulary they employ while maintaining links necessary for local cohesion at the same time as allowing small shifts in the focus of the main argument, making for a richer text overall. Inference CP does however require a level of semantic inference from the reader which certainly depends on the knowledge of the reader, but more importantly on the ability of the writer to communicate such links clearly. The involvement of semantic analysis however is very much in the spirit of Functional Grammar itself, and so should not be rejected as an important tool in text analysis because it does not conform to the approaches of traditional grammar. Ho-Dac, Fabre, Péry-Woodley and Rebeyrolle (2010) refer to this type of CP links as 'Topical Chains'. As found in all the examples in Table 20, they state that there is a "strong association between the sentence topic and grammatical subject" (Ho-Dac et al., 2010, p.5). Contrary to the present study, Ho-Dac et al. also include anaphoric pronouns in their categorisation of topical chains. These function similarly to inference CP, but they were not found to correlate with subject grades. This indicates that they are widely used in all the texts in this study, including those which lack inference CP and use of SLP, particularly in long experiential Themes. Anaphoric pronouns work together with inference 56 CP in making the higher-graded texts cohesive, but without inference CP and SLP, they are not sufficient on their own in making the lower-graded texts achieve the same level of cohesion. Although there was no correlation between use of repetition in CP and subject grades, it was identified by the researcher as potentially problematic in some texts. Table 21 below gives 3 examples of this phenomena, with the repetition CP in italics, and the Theme they relate to being underlined. 3 examples of repetition constant progression Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme Pierre Elliot Trudeau will be remembered by many as one of the most famous and prominent Canadian Prime Ministers. became the leader of the Liberal Party of Canada in 1968. Example 1 Trudeau He He redefined and reshaped Canada with a different type of government throughout his time in office (1968.1979 19801984). was the longest serving head of government with a deep rooted sense of French and English heritage. Example 2 I will begin by illustrating what the Anglophone African states inherited from their colonial master, the United Kingdom, as regards democratic institutions. I will then define democracy and how the definition may have evolved over time. will continue by explaining how democracy spread around the world I and Finally, (empty) I describe the incidents and events that illustrate the anti and pro democratic actions of the thirteen states researched. will evaluate whether the populations of four of these countries have benefited in terms of economic and social development, therefore answering the question: 57 Example 3 Che Guevara (14th June 1928 9th October 1967). A name that represents a wide variety of symbolic signif icance, a name a name Che that echoes with the word ‘revolution’, that stands for freedom linked to communist ideas. also reminds many of the mythical Cuban rebellion, of the war which occurred between an unsatisfied population and its dogmatic dictatorial government, Table 21 - 3 examples of repetition CP, taken from lines 2e3-2e6, 3h4-3h8, 3i1-3i4 from the corpus of the present study Example 1 in Table 21 above uses a repetition in the second t-unit. 'Trudeau', followed by a pronoun in the third t-unit 'he', which is then repeated in the fourth. There were multiple examples of repeated pronouns such as this in the corpus, the first of which was always assigned as a pronoun CP, as it was connected to a proper noun in the previous t-unit, with following examples of the same pronoun assigned repetition status. A clear example of repetition of pronouns is given in example 2, with three repetitions of 'I' and an empty Theme which was also assigned as repetition, as the omitted Theme was identified as identical to that of the previous t-unit. Example 3 uses one inference CP 'a name' referring to 'Che Guevara' in the first t-unit, but which is then repeated in the third and fourth t-units before the topical Theme of the first t-unit is again repeated. Although it could be argued that repetition in this case was used to heighten dramatic effect, repetition CP was used 10 times in this text, compared to a median usage of 3.76 times in the other texts of the corpus. Unfortunately, no previous literature detailing the different possibilities for the realisation of CP were identified, so no comparison can be made to other studies. 4.2.3 Ratio of Simple linear progression to constant progression Contrary to the hypothesis, there was no correlation found between the ratio of SLP to CP and subject grades (r=0.306, p<0.128). As can be seen in chart 12 below, not only is the trend line shallow, but there is also a lot of variance between individual papers at all grade score levels, except the grade 5 texts. 58 Ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression 1.20 Ratio of SLP to CP 1.00 0.80 0.60 0.40 0.20 0.00 1a 1b 2a 2b 2c 2d 2e 2f 2g 2h 2i 3a 3b 3c 3d 3e 3f 3g 3h 3i 4a 5a 5b 5c 5d 5e Papers Chart 12 - Ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression The present study contests the affirmation by Soleymanzadeh and Gholami's (2014) that better written more cohesive essays also have high ratios of SLP to CP. Other studies have identified overuse of CP in student writing (Jalilifar 2010; Wang 2007; Watson-Todd et al. 2007; Almaden 2006; Ma 2001;Belmonte & McCabe 1998) as a barrier to students improving cohesion. However, some studies have presented a more complex picture (Melios 2011; Wang 2010), indicating that students need to master a range of different types of TP to produce cohesive writing. The following section gives an example of how different types of TP can be effectively combined. 4.3 Combinations of Theme choice with TP To illustrate the effective combination of Theme choice and TP, a longer extract of 13 t-units has been taken from a single text, 5a, from the corpus, shown in Table 22 below. The same colourcoding has been used as in the corpus itself. Reference numbering has been used to make explicit the links between any Theme and the preceding content it refers to, which has been underlined. Notes have been inserted immediately after the lines they refer to. 59 Theme Choice Thematic progression Textual Experiential Interpersonal SLP CP CP The interaction of Theme choice and thematic progression Orienting Theme Topical Theme Rheme the biggest genocide the world has seen since World War II took place in Rwanda. Paragraph 1 5a1 In 1994 5a2 Located in the Great the earlier Belgian Lakes Region of colony5a1 5a1 Central Africa, was in April 1994 populated by about 7,776,000 people. Note 1 - 5a2 - the two SLP Themes link to and expand upon the Rheme 'Rwanda' in 5a1. 5a3 In the course of six weeks the Interahamwe militia, whose aim it was to clean Rwanda of ‘cockroaches’, had reduced the population by 11%, killing 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Note 2 - 5a3 - two new Themes are used to introduce the details of the massacre in an abrupt way 5a4 In a massacre where the daily killing rate was at least five times as high as in the Nazi death camps,5a3 the rule was: either you kill or you get killed. Note 3 - 5a4 - an SLP Theme is used in the orienting Themes, allowing for a new Theme to be presented again with some rhetorical impact Paragraph 2 5a5 The Rwanda genocide5a4 was genocide of one group of people, the Tutsi, by another, the Hutu. 5a6 Two groups,5a5 who had been living together on the same hill tops, spoken the same language shared the same religion for centuries. 5a7 and 5a6 Note 4 - the topical Theme of 5a5 refers back to the orienting Theme of 5a4. 5a6 uses SLP in the topical Theme to build the description step-by-step. A final omitted Theme is used in 5a7, which again contributes to the step-by-step construction of the paragraph. Paragraph 3 5a8 5a9 Still The history of the Rwandan genocide5a5 is one of extreme and seemingly absurd horror. it5a8 is a historical process that can be analysed, 60 5a10 To investigate the it causes of the genocide is interesting and even necessary because5a9 5a11 Also, understanding the genocide5a10 studied and explained. can create a better understanding of similar conflicts in other decolonized countries. can give useful guidance on how to avoid conflict in the future. Note 5 - Two different but connected Themes are developed. 5a8 and 5a9 refer back to the Theme of the previous paragraph, 'The Rwanda genocide', while changing the focus slightly by adding 'the history'. 5a10 and 5a11 then refer initially through SLP and then CP to the Rheme of 5a9, that is the interest of the writer in exploring this history. Paragraph 4 5a12 The incident that unleashed the genocide5a11 was the death of President Habyarimana, as his plane got shot down on 6th April 1994. 5a13 This assassination5a12 happened in the context of the civil war, initiated by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invasion in October 1990. Note 6 - 5a12 picks up again on the history of and need to understand the genocide by connecting back to the topical Themes of the previous paragraph. 5a13 completes the extract by expanding upon the factual affirmation which makes up the Rheme of 5a12. Table 22 - The interaction of Theme choice and TP, taken from lines 5a1-5a13 from the corpus of the present study Reading through the notes made in Table 22, it is possible to appreciate the complexity of the links made both between t-units and also between paragraphs in the text. CP structuring is used to carry forward the main message and direction of the text, SLP is used to expand upon the immediately preceding t-unit, and new Themes are used to add emphasis and rhetorical impact to the message of a particular t-unit. Regarding Theme choice, as noted in section '4.1.4 Experiential Themes', there is an overlapping of the use of long experiential Themes with SLP structuring. Interestingly, the use of textual Themes is limited both in number as well as complexity. The structuring of this extract is achieved through a combination of Thematic choices and TP and their semantic content. This is a much more effective method of creating cohesion than trying to impose a wide range of textual Themes, which by their nature are abstract, that is, they cannot be assigned any status under TP, that is they cannot refer to the particular text where they occur. There are no clusters of SLP as was shown in section 'Table 18 - 4 examples of simple linear progression', but this does not harm the cohesive qualities of the text. Instead the interplay between the different types of TP and Theme choice above create a logical, flowing text. 61 5. Conclusion 5.1 Conclusion With respect to Theme choice, although a positive correlation was found between total use of orienting Themes and subject grades, none of the categories of orienting Theme (textual, interpersonal, experiential) correlated alone with subject grades. There was overuse of some conjunctions related to the category of textual Themes, namely 'and, but, or', temporal adverbs and conjunctions 'since, before, when, after, until, while', some contrastive conjunctions like 'although, whereas, while' and finally the hypothesizing conjunctions 'if, even if, even though, whether'. The first group was hypothesized to have been overused due to the participants' lack of experience in academic writing, while the overuse of the other three groups could relate to the discipline in which the students wrote: history. Interpersonal Themes were used sparingly in the majority of papers, but were overused in the form of rhetorical questions in 3 individual papers. While no correlation was found between the use of experiential Themes and subject grades, a positive correlation was found between those equal to or over 10 words in length. It was observed that these longer experiential Themes in the higher-graded papers had a double function. They often coincided with the use of simple linear progression and therefore contributing to local cohesion while freeing the topical Theme to present new information or to contribute to the topic continuity through constant progression of Themes. Regarding thematic progression, there was no correlation was found between the ratio of simple linear progression to constant progression and subject grades as in previous studies (Wang 2007; Watson-Todd et al. 2007; Almaden 2006; Ma 2001;Belmonte & McCabe 1998). However, other interesting correlations were identified. Firstly, a strong correlation was found between the use of simple linear progression and subject grades, which was in line with other recent studies (Medve and Takač 2013; Melios 2011; Jalilifar 2010). Different configurations of these SLP Themes were found, namely in clustered t-units, and in orienting Themes (most commonly experiential Themes as mentioned above). No correlation between the use of constant progression and subject grades was found, although when broken down into categories, those which were not simple repetitions, pronouns or omitted Themes but which had inferable links to previous Themes were found to correlate with subject grades. Examples were given to illustrate that the inferences involved did not depend on subject-specific knowledge, and therefore were intentional links built in by the writer as they could be expected to be recognised by most readers. Finally, an extract from one particular text showed the combined use of new Themes, simple linear progression, constant progression and 62 textual, experiential Themes in both orienting and topical Theme positions. It was observed that in utilizing long experiential Themes which also function as simple linear progression structuring elements, the need to use a wide range of textual Themes, that is conjunctions or conjunctive adjuncts, to create cohesion was eliminated. This was deemed beneficial to the overall cohesion of the text as the cohesive elements also contained semantic information relevant to the argument of the text. Also, the complex interactions between contrasting functions, such as SLP and new Themes, was seen to enrich the structure of the text. This analysis highlighted the possibilities that lie in going beyond the correlations of global categories like SLP to CP, and looking for both subcategories of these functions as well as analysing the complex interactions of all elements present in highly-cohesive text. All of these observations support the teaching of Theme choice and thematic progression to help students avoid what Crewe (1992) described as surface logic through the artificial imposition of textual Themes. 5.2 Pedagogical implications While many pedagogical studies have been carried out into the effectiveness of teaching Theme choice and TP (Albufalasa 2013; Ebrahimi and Ebrahimi 2012a; Bohnacker 2010; Ren et al. 2009; Cheng 2008; Watson-Todd et al 2007; Alonso and McCabe 2003; Xudong 2003), Wei Jing asserts that "Very few studies have developed and studied teaching materials informed by Theme-Rheme" (Wei Jing, 2014, p.75). Many of the aforementioned studies recommend the inclusion of Theme analysis in teaching courses, but leave the task of designing pedagogical materials to the teachers themselves. Given the lack of materials for academic writing which focus on Theme choice and TP (as detailed in section '2.5 Instruction in the use of Theme and textual cohesion'), there is a great need for well-designed teaching materials for particular audiences. As discussed in section '2.4 Disciplinary differences in the use of Themes', many studies have highlighted disciplinary differences in Theme use (Embrahimi and Khedri 2011; Idding 2008; North 2005; Ghadessy 1999; Lovejoy 1998; Whittaker 1995; Taylor 1983), so any materials to be used in academic English courses must take this into account. The present study used history EE papers, written by IB students. Whether the IB EE has a literary style of its own (it uses the same structure for all subjects), or whether differences can be identified between disciplines even at this pre-university level is a question for further study. 63 5.3 Improvements and further study The extracts of text used to form the corpus of the present study were taken from the introduction (and in some cases the main body) of 26 History EE papers. Having now completed the study, I have reflected on this choice and come to the conclusion that the 'Results' or 'Conclusion' sections might have been more adapted to the present study. A larger study in which all sections of the EEs can be analysed for differences in cohesion would be necessary in order to produce the pedagogical materials as detailed above in section '5.2 Pedagogical Implications'. Also, the corpus of this study, consisting of just 12,000 and 26 text extracts is probably slightly too small for the results to be considered generalisable. Taking all the sections of the EE texts together with including texts from different disciplines could resolve both the problems identified here, that is the differences in cohesion between the different sections of the EE and the differences in cohesion according to the discipline that they are written in. Finally, Lamiroy and Charolles (Forthcoming, in Sarda et al, 2014) highlight the gradient of text integration of what they label 'Framing adverbials', which covers the categorisation of textual, interpersonal and experiential Themes used in the present study. This gradient (shown in Figure 8 below) would be a useful tool in a future study into the use of more or less content integrated orienting Themes as correlated with either subject grades or a holistic measure of text cohesion and coherence. Figure 8 - Gradient of content integration of Framing Adverbials (Lamiroy and Charolles, forthcoming) 64 6. 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