МИНИСТЕРСТВО НАУКИ И ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ РФ

ФЕДЕРАЛЬНОЕ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННОЕ БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

ВЫСШЕГО ОБРАЗОВАНИЯ

«ДОНСКОЙ ГОСУДАРСТВЕННЫЙ ТЕХНИЧЕСКИЙ УНИВЕРСИТЕТ»

(ДГТУ)

Факультет «Социально-гуманитарный»
Kaфeдpa «Научно-технический перевод и профессиональные коммуникации»

Реферат на тему:
«Понятие ремы и способы ее выражения в английском языке»

Выполнил:
студент группы ГПП22
Потапов Н.К.

Проверила: Мойсова О.Б.

«____»___________ 2019 г.

Ростов-на-Дону
2019
 Contents

Introduction...............................................................................................................3
1. Actual Division of the Sentence............................................................................4
1.1. What are theme and rheme..............................................................................4
1.2. The boundary between Theme and Rheme.....................................................6
2. Thematic Progression............................................................................................9
3. Language means of expressing the theme and the rheme...................................11
Coclusion.................................................................................................................13
References...............................................................................................................14

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 Introduction

A semantic role is the underlying relationship that a participant has with the
main verb in a clause. It is also known as semantic case, thematic role, theta role
(generative grammar), and deep case (case grammar). Semantic role is the actual
role a participant plays in some real or imagined situation, apart from the linguistic
encoding of those situations.

A set of semantic roles and an action expressed by a verb constitute a

linguistic semantic model of an extralinguistic situation and are called semantic
configuration. The set of semantic roles preset by the lexico-semantic peculiarities
of the verb makes us the role structure of the verb. The semantic configuration is
the semantic minimum of the sentence. The role structure of an actual sentence
may include roles that are not part of the semantic minimum.

The theoretical status of semantic roles in linguistic theory is still a largely

unresolved issue. For example, there is considerable doubt about whether semantic
roles should be regarded as syntactic, lexical or semantic/conceptual entities.
However, the most common understanding is that semantic roles are
semantic/conceptual elements. It should be noticed that there is no agreement
about which and how many roles are needed. This is precisely one of the major
drawbacks of the semantic role list approach. Although most theories of thematic
roles assume that there is only a small finite number of them, no consensus has
been reached on the number or nature of the roles.

The actual division of the sentence, called also the "functional sentence
perspective", exposes the informative perspective of the sentence showing what
immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the total information
conveyed by the sentence. The sentence can be divided into two sections – theme
and rheme.

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 1. Actual Division of the Sentence

1.1. What are theme and rheme

The actual division of the sentence, called also the "functional sentence
perspective", exposes the informative perspective of the sentence showing what
immediate semantic contribution the sentence parts make to the total information
conveyed by the sentence. The sentence can be divided into two sections – theme
and rheme.

The theme is the part of the proposition that is being talked about
(predicated). The theme expresses the starting point of communication; it means
that it denotes an object or a phenomenon about which something is reported. Once
stated, the theme is therefore "old news", i.e. the things already mentioned and
understood.

The predicate that gives information on the topic is called rheme. The rheme
expresses the basic informative part of the communication, emphasizing its
contextually relevant centre. Between the theme and the rheme are positioned
intermediary, transitional parts of the actual division of various degrees of
informative value (these parts are sometimes called "transition").

The theme of the actual division of the sentence may or may not coincide
with the subject of the sentence. The rheme of the actual division, in its turn, may
or may not coincide with the predicate of the sentence — either with the whole
predicate group or its part, such as the predicative, the object, the adverbial.

The theme need not necessarily be something known in advance. In many

sentences it is, in fact, something already familiar, as in some of our examples,
especially with the definite article. However, that need not always be the case.
There are sentences in which the theme, too, is something mentioned for the first
time and yet it is not the centre of the predication. It is something about which a
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statement is to be made. The theme is here the starting point of the sentence, not its
conclusion.

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 1.2. The boundary between Theme and Rheme

The boundary between Theme and Rheme is simple but not always obvious
enough resulting in numerous cases of terminological confusion which are further
enhanced by the various definitional criteria. Thus for ‘theme’ we find the terms
‘topic,’ ‘background,’ ‘presupposition,’ and for ‘rheme,’ ‘comment,’ ‘focus,’
‘predication’ (in various combinations).

Theme is the first element occurring in a clause; the remainder clause is

Rheme, e.g.:

Theme Rheme
The lion beat the unicorn all round the town.
All round the town the lion beat the unicorn.
However, the unicorn still did not want to bow to the lion.
The lion decided to beat him to death.
Would the unicorn give in to the lion.
When the lion got to the battle field the unicorn was ready for the battle.

From the above division of Themes and Rhemes in the sentences, we can see
that Theme is not equated with the subject of a sentence; nor is Rheme equated
with the predicate. However, in the example given above, two sentences e.g. in the
first and fourth sentence, it happens that the Theme ‘The lion’ overlaps with the
grammatical subjects of the sentences. This kind of Theme is called unmarked
Theme. Unmarked sentences typically have Themes that overlap with subjects. On
the other hand, marked sentences often contain a Theme that is separate from the
subject containing preposed adverbial groups or prepositional phrases, for example
‘All around the town’ is Theme in sentence 2 above. From the above sample, we
could conclude that Theme may be realized by a nominal group, verbal group,
adverbial group, prepositional phrase or a dependent clause. The characteristic of
these elements is that they appear first in a clause and represent ‘given’
information. All the rest of a clause is Rheme representing ‘new’ information.

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Knowing where to place the Theme-Rheme boundary in a more complex sentence
requires a careful reading of the sentence in context to understand the meaning a
writer is communicating. In a study of spoken data conducted by Lovejoy and
Lance in1991, they found that there was a noticeable pitch drop at the end of
Theme, and near the beginning of Rheme, often on the first word, an abrupt peak
in pitch level.

The initial place has an enormous importance in a clause. Whatever is

chosen to be in the first place will influence a reader’s interpretation of everything
that comes next. Accordingly, in cohesive writing, ‘given’ information in a clause
needs be presented in Theme position, which acts like a signpost signaling a reader
where the meanings have come from and where they are going to. The new
information needs to be located in Rheme position. The balance and movement of
a clause between Theme and Rheme is an essential component in composing a
cohesive text. If a writer fails to control the flow of information from Theme to
Rheme, his or her text is difficult for a reader to follow, because there is no clear
signpost directing the reader, who therefore cannot easily follow the progression of
an idea or argument.

The problems of inappropriately handling the flow of Theme and Rheme are
quite common among inexperienced writers. We can identify three common
problems resulting from misuse Theme and Rheme.

 The problem of the brand new Theme

The problem of a brand new Theme is extremely common in the work of

inexperienced writers, who introduce 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.

 The problem of the double Rheme

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 The problem of the double Rheme means a sentence has two Rhemes with
one of the Rheme not mentioned previously. For example, the educational reform
had a big influence on young teachers and the students’ families paid a lot of
money for their children. There are two Rhemes in this clause. One Rheme is ‘had
a big influence on young teachers’. The other Rheme is ‘had a big influence on the
students’ families’. The latter Rheme has had no previous mention.

 The problem of the empty Rheme

The problem of empty Rheme is also common in students’ writings, who fail
to present ‘new’ information in Rheme position. For example, lack of qualified
teachers is a serious problem. Rheme ‘is a serious problem’ fails to offer any
information, which should be mentioned previously or it is shared by the potential
readers.

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 2. Thematic Progression

The flow of information in a sentence from Theme to Rheme is crucial in

achieving communicative effectiveness in a message. The exchange of information
between successive Theme and Rheme pairings in a text is called Thematic
Progression (Eggins, 1994). Thematic progression contributes to the cohesive
development of a text, that is to say, in a cohesive text the distribution of given and
new information needs to follow certain patterns. There are several main types of
Thematic progression, which depends on different text types. For example, in a
narrative-type text we often repeat Theme of one clause into Theme of subsequent
clauses, e.g.:

Theme Rheme
A good teacher need show great passion to the teaching.
He or she should be intellectually and morally
honest.
He or she should have a genuine capacity to
understand students.

However the Thematic development of an academic text is different.

Thematic progression of an academic text needs to have a high incidence of cross-
referential links from the Rheme of one clause to the Theme of the next clause, as
the academic texts present complex arguments in which each successive ideas is an
expansion of an idea in the previous sentence.

e.g. ‘To stop the outbreak of the unknown disease, two medical teams were
sent immediately to the affected area in Sichuan to diagnose the disease. Each
medical team was formed by ten doctors selected from the first-rate hospitals
across the country. The expertise of all the doctors was well-known in China, and
some was world-famous.’

In this example, the infinitive ‘to stop the outbreak of the unknown disease’
is Theme, ‘two medical teams’ first appearing as Rheme in the first clause
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becomes Theme of the second clause. The element ‘doctors’ which is Rheme of
the second clause becomes Theme of the third clause. This text demonstrates high
cross-referential linking between Rheme of one clause and Theme of the next. This
Thematic progression gives a reader orientation as to where the information has
come from and where it is going, and hence creates cohesion in a written text.

For translation-oriented analysis, we can confine ourselves to the context-

bound aspects of theme-rheme structure. From this point of view, the theme refers
to that part of the information presented in a sentence or clause which can be
inferred from the (verbal or non-verbal) context (= given information) whereas the
rheme is the non-inferrable part of the information (= new information)
irrespective of its grammatical function as subject or predicate or its position at the
beginning or the end of the clause, the theme refers to the information stored in
“presupposition pool” of the participants. This pool contains the information
gained from general knowledge, from the situative context of the discourse, and
from the completed part of the discourse itself. Each participant has a
presupposition pool and this pool is added to as the discourse proceeds.

According to the distribution of given and new information in a text, we

have to distinguish different forms of thematic progression, which characterize the
argumentative structure of the text. There can be no doubt that the “communicative
dynamics” of a text with a linear thematic progression, where the rheme of one
sentence constitutes the theme of the next sentence, is totally different from that of
a text which has one continuous theme with several rhemes. Theme-rheme
structure has to be regarded as a semantic universal which is realized in different
ways by different languages.

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 3. Language means of expressing the theme and the rheme

Many languages, like English, resort to different means in order to signal a

new topic, such as:

 Stating it explicitly as the subject (which tends to be considered more

topic-like by the speakers).
 Using passive voice to transform an object into a subject (for the above
reason).
 Emphasizing the topic using clefting.
 Through periphrastic constructions like "As for...", "Speaking of...", etc.
 Using left dislocation (called topic fronting or topicalization, i. e. moving
the topic to the beginning of the sentence).

Examples:

The dog bit the little girl.

The little girl was bitten by the dog.

It was the little girl that the dog bit.

Speaking of the girl, she was bitten by the dog.

The little girl, the dog bit her.

Means to express the rheme include: a particular word order with a specific
intonation contour, an emphatic construction, a contrastive complex, intensifying
particles, the indefinite article, ellipsis, and graphical means.

Examples:

They found the report extremely valuable. – Extremely valuable they found
the report.

It is the report that I need.

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 I need the report, not the statistical data.

I need only the report.

The orchestra greeted the guests at the entrance. – There was an orchestra
greeting the guests at the entrance.

Where are you going? – To the movies.

Please be careful. – I am being careful.

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 Coclusion

In conclusion, the distinction between theme and rheme is useful in that it

allows conducting semantic analysis of single sentences and bigger texts. This is
possible because these notions are oriented not only to the structural aspect of
discourse, but also to its semantics which enables us to go beyond the level of a
sentence and to explore theme – rheme relationships on a larger scale such as
websites and, possibly, other multimodal texts.

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 References

http://window.edu.ru/catalog/pdf2txt/740/67740/41104?p_page=10

https://studfile.net/preview/5081037/page:8/

https://blogonlinguistics.wordpress.com/2013/11/27/theme-and-rheme/

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