Theme in Discourse: Thematic Progression' and Method of Development' Re-Evaluated

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Theme in discourse
‘Thematic progression’ and
‘method of development’ re-evaluated*
Peter Crompton
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Fries (1981) hypothesises that the textual phenomena of ‘thematic pro-

gression’ (TP) (Danesˇ 1974) and ‘method of development’ (MOD) provide
discourse evidence for the function proposed by Halliday (1967) for Theme,
in particular that ‘initial position in the sentence, or sentence-level Theme,
means “point of departure of the sentence as message”‘. This paper discusses
the theoretical basis for this hypothesis, in particular the relation between TP
and MOD, and reviews previous empirical research. Further research conduct-
ed by the author is described, into global proportions of TP, TP patterning, and
the relation between TP and rhematic progression (RP) in a small corpus of 80
short argumentative texts. It was found that only small proportions of either
argumentative text, or high-quality argumentative text could be considered as
having a MOD. It was also found that texts had comparable levels of TP and RP.
It is concluded that MOD is not a universal feature of discourse organisation,
and therefore not conclusive evidence for Fries’s original hypothesis.
1. Introduction
In this article I review the theoretical and empirical basis for two closely-related
concepts which have been posited as being of use in discourse analysis, Themat-
ic Progression (hereafter TP) and Method of Development (hereafter MOD). I
also report some research of my own into the empirical basis for these concepts
(part of a larger enquiry into Theme described in Crompton 2003).
TP and MOD are associated with claims made for the function of
Hallidayan Theme, a concept which bridges the syntax and discourse levels of
linguistic description. There are perhaps three groups of people to whom
Functions of Language 11:2 (2004), 213–249.

issn 0929–998X / e-issn 1569–9765© John Benjamins Publishing Company
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214 Peter Crompton
TP/MOD may be of interest: syntacticians interested in the claim that there is

evidence from discourse to justify Theme as a unit of syntactic analysis;
discourse analysts interested in the claim that syntactic Theme expounds
discourse structure; composition theorists interested in the claim that certain
kinds of Thematic behaviour are associated with rhetorical competence.
2. Fries (1981) reconsidered
2.1 The status of TP/MOD

TP/MOD first appeared in linguistic theory in Fries (1981). Fries’s paper seeks
to address a problem with Halliday’s account of Theme: defining the meaning
or function of Theme satisfactorily. Halliday (1967) and (1985) set out unam-
biguous accounts of the form of Theme but explained its function using
metaphors: “the point of departure of the message…the starting point for the
message… what the clause is going to be about” (1985:38–39). Fries (1981) can be
seen as having anticipated the criticism that intuition-based metaphors such as
these cannot be empirically validated. This criticism was in due course levelled:
Perhaps he [Halliday] is tuned into language in a way that the rest of us are
incapable of, but those of us who can’t easily pick out the parts of a clause
which define “what it is going to be about”, or its “point of departure” are
simply unable to decide whether any of his claims about themes are right or
wrong. (Hudson 1986: 797)
A similar criticism of Hallidayan Theme appears in Givon (1995) the burden of

which is that because the communicative function of Theme has not been
defined independently of its form claims about Theme are empirically unfalsifi-
able and theoretically circular. Fries accepted the validity of such criticism: “no
real argument has been brought forward to justify the statement that the Theme
or beginning of a group, clause, or sentence means ‘the point of departure of
the message expressed by that unit’” (Fries 1981: 4). Fries’s remedy was to
mount a defence based on “textual evidence” from “connected text”. The detail
of Fries’s defence is complex and discussed in greater detail below but in essence
he argues that the individual sentence Themes collectively may form noticeable
patterns and that these patterns play a text-structuring role. In terms of dis-
course analysis, Fries’s (1981) implicit claim that a text’s structure can be
detected independently of the text’s context is an unusually strong claim for a
purely linguistic analysis of discourse.
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Theme in discourse 215
Fries (1981) has been influential within the school of Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL): Martin (2001) describes Fries’s paper as “seminal” and
“canonical” and Fries (1981) is often cited by SFL scholars, most notably
perhaps Halliday (1985), as a key to explaining the function of Hallidayan
Theme (e.g. Matthiessen 1992, 1995; Martin 1992; Thompson 1996). In
discourse analysis literature outside SFL, by contrast, the MOD concept appears
to have attracted little notice. The contributions of Hallidayan Theme to debate
on information flow and structure within clauses and sentences and the
Halliday and Hasan (1976) model of cohesion are well-known and commonly
cited but the interaction of Theme and cohesion in MOD/TP theory appears
not to be so well-known. A recent edited collection surveying discourse analysis
(Schiffrin et al. 2001) refers to MOD in a contribution by a leading SFL scholar,
entitled ‘Cohesion and Texture’ (Martin 2001). Other contributions entitled
‘Discourse and Information Structure’ (Ward and Birner 2001) and ‘The
Linguistic Structure of Discourse’ (Polanyi 2001) make no reference to TP/MOD,
however. In other recent introductions to discourse analysis, there are several
references to Theme but none to TP/MOD (van Dijk 1997; Johnstone 2001).
Some scholars have questioned the text-structuring role claimed for
TP/MOD. The authors of another survey of discourse analysis illustrate the
three types of Danešian TP and argue that descriptive texts organised round
time or location are well known for syntactic patterning of sentence-initial
adverbials and clauses. They continue:
It is doubtful, however, whether we can generalise this technique to a topic
development strategy for all non-narrative texts, as seems to be implied by
Winter (1982) and Fries (1983). (Georgakopoulou and Goutsos 1997).
Models of discourse structure from scholars with a similar Firthian background

to that of Hallidayan SFL also appear to discount TP/MOD as text-structuring.
Hoey’s (1991) strongly cohesion-influenced Patterns of Lexis in Text, contains
no reference to TP/MOD. Sinclair (1993, 1994) proposes a dynamic model of
text structure in which there are two kinds of cohesion: (i) that which accom-
plishes encapsulation of sentence-level constituents of previous text and (ii)
that which does not. Into the latter category he assigns much cohesive pattern-
ing, including lexical cohesion, which is “not regarded as textual in nature […]
not clearly structural” (Sinclair 1994: 16).
From a composition theory perspective, Vande Kopple (1991: 339) drew
attention to the potential applicability of TP/MOD theory and suggested several
pertinent research questions, e.g. ‘Do all texts have an identifiable method of
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216 Peter Crompton
development […]?’ and ‘What are the most prevalent methods of development
in contemporary English prose?’ To my knowledge, these questions have not
been addressed.
In summary, Fries’s (1981) claim that TP/MOD plays a role in expounding
discourse structure, has been accepted within SFL but either disputed or largely
overlooked outside SFL. What I would like to do in this paper is to re-evaluate
TP/MOD, first considering their theoretical basis and then looking at empirical
evidence relating to them.
2.2 Problems in evaluating the core claims for TP/MOD

The core claims regarding TP and MOD in Fries (1981) are the following:
Step 1: Thematic progression correlates with the structure of a text.
Step 2: Thematic content correlates with the method of development of
a text (and the nature of the text). (Fries 1981: 4)
Evaluating these hypotheses is difficult for a number of reasons. One of these is

that neither Fries nor subsequent Theme theorists thought it necessary to
attempt definitions of the terms used: TP was a concept borrowed from Daneš
(1974) and MOD is treated as a commonplace rhetorical term. I think it is
helpful to recognise that following the adoption of Fries’s (1981) ideas, when
these concepts have been referred to in SFL literature (e.g. Halliday 1985,
Martin 1992, Matthiessen 1992, Thompson 1996) it is generally as components
of a specifically Hallidayan model of Theme in discourse. For them to serve
Fries’s original purpose, however, which was to provide independent evidence
of the validity of Hallidayan Theme, they need to be viewed as concepts
independent of Hallidayan Theme.
A second and related difficulty in evaluating claims about TP/MOD is that
the relation between the two concepts is unclear. Some overlap would appear
inevitable but the precise nature and the degree of the overlap is a matter for
interpretation. TP and MOD are both semantic and structural text properties.
In his abstract Fries states that thematic content correlates not only with TP but
with “if the passage is outlinable, the outline structure of the passage” (1981: 1).
My own reading would lead me to interpret Fries (1981) as intending the
following relation between TP and MOD: TP is the superordinate term and
MOD refers to a text structure based on one of the three TP types described in TP
theory (Constant). However, it seems clear from the SFL literature that a more
prevalent interpretation (e.g. Halliday 1985) is the following: MOD is the
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superordinate term for a text structure based on any of the three TP types (Con-
stant, Linear, Derived). The concepts of TP and MOD have coalesced within
subsequent SFL literature: Ventola and Mauranen, for example, write of “all the
major methods of thematic development” (1991: 476) and the hybrid term
“thematic development” appears in the title and introduction of an edited
collection on Theme (Ghadessy 1995). To ensure completeness of coverage, I have
chosen to designate the two concepts by the awkward but unified label ‘TP/MOD’.
To these terminological difficulties in evaluating TP/MOD must be added
two more concerning their epistemological status. First, there is some ambiva-
lence in the literature as to what extent TP and MOD are everyday linguistic
phenomena and to what extent they are ideal abstractions. Are they principles
of linguistic description or rhetorical prescription? Do all texts have TPs and
MODs — just as all sentences have Themes — or only rhetorically effective
texts? Do all rhetorically effective texts have TPs and MODs or only some? The
concept names themselves imply a degree of universality, i.e. that there is a
semantic progression in the cumulative sentence Themes of any text and that
this Theme-based progression is the method by which that text is developed.
Fries (1981) could be interpreted narrowly as hypothesising that where texts
have a clear text structure, that text structure correlates with TP and that where
texts have MODs these correlate with thematic content. In some cases, however,
Fries seems to have been interpreted as hypothesising more broadly that all
texts have TPs which correlate with text structure and all texts have MODs which
correlate with thematic content, as exemplified in the following statement:
The choice of clause Themes plays a fundamental part in the way discourse is
organized; it is this, in fact, which constitutes what is often known as the
“method of development” of the text. (Halliday 1985: 62)
A second epistemological difficulty in evaluating TP/MOD is that the more

universal statements italicised above seem in places (as in the last quotation) to
have been interpreted not as hypotheses to test but as already proven principles.
Matthiessen, to take another example, argues that: “thematic selections have
been shown to key into [MOD] (see Fries 1981, for the original research)”
(1995: 26). MOD’s discourse function has been further explained by means of
new metaphors, for example “[a] lens, an orientation, a perspective, a point of
view, a perch, a purchase” (Martin 1992: 489). MOD has been positioned within
larger theoretical frameworks, also often associated with new metaphors —
periodicity (Halliday 1985; Matthiessen 1992, Martin 1995b), scaffolding
(Martin 1995a), logogenetic ideational networks (Matthiessen 1995). Such
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218 Peter Crompton
assimilation into larger theory may suggest that TP/MOD are conceived of as
universal rather than contingent properties of texts.
If TP/MOD were indeed textual universals, what would remain for research
would simply be the details of variation across genres. In this paper, I would like
to step backwards a little, treat Fries’s Steps 1 and 2 as hypotheses to be tested,
and examine the evidence for and against them.
2.3 Evidence for claims in discourse

Regarding the general issue of evidence for research hypotheses in discourse
analysis, Tomlin et al. (1997) suggest that there “are three principal method-
ological strategies employed in the analysis of text and discourse: (1) introspec-
tion-based analysis, (2) text counting methods, and (3) experimental and quasi-
experimental methods”. In this typology, the methodology of Fries (1981) can
be seen as a type (1) strategy — introspection-based:
Argumentation consists largely of documenting numerous examples congruent
with one’s [theoretical] definition and hypotheses (Tomlin et al. 1997: 101).
Martin (1992; 1995a; 1995b) and Matthiessen (1992; 1995) have written
defending and refining Theme using the same introspection-based methodolo-
gy as Fries (1981), that is, by documenting examples of TP/MOD in selected
texts. As well as introspection, insofar as Fries (1981) sought the evidence of third
party informants as to the comprehensibility of texts with manipulated Themes, he
ventured a little into type (3) strategy — quasi-experimental methods.
The main weakness of Fries’s (1981) own evidence for his hypotheses is its
paucity. The claim about correlation of TP and text structure, for example, is
supported by the evidence of two analysed paragraphs: how far these paragraphs
can be considered representative of text perceived as well-structured is not
clear. Significantly, Fries himself appears to regard Fries (1981) as in need of
empirical support. Fries and Francis over ten years later argued there was a need
“to collect and analyse far more data” (Fries and Francis 1992: 52). In a 1995
review of work published on Theme since Fries (1981), Fries describes that
article as having made two hypotheses (concerning TP/MOD) and adds two
further hypotheses (concerning Theme and genre, and Theme and generic
elements of structure). He argues that work published on Theme since 1981
“has generally supported the four hypotheses” but argues for “a considerable
expansion of the data which are used to test them” (Fries 1995b: 339), pointing
out limitations in the size and spread of the data samples used in previous
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studies. In discussing the lack of “robustness” ‘of previous empirical studies

Fries implies that, even in principle, introspection-based methods are insuffi-
cient to prove generalisability. It seems clear to me that analysis of further
selected texts (e.g. Matthiessen 1995; Martin 1995a) per se cannot be relied on
to support a general claim about TP/MOD in discourse, any more than, say, the
continuing citation of selected texts written in blank verse would support a
claim that all texts are written in blank verse. By the same token of course, the
continuing citation of selected texts which do not fit a particular claim would
not necessarily undermine it. What is required is to analyse representative
samples of language collected independently of criteria suggested by the claim.
Rather than replicating Fries’s (1981) introspection-based methodology,
one way to confirm/disconfirm his hypotheses would be to employ a different
methodology. Tomlin et al. argue that “the best overall strategy in studies of
discourse semantics” is “to provide convincing evidence from an array of
studies” (1997: 102). The research reviewed below and my own research
employed a text-counting (type 2) methodology, in which “critical theoretical
notions are operationalised through a set of heuristic counting procedures”
(Tomlin et al. 1997: 101).
Because form and function are so tightly knit in TP/MOD theory,
operationalising the “critical theoretical notions” is important. In discussing
research on the relation between language form and communicative function
Givon points out:
If two entities A and B are said to correlate, then neither can partake in the
other’s definition; otherwise stating that they “correlate” is stating a tautology.
(Givon 1995: 309).
To say anything worth saying about the relation between TP and text structure,
then, a definition of text structure is required which is independent of Theme.
Similarly, any claim about correlation of thematic content and MOD requires a
Theme-independent definition of MOD. In order to carry out empirical research
on TP/MOD, two sets of operationalisations are required: first, for the Theme-
bound concepts (thematic progression and content); second, for the non-Theme-
bound discourse constructs (text structure and textual method of development).
When the occurrence of these features in texts has been analysed and
quantified, the claim that these features correlate (TP with text structure,
thematic content with MOD) can be tested. To do this it is necessary to be
specific about the details of the correlations hypothesised: as Givon (1995: 306)
argues, to carry out research into functional grammar it is necessary “to make
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220 Peter Crompton
hypotheses about form-function association explicit enough so that they

generate explicit factual predictions”. It is then possible “to subject such factual
predictions to falsificatory testing” (Givon 1995: 306).
In the next section I shall review the core concepts of TP/MOD from a
theoretical perspective, and attempt to flesh out what form the correlations
might take. I shall go on to formulate some specific predictions arising from the
hypothesised correlations and review the findings from previous text-counting
empirical work in the terms of these predictions. Finally, I shall describe further
research of my own into the extent to which the predictions are fulfilled in a
small corpus of argumentative texts.
2.4 The core concepts of TP/MOD

2.4.1 TP and text structure
If Fries’s were the first use of the term, TP might be interpreted as simply the
global set of Themes in a text considered from a dynamic perspective. However,
Fries borrows from Daneš (1974) a typological modelling of how Themes are
connected with previous textual content, reproduced here as Figure 1. What
sometimes appears to have been overlooked is that because Fries was working
from a different account of Theme from Daneš, his account of TP necessarily
differs from Daneš’s. Essentially, Daneš (1974) works within the Praguean
tradition according to which Thematicity is determined contextually rather
than syntactically. Theme, treated as non-Rheme, is discovered indirectly,
employing “a procedure using wh-questions, prompted by the given context
and situation, for eliciting the rheme” (Daneš 1974: 114). Practically this means
that in Figure 1 “the formula TÆR the order of symbols does not necessarily
correspond to the sequence of expressions in a particular sentential utterance
based on this formula” (Daneš 1974: 118). (It seems appropriate to assume,
however, that the vertical arrows, indicating the “contextual connection” of
utterances (Daneš 1974: 112) transfer unchanged to Hallidayan TP.)
For Danešian Theme the TP concept is not a claim about word-order but
about textual connectedness or connexity. For Hallidayan Theme, however, the
TP concept is inevitably a claim about both textual connectedness and word-
order. Fries (1981) effectively adds to Daneš’s claim — that all sentences in a
discourse are connected linguistically to the preceding discourse — a new claim
that the linguistic exponent of this connection invariably appears sentence-
initially. The practical consequences of this difference between Danešian Theme
and Hallidayan Theme can be illustrated by attempting rival analyses of the TP of
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Constant
T1 R1
T1 R2
T1 R3
Linear
T1 R1
T2 ( = R1) R2
T3 ( = R2) R3
Derived
[T]
T1 R1
T2 R2
T3 R3
Figure 1.Daneš’s Thematic Progression Types (Daneš 1974: 118–119) ( T= Theme, R=

Rheme)
the second of the following sequence of sentences from Fries’s first sample text
[1] The process of learning is essential to our lives.
[2] All higher animals seek it deliberately.
(Bronowski (1959: 111) cited in Fries (1981: 8)).
For Daneš the (contextually-determined) Theme of [2] would be it (linked to the

process of learning), and the TP type Constant . For Fries the (syntactically-deter-
mined) Theme of [2] would be All higher animals (linked to our lives) and the TP
type Linear. This mis-match between the Danešian analytical apparatus of TP and
the Hallidayan concept to which Fries has attempted to put the apparatus to work
has practical consequences for empirical research which will be discussed later.
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222 Peter Crompton
Fries glosses text structure as “what ideas are coordinate with or subordi-
nate to what other ideas” (1981: 9). Recognising and describing text structure is
one of the core endeavours of discourse analysis and there are many rival
models from a range of disciplines (cognitive science, sociology, natural
language engineering) as well as linguistics. Fries chooses to employ a rhetorical
analysis of texts, using two text extracts independently analysed by a scholar
interested in rhetoric rather than linguistics (Christensen 1967). A feature of this
analytical system is its simplicity. This could be a drawback in that the simple
binary distinction subordination/co-ordination appears to conflate various
notions pertaining to text structure such as dependency, hierarchy, weighting.
Fries’s discussion of the two example texts seems to propose the following
correlations:
TP type Structural feature
Linear subordination
Constant co-ordination
One feature of this correlation is that it leaves out mention of a structural

correlate for Derived TP. Another feature is that there is no TP type to correlate
with superordination, that is no TP to indicate that a sentence is structurally
higher than its predecessor, unless co-ordinate with a higher previous Theme.
Logically, this means that the opening sentence of a text must always be at the
apex of the text’s structure: in terms of Fries’s visual representation of structure
as patterns of indentation it would be impossible for sentences to appear to the
left of the opening sentence. This appears to be an inherited feature of
Christensen’s original modelling of rhetorical structure, and accords with the
privileging of linear priority inherent in TP. If the correlation holds good, the
linearity of a text constrains the formation of its hierarchy. Such a linearity
constraint is not a necessary feature of models of discourse organisation (e.g.
the Problem-Solution-type patterning discussed in Hoey (1983), Mann and
Thompson’s Rhetorical Structure Theory (1987), Polanyi’s Linguistic Discourse
Model (1988)). On the basis of the exemplar texts in Fries (1981) it would seem to
be the case either (a) that Fries is implying that the first sentence is paramount
structurally in well-formed texts, or (b) that there happens to be no TP type which
correlates with non-text-initial sentences which are paramount structurally.
One of Fries’s major arguments is that broadly narrative texts will be
characterised by a structure of repeated co-ordination/Constant TP, while
expository and argumentative texts by contrast will be characterised by a structure
of repeated subordination/Linear TP. As well as citing Christensen’s (1967)
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Theme-independent analyses of text structure, Fries also makes the following

observation as to the model relation between TP and text structure:
ideally, in argumentative or expository prose, each sentence should follow
logically from what has gone before. This implies in part that the point of
departure of each sentence should relate in some way to what has preceded. If
there are unexplained jumps in the sequence of starting points, that implies
that there are breaks in the argument. (Fries 1981: 6)
Such an account of the structure of argumentative texts is intuitively appealing.

However, it offers no argument why points of departure or starting points of
sentences should be found in their (Hallidayan) syntactic Theme. That this is
actually the case would have to be demonstrated empirically.
2.4.2 Thematic content and MOD

‘Thematic content’ seems a relatively straightforward concept, denoting the
content of the global set of Themes in a text. Similarly to text structure, MOD
is argued to be a perceived textual property. The origin of the term is not given
by Fries. It sounds like a term from composition theory but I have been unable
to trace an example of its use. Its function, to develop the text, is “obvious” or
recognised by readers according to Fries (1981: 15). MOD is distinct from other
textual properties possibly perceived by readers, for example, topic and mes-
sage, although Fries notes that topic and MOD may be identical.
Fries depicts the kind of content which correlates with MOD as collectively
constituting (a) a general semantic concept, e.g. relative position, reference to
component parts, contrast in time and/or (b) a lexical system, e.g. living-growing-
changing, wisdom versus chance, concepts to do with government. Fries’s hypothe-
sis of correlation between thematic content and MOD suggests a simple two-
term system:
…if the themes of most of the sentences of a paragraph refer to one semantic
field (say, location, parts of some object, wisdom vs. chance, etc.), then that
semantic field will be perceived as the method of development of the para-
graph. If no common semantic element runs through the themes of the
sentences of a paragraph, then no simple method of development will be
perceived. (Fries 1981: 20)
Mention of both a ‘simple’ and later a ‘single’ MOD suggests that there might
be contrasting complex or multiple MODs but Fries does not pursue this
suggestion. Presumably too great a complexity of MOD would militate against
the functional requirement of MOD that it be obvious to the reader and too
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224 Peter Crompton
many semantic elements in an MOD would be the equivalent of zero-MOD.

The textual meaning of not having a single MOD is not specified, but one
implication of Fries’s article is that single MODs are associated with texts
perceived as rhetorically effective.
In a later paper Fries clarifies that because MOD is a psychological phenom-
enon, the correlation hypothesis — that reader perceptions of MOD are
associated with Theme content — should be “testable using standard psycho-
logical testing techniques” although this has not yet been done (1995a: 9).
3. Previous text-counting research on TP/MOD
3.1 Background
The relative paucity of text-counting studies on TP/MOD may be a result of
theoretical difficulties over analysing Theme. Hasan and Fries (1995) discuss
some of these and conclude that “both [Theme’s] definition and its recognition
criteria stand in need of further clarification” (Hasan and Fries 1995: xxxviii-
xxxix). Continuing debate about correct placement of boundary between
Theme and Rheme, for example, (as carried on explicitly in Downing 1991,
Ravelli 1995, Berry 1996, and implicitly in Fries 1981, Hawes and Thomas 1996
and 1997, Mauranen 1996) has practical implications for the operationalisations
of Theme on which text counting research into TP/MOD must be based.
Of the two concepts, text-counting work appears to have been done
explicitly on TP rather than on MOD. This may arise from (a) the general
conflation of the concepts mentioned earlier and (b) the expense and difficulty
of setting up psychological testing procedures to identify MOD and non-MOD
texts. Overall, research has taken the form of addressing how TP is instantiated
in texts. Assuming some kind of regular relation between TP and MOD, the
larger issue of whether and if so how much MOD is instantiated in text does
not appear to have been explicitly addressed.
In considering the research on TP, I shall begin by attempting to answer the
question “What predictions would Fries’s (1981) hypotheses lead us to make
about counts of TP in textual data?” and then compare these predictions with
actual findings. Overall, it appears to me that Fries’s hypothesis predicts two
broad kinds of text: narrative texts structured by the mechanism of a pattern of
Constant TP and non-narrative texts structured by the mechanism of a pattern
of Linear TP. This prediction can usefully be broken down into three sub-
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predictions concerning related issues: (a) correlation between TP-type and

genre, (b) patterning or sequences of homogeneous TP, and (c) the sufficiency
of the TP typology. A fourth prediction — and the one of most interest to
composition teachers — relates to the issue mentioned earlier of whether
MOD’s status is descriptive or prescriptive (i.e. whether MOD is conceived as
an unmarked textual norm or as a rhetorical ideal). For convenience sake I shall
call this the (d) quality prediction. The discussion of previous research which
follows is organised around each of these predictions in turn. In each case, the
prediction is stated in its most extreme form. Given that we are dealing with
texts, which are not ‘rule-bound’, it is immediately unlikely that the predictions
will be borne out in the way that they are formulated here. However, expressing
them in simple, unhedged form has the advantage of making it clearer precisely
what issues are involved and what kind of evidence is needed as a basis for
reliable claims.
3.2 Genre
Prediction: In narrative texts all or most sentences will be found to have Constant
TP, while in argumentative and expository texts all or most sentences will be found
to have Linear TP.
Fries cites work by Enkvist (1978), who analysed fifteen sample text
segments from different literary and academic texts in terms of global propor-
tions of the various TP types, and found “two major stylistic poles”: a ‘static’
style in which (translated into Fries’s terms) Constant TPs predominate over
Linear TPs, exemplified by a Hemingway novel extract, and a ‘dynamic’ style,
exemplified by a social science article, in which Linear TPs (translated into
Fries’s terms) predominate over Constant TPs. Dubois (1987) analysed TP in
independent clauses in an academic conference paper and found Linear TPs
were far more common than Constant TPs. Both Francis (1990) and Gomez
(1994) found Constant TPs to predominate in narrative genres, news stories.
Fries (1995b) analysed TP in three kinds of texts: obituaries, narratives, and an
expository text. Overall he found that Constant TPs predominate in narrative
texts (obituaries and narratives for children) and that Linear TPs predominate
in descriptive sections of narrative texts and expository texts. Constant TPs
predominated in narratives for adults but less so than in narratives for children.
Hawes and Thomas (1996) compared TP in the editorials of two British
newspapers, The Sun and The Times. While Linear occurred at similar levels in
each newspaper, Constant TP occurred twice as often in Sun editorials as in
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226 Peter Crompton
Times editorials. Ventola and Mauranen (1991) found similar proportions of

both Linear and Constant TP in social science journal articles written in English
by native English and Finnish speakers.
Overall, then, research suggests that the prediction overstates the case but
that it is correct to some extent: narrative texts are likely to have greater
proportions of Constant TPs than of Linear TPs; in expository and argumenta-
tive texts these relative proportions are likely to be either equal or reversed. The
proportion of Derived TPs, however, is unpredicted: this is discussed further
under the sufficiency prediction below.
3.3 Patterning
Prediction: In texts perceived as well-structured the constituent sentences will be
found to have the same type of TP. Thus there will be patterning formed by
sequences of homogeneous TP.
Fries (1981: 9) offers as evidence of a “strong correlation” between the TP
within a paragraph and its “perceived structure” two TP example text-segments.
In the text exemplifying Linear TP, Fries notes that only one of the six sentences
deviates from this TP. (Fries illustrates Constant and Linear patterning but does
not discuss whether it is possible for sequences of Derived TP to form patterns:
I discuss this issue below in reporting my own research (§4)).
The strongest evidence in support of the patterning prediction are the
findings of Gomez (1994) who looked at TP in radio news broadcasts and
found a “very smooth” single type (Constant) was the norm. Researchers who
looked for patterned sequences in samples from other genres had different
findings. Francis (1990) analysed TP in three different text types found in
newspapers — News, Editorials, Letters. In News she found Constant TPs
“common…but by no means universal”. In Editorials and Letters it was
“difficult to see a theme-rheme pattern emerging, even at paragraph level”
(1990: 70). Hawes and Thomas (1997) counted length of sequences of TPs of a
single type in texts by NNES learners of English of differing proficiency levels.
They report that the Advanced learners were less than half as likely as Lower
Intermediates to use sequences of three or more progressions of a single type.
It is worth noting in addition that most researchers have sought to distinguish
between TPs which referred to the previous sentence and those which referred
to an earlier sentence, categorising the latter as ‘non-contiguous progressions’
(Dubois 1987) ‘thematic jumps’ (Mauranen 1996), ‘gaps’ (Hawes and Thomas
1997), ‘skips’ (Fries 1995b).
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Overall, these findings suggest that rather than being either a discourse
norm or a discourse ideal, homogeneity of TP may be associated with narrative
texts, in particular oral narratives, and texts by lower proficiency learners.
3.4 Sufficiency
Prediction: In all texts, all sentences will be found to fit one of the TP types.
In practice, the degree of fit between Fries’s adopted TP typology and the
data varies according to the analytical practice of the researcher. The biggest
areas of variation are in the treatment of (i) Derived TP and (ii) non-Thematic
Progression.
As already noted Fries (1981) contained no exemplar text for Derived TP
and has little to say about its structural implications or its association with
genre. Both Dubois (1987) and Hawes and Thomas (1996) counted Derived
TPs and noted that the hyper-Theme from which such Themes derived could
lack a textual exponent in the previous text and need to be inferred. Hawes and
Thomas (1996) found this category of TP extremely common: Derived TP was
the main TP type in every Times editorial and half of the Sun editorials. Hawes
and Thomas (1997) also found a correlation between ESL proficiency and
Derived TP: Derived TPs constituted a third of the TPs in Advanced learners’
but only 5% in Lower Intermediate learners’ writing. Ventola and Mauranen
(1991) found that journal articles by native English speakers contained Derived
TPs while similar articles in English by native Finnish speakers did not.
Mauranen (1996), by contrast, decided that Derived TP was a synoptic category
and that in terms of a dynamic analysis all TPs could effectively be categorised
as Constant or Linear. All these findings are from argumentative genres, so the
issue of whether Derived TPs also appear in narrative genres has not yet been
addressed. Perhaps the safest summary of these findings is that where Derived
TP was measured it was found to be associated with either style or English
proficiency rather than with genre.
Several researchers encountered TPs which could not be accounted for in
terms of Fries’s typology. Dubois (1987) suggested the term ‘unrecoverable’ TP.
Ventola and Mauranen (1991) classed TPs which did not fit as ‘unmotivated’
and found 25% were in this class. These nearly all occurred paragraph-initially,
which might offer Fries’s theory the missing structural correlate of Derived TP.
Mauranen (1996) found ‘unmotivated’ TPs rare in articles by native-speaker
writers in either English or Finnish but not uncommon in articles by non-native
English speaking Finns writing in English: her conclusion was that such TPs are
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228 Peter Crompton
characteristic of deviant, lower proficiency English. Hawes and Thomas (1996)

classed TPs which do not fit the typology as breaks. Overall, 31% of the TPs in
Sun editorials and 15% of the TPs in Times editorials were classed as breaks. In
Hawes and Thomas’s (1997) ESL learner texts there was considerable variation
but for most groups breaks accounted for around at least around a quarter of all
progressions. Unfortunately, they do not record whether these breaks correlated
with paragraph boundaries.
Many researchers (including Enkvist 1974, Mauranen 1996, Hawes and
Thomas 1996, and Cloran 1995) noted another kind of omission in the TP
typology: there were occasions when a Theme had no cohesive link with
previous text but there was such a link in the Rheme — what we might class
Rhematic Progression (hereafter RP). However, counts of RP where recorded
are unreliable because RP was considered only as a fall-back option. In fact, it
is possible that the same sentence could contain both a TP and an RP. As
Enkvist (1974) noted, to avoid the in-built Theme bias of TP analysis one
would need to carry out two independent text analyses. While Mauranen
(1996) considers RP in her data as deviance from native English-speaker norms,
Cloran (1995), looking at mother-child dialogues, reaches an almost opposite
conclusion: she argues that TPs and RPs mark different kinds of relation in a
hierarchy of text structure: TPs indicate embedding and RPs expansion. This
seems a similar claim in nature, though quite different in detail, to Fries’s claim
about the correlation between different TP types and subordination/coordination.
Overall, then, there is widespread evidence that Fries’s TP typology is
insufficient to cover the numerically significant kinds of Theme-Rheme
progression observable in argumentative texts.
3.5 Quality
Prediction: Texts conforming to the correlations hypothesised in the patterning and
genre predictions are more likely to attract favourable judgements of quality than
texts deviating from these correlations.
Of the studies cited only Mauranen’s (1996) appears to offer indirect confir-
mation of this prediction. Overall, only three studies looked at texts written by
non-native-English speakers and in those cases only non-narrative texts were
analysed. In the absence of analyses of narrative texts by NNES writer, and given
that most researchers found considerably more complexity and variation in the TP
in non-narrative texts by NES writers than did Mauranen, the bulk of the research
discussed cannot be regarded as confirming the quality prediction.
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3.6 Summary
The genre prediction is partly supported in that the research suggests that there
is something of a correlation between Constant TP and narrative segments of
text. Such text is likely to have a higher proportion of Constant TPs and more
extended sequences of Constant TP than non-narrative text. The predicted
correlation of non-narrative and Linear TP is much less supported. The
patterning prediction is little supported: extended sequences of homogeneous TP
of any type are rare. The sufficiency prediction is also little supported: Derived TPs
and sentences without recognisable TP are much more common than predicted.
Finally, there is little evidence either way for the quality prediction.
Before leaving this discussion of previous research, it ought to be noted that
theoretical differences mean that the studies considered are not entirely
comparable. The commonest unit of analysis was the independent clause, with
initial subordinate clauses treated as thematic (Gomez (1994) alone counting
the themes of subordinate clauses). How Theme extent was determined varied
more: Enkvist (1974) considered everything prior to the main verb as thematic,
Mauranen (1996) everything up to the end of the subject, while Hawes and
Thomas (1996; 1997) included the subject in the case of “adjunct-only”
Themes. Francis (1990) adhered to Fries’s (1981) guidelines.
4. Further text-counting research on TP/MOD in argumentative texts
I will now report some research of my own, designed to further evaluate Fries’s
(1981) hypotheses, with reference to the same predictions discussed in the
previous section, i.e. genre, patterning, sufficiency and quality.
4.1 Methodology
4.1.1 The data
I chose to focus on a text-type which, in my experience, is often required of
students on EAP courses — an argumentative essay which discusses a contro-
versial issue and expresses and defends a point of view on the issue. I decided to
analyse texts by NES and NNES writers, sharing Mauranen’s assumption (1996)
that texts by NES writers are more likely to attract favourable judgements of
writing quality than texts by NNES writers.
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230 Peter Crompton
My NNES data was taken from examination essays for a one year EAP course
for Universiti Brunei Darussalam management faculty first year undergraduates.
The essay prompt required candidates to make a case for one of two opposed
approaches to an issue (that of delegating responsibility for managerial decision-
making). In order to allow a more fine-grained analysis of the quality prediction,
it was decided to analyse two NNES samples, a high and low quality sample. To
arrive at (Theme-independent) judgements of writing quality the following
procedure was adopted. Each of the 57 answers to the EAP examination prompt
had had a mark out 15 assigned to it by the original instructor/examiner. I ar-
ranged for the scripts to be second-marked by an experienced EAP teacher from
the same department and given a holistic score from 1–6. Each rater’s set of marks
was ranked and the two rankings combined. The twenty at the higher (higher-
graded) end of the combined ranking were placed into one subcorpus and the
twenty at the lower (lower-graded) end of the combined ranking into another. The
marks were allocated holistically and in ignorance of the topic of my research.
I wanted to analyse Native-English speaker (NES) data as similar to this
data as possible. Finding plausible models of NES target performance for this
kind of text was not straightforward. In the end I opted for two samples: one
sample of texts by NES peers of the NNES writers (university students), another
by NES experts (professional writers). The first sample was taken from essays
forming part of the LOCNES1 corpus, written by students from Indiana
University at Indianapolis, USA, taking an English composition course. The
essays were produced in response to prompts requiring students to choose and
make a case for or against fairly simple statements such as “Crime never pays.”
Finding samples of argumentative text by NES expert writers was more prob-
lematic as ‘for and against’ type essays are seldom produced outside educational
assessment contexts. Biber (1988: 204) suggests that student essays lack “well-
defined discourse norm in English”. I opted for broadsheet newspaper editorials
on the grounds that they are similar to the student essays in some respects,
namely text-size, content, style, and purpose: I reckoned these to be about 500
words, non-technical, formal, and persuasive, respectively.
The complete data therefore consisted of four samples or subcorpora of 20
texts of about 500 words each, summarised in Table 1 (The names and match-
ing abbreviations have been adopted for convenience only: the authors of the
first three subcorpora are all both ‘learners’ and ‘apprentices’ but ‘learner’ has
recently come to be used in the corpus linguistics literature for NNES learners
of English (e.g. Granger 1998), and the labels ‘NES learner’ and ‘NNES learner’
seem both cumbersome and easily confused.).
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Table 1.Details of the data samples

Subcorpus Short Authors Texts Source No. of No. of No. of
name texts sent.s words
Learner 1LL NNES EAP examina- author’s 20 378 7004

(Low) Bruneian man- tion essays collection
agement un- (low-rated)
dergraduates
Learner 2LH NNES EAP examina- author’s 20 532 10036

(High) Bruneian man- tion essays collection
agement un- (high-rated)
dergraduates
NES 3NA NES US uni- English compo- LOCNES 20 539 10381

Apprentice versity students sition assess-
ment essays
NES 4NE NES UK pro- editorials Guardian (6) 20 619 12469

Expert fessional jour- (UK broadsheet Times (7)
nalists newspapers) Telegraph (7)
Total – – – – 80 2068 39890
To investigate the quality prediction, I posit a cline of perceived textual

quality, from Lowest in the NNES Learner (Low) texts to Highest in the NES
Expert texts. I also wanted to investigate whether, in terms of TP characteristics,
NNES texts perceived as being of higher quality more closely resembled NES
texts than those perceived as being of lower quality.
4.1.2 Unit of analysis

Halliday (1985) and Fries and Francis (1992) argue that independent clauses are
the most appropriate unit of analysis for investigating Theme for textual
analysis. The reason for the greater importance attributed to independent
clauses is that their Themes are less formally constrained than dependent clause
Themes. Halliday argues that “there is a kind of scale of thematic freedom” and
the further one moves from the Speaker’s complete freedom of choice in
selecting Theme for an independent declarative clause “the more the thematic
options are restricted by structural pressures from other parts of the grammar”
(Halliday 1985: 61). According to the SFL principle that meaning is choice (“A
system network is a theory of language as choice” Halliday 1985: xxvii), inde-
pendent clause Theme choices can be regarded as more meaningful than depen-
dent clause Theme choices.
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232 Peter Crompton
Fries (1981; 1995b) used as a unit of analysis “an independent clause

together with all hypotactically related clauses and words that are dependent on
that independent clause”, a unit which he terms an independent conjoinable
clause complex. Like Hunt’s (1965) T-unit, or minimal terminable unit, this
treats paratactically related complete independent clauses as separate units with
their own Themes. In cases of hypotaxis, if the subordinate clause occurs first
Fries treats the entire subordinate clause as Theme of the complex; if the
superordinate clause occurs first that clause’s own Theme is treated as the
complex’s Theme.
I have chosen to follow the practice of Enkvist (1974) whose basic unit of
analysis was the macrosyntagm (after Loman and Jorgensen 1971). This
practice follows the orthographic sentence more closely than Fries’s clause
complex, in that “co-ordinate, complete main clauses capable of standing as
well-formed sentences” are treated as units, as are fragments punctuated as
sentences. The following two orthographic sentences, for example, would be
divided into three units of analysis (themes underlined):
John came and Bill left; the house was peaceful again. Which suited Mary
fine.
(Note that Fries would treat and as a unit boundary with and Bill as thematic in
the extra unit.)
In general, identifying independent clauses and making them the unit of
analysis is clearly necessary with spoken monologic texts. With written mono-
logic texts, however, it seems less appropriate: writers clearly intend sentences
to have some formal status in the reader’s consciousness as a mediatory level
between clauses and texts. As in most cases they are identical, and for ease, I
shall from now on refer to the units of analysis in this research as sentences.
4.1.3 Placement of Theme-Rheme boundary

Lexical content is necessary for analysis of TP and MOD. Sentences with non-
representational It and There as unmarked Subjects and hence ideational
Themes therefore present a problem for TP analysis. Following the examples
given by Fries (1981; 1995a; 1995b), where thematic It or There were non-
representational I adopted the practice of including in the ideational Theme the
first lexical item following the verb. It clauses which had been analysed as
interpersonal Themes on the grounds that they are expressing the writer’s
opinion of the probability of the following proposition and are functional
equivalents of adjuncts such as in my opinion were not analysed as marked
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ideational Themes. In these cases the ideational Theme was analysed as the
unmarked Subject of the following clause, for example, the love of money was
analysed as the ideational Theme of the following sentence:
However, it is true that the love of money is the root of all evil. (3NA5)
4.1.4 Method of analysing TP

Each sentence in the data was analysed and assigned to one of Fries’s three TP
categories. TP analysis is based on assigning a semantic link between the
content of two different units within a text. It seems to be an unavoidable
feature of TP research that there is a degree of subjectivity in assigning such
links: lexical cohesion and reference have to be interpreted by subjects. In
general, it is easier for an analyst to be confident that their subjective interpreta-
tions are likely to be common (i.e. shared by other analysts) when interpreting
links between contiguous than between non-contiguous sentences: Constant
and Linear TPs are therefore more straightforward to identify than Derived TPs.
Derived Themes may theoretically derive from one of two sources: explicit and
implicit hyper-Themes. A special kind of hyper-Theme is what Martin (1992)
calls a ‘macro-Theme’. While hyper-Themes exist at paragraph level, macro-
Themes are higher level Themes such as headings and titles. All of the texts in
my data have one easily identifiable explicit hyper-Theme in the form of the
following macro-Themes: (a) a title, for the editorials, or (b) the assignment
wording, for the essays. In practice, analysing a Theme as Derived from a
textual macro-Theme is not always straightforward. Here is a possible example
from an editorial about a new government public relations initiative:
[1] Utopia Limited: A bid to convince us that everything is fine [title]
[…]
[20] Any complacency about what is involved must surely be dispersed by…
(4NE1)
The Theme of sentence [20] may be Derived from the macro-Theme. Any
complacency is plausibly related to everything is fine, and what is involved to A
bid but to confirm the analysis the claims of other candidate antecedents in the
intervening sentences would need to be considered. The analyst’s level of
confidence in inferring such links is likely to vary.
Naturally-occurring examples of incoherent or nonsensical texts, such as
the discourse of aphasic patients or discourses containing typographic errors,
are extremely rare. It is predictable that in highly-rated texts it will be easier to
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234 Peter Crompton
analyse links than in lower-rated texts. When analysts such as Ventola and
Mauranen (1991) analyse a TP as ‘unmotivated’ they presumably intend not
that there is no motivation for a particular Theme — that the text is in some
sense aphasic — but that the motivation is difficult to recover, at any rate using
purely linguistic evidence such as lexical relations. However, as one of the
overall goals of this research is to assess how far the results of independent
measurements of thematising behaviour correspond with perceptions of writing
quality, I specifically did not wish to employ an analytical procedure for
detecting TP which itself used ease/difficulty of assessing links as a parameter.
To take account of the factors discussed above, and to sequence consistently
consideration of the various competitors for the source of cohesion in Theme,
I adopted the following iterative, ‘two pass’ approach to analysing TP in the
data. Overall, I looked for evidence of a link between a sentence’s ideational
Theme and previous sentences in the text. Beginning with Step 1 on the first
pass, then, if there was a link between a sentence’s Theme and the previous
sentence’s Theme I analysed the TP as Constant. If there was a link with the
previous sentence’s Rheme, I analysed the TP as Linear. If the Theme explicitly
referred to an item in the text’s macro-Theme, I analysed the TP as Derived. If
none of these sources appeared to yield a link I then began a second pass. I
looked at the previous sentence but one for evidence of a gapped Constant or
gapped Linear TP, gaps in TP having been recognised by previous researchers
(see §3.3 and also Pery-Woodley 1989: 159f). If there was evidence of a link with
the previous but one sentence I analysed the Theme as Constant or Linear,
again based on whether the reference was to an item in Theme or Rheme of the
earlier sentence. If there was no such evidence, I analysed the Theme by default
as Derived. The procedure is summarised in Table 2 and a sample analysis
illustrating each TP type is shown in the Appendix.
The procedure is only one of several which could have been adopted: I
might, for example, have privileged explicit lexical references to textual macro-
Themes over immediately previous textual Themes (i.e. made the current Step
3 Step1). This would have obscured however, the extent of Constant TPs where
the thematised referent was also contained in the macro-Theme. The analysis
privileged (a) Constant (b) Linear and (c) ‘Derived from macro-Theme’
respectively. This privileging reflects the pre-eminence given to Constant and
Linear in Fries (1981). By the end of the second pass, Derived is a default
category. Overall, then Derived TP encompasses (a) Themes clearly linked to
textual macro-Themes, (b) Themes possibly linked to sentences earlier than the
previous two sentences and (c) Themes for which no link can be found — the
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Table 2
Procedure used in analysing TP
Step TP type criteria
First Pass 1 Constant Theme refers to an item also referred to in the

Theme of the previous sentence
2 Linear Theme EITHER
(a) refers to an item also referred to in the Rheme

of the previous sentence
OR (b) encapsulates (Sinclair 1993) the whole of

the previous sentence
3 Derived Theme refers to an item referred to in the text’s

title
Second Pass 4 Constant Theme refers to an item also referred to in the

Theme of the previous but one sentence
5 Linear Theme EITHER
(a) refers to an item also referred to in the Rheme

of the previous sentence but one sentence
OR (b) encapsulates (Sinclair 1993) the whole of

the previous sentence but one
6 Derived Theme refers to an item not referred to in the

previous two sentences
equivalent of Ventola and Mauranen’s (1991) ‘unmotivated’ TPs.

To further test the predictions described above (§§3.2–5), I decided to carry
out three enquiries into (a) the global proportions of TP types, (b) homogeneity
of TP, and (c) the global proportions of RP types.
4.2 Enquiry 1: Global proportions of TP types

4.2.1 Method
The numbers of sentences with each TP type were tallied by subcorpus.
4.2.2 Results and Discussion

The proportions of Fries’s TP types in the data are presented in Table 3.
There is some support for the genre prediction, in that Constant TP is the
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236 Peter Crompton
Proportions of TP types in the data (as %)

Table 3.
TP type Sub-corpus
1LL 2LH 3NA 4NE All

Constant 21 11 26 24 20
Linear 43 45 34 35 39
Derived 36 44 40 42 41
Total 100 100 100 100 100
least common type in all four samples of argumentative text.

The quality prediction with regard to the genre prediction is not met in a
clear manner. Supporting the prediction that higher quality argumentative text
will have fewer Constant TPs than lower quality argumentative text is the fact
that the higher-graded NNES subcorpus (2LH) has a much lower proportion of
Constant TPs than the lower-graded NNES subcorpus (1LL). Conflicting with
the prediction, however, is the more general finding that the NES subcorpora
have higher proportions of Constant than do the NNES subcorpora.
Turning to the sufficiency prediction, the generally high level of Derived
TP, equalling or outstripping that of Linear TP in three of the four subcorpora,
although matched in some previous research, is not predicted. Higher propor-
tions — about 10% more of all TPs than in NNES texts — of Derived than of
Linear among the NES corpora also strike a blow to the genre and quality
predictions, according to which Linear should be the TP type par excellence for
well-formed argumentative prose.
4.3 Enquiry 2: Homogeneity of TP

4.3.1 Method
To assess fulfilment of the patterning prediction, it was decided to measure the
extent of homogeneity of TP at the level of paragraph. Although Fries (1981)
couched his hypotheses in terms of texts, his analyses are of text-segments and
at points he refers to the MOD of a paragraph. Only paragraphs in the corpus
of three or more sentences were analysed. This is because an individual TP
exists not as a property of a sentence but as a property of the relation between
at least two sentences. To be able to judge paragraph-level TP homogeneity one
therefore requires at least two TPs, that is three sentences.
To operationalise a minimal level of homogeneity I took as a starting point
the following working definition:
To be considered minimally homogeneous more than 50% of the TPs in a

paragraph must be of the same TP type.
This means for example that a three-sentence, two-TP paragraph which has two
Constant TPs was treated as homogeneous, while a similar paragraph with one
Constant and one Derived TP was treated as heterogeneous. 336 of the 423
paragraphs in the data (79%) comprise three or more sentences and therefore
have the potential to be analysed as having a minimal level of homogeneous TP.
The maximal level of homogeneity would of course be 100%.
4.3.2 Results and discussion

The fourth row of Table 4 shows what proportion of 336 eligible paragraphs
could be considered to have homogeneous TP according to maximal and
minimal definitions of homogeneity. The preceding rows give details of which
TP types predominate, or form the majority, in the 336 paragraphs considered.
Table 4 shows that even at the minimal level of homogeneity only a little over
half the paragraphs would be defined as homogeneous: at the maximal level
about one seventh would be so defined.
According to the genre prediction, we would expect to find a particularly
strong association between homogeneity and the Constant and Linear TP types
and as this is a corpus of argumentative text we would correspondingly expect
little Constant patterning and much Linear patterning. The figures shown in
Table 4 provide mixed evidence. In support of the prediction, even at the
minimal level of homogeneity only 7% of paragraphs have Constant dominated
homogeneity of TP. Also in support of the genre prediction there are consider-
ably more paragraphs with Linear dominated TP (about 29%). The genre
prediction is undermined, however, by the high proportion of paragraphs with
homogeneous Derived TPs (23%). The combined high proportion of Derived
homogeneous and non-homogeneous paragraphs (65%) contradicts the
patterning prediction.
The quality hypothesis would lead us to predict that although nearly half of the
paragraphs in the corpus lack a minimal level of homogeneity this lack will be
unevenly weighted across the subcorpora and that the higher quality the subcorpus
the more homogeneous paragraphs it will contain. Figure 2 shows the lack of such
a simple relation between quality and TP homogeneity. The lowest quality and
highest quality subcorpora have the lowest degrees of homogeneity. While the
most homogeneous corpus of all four is the NNES (2LH) subcorpus, within the
NES subcorpora, high prestige texts by professional writers had about two
thirds the level of TP homogeneity of that of essays by university students.
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238 Peter Crompton
Proportions of the dominant TP types (as %) by degree of homogeneity

Table 4.
Homogeneity/majority TP type Degree of homogeneity
more than 50% 100%

(minimal) (maximal)
Homogeneous
majority Constant 7 1

majority Linear 28 6
majority Derived 23 7
Total 57 14
Non-homogeneous 43 86
Total 100 100
At this point it would be useful to review the patterning prediction. In

many ways this seems to me to be the central prediction of Fries (1981). SFL
theoretical work on textual periodicity (Halliday 1985, Matthiessen 1995,
Martin 1995a; 1995b) seems to be founded on it. The essence of the claim for
periodicity seems to be that the existence of overall patterning in the Themes of
a text makes the individual Themes in that text in some sense predictable.
Martin (1992; 1995b), for example, argues that hyper-Themes are predictive of
100%
Proportion of all paragraphs
90%
80%
70%
Constant
60%
50% Linear
40% Derived
30% Non-homog.
20%
10%
0%
1LL 2LH 3NA 4NE TOTAL
Subcorpus
Figure 2.Proportions of homogeneous paragraphs (at the minimally homogeneous

level)
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paragraph Themes and that “texts which do not make use of predicted patterns
of interaction [between lexical strings and Theme selection] in this way may be
read as less than coherent” (1992: 437). The analyst’s link analysis is presumably
conceptualised as mirroring some kind of ‘enabling’ (Matthiessen 1995),
dynamic, real-time text-processing mechanism employed by the reader. I
interpret the periodicity/patterning as being enabling in the following way: as a
Constant TP paragraph unfolds the reader is enabled to predict that any new
sentence Theme will be linked to the previous sentence’s Theme.
The practical details of periodicity in text segments without Constant TP
have not been dwelt on. As a Linear TP paragraph unfolds the reader is perhaps
enabled to predict that any new sentence Theme will be linked to its
predecessor’s Rheme. Can successive Derived TPs form patterns which are
perceptible to readers? In my analytical procedure, if successive Themes refer to
the same hyper-Theme, only the first will be counted as Derived. Thereafter,
Themes will be analysed as Constant. If a paragraph has two successive Derived
TPs, then, these Themes must be derived from different hyper-Themes or no
hyper-Theme at all. In either circumstance it is difficult to see how the two
Themes are patterned, or how the first sentence Theme could be interpreted as
predicting the second. If no real-time prediction can be made I would argue
that there can be no patterning. Sequences of homogeneous Derived TP can,
therefore, be no different in effect from sequences of heterogeneous TP.
If only Constant and Linear-dominated paragraphs can be considered as
patterned, only approximately a third of all paragraphs are patterned. In the
highest quality texts (i.e. the Expert 4NE subcorpus) the proportion is even
lower: TP patterning does not appear to approach being a default condition.
This being the case, it is difficult to see how individual instances of a given type
of TP could function predictively — or in such a manner as to create reader-
expectations — or therefore be considered as text-structuring. On the evidence
of the data used for this research, text extracts such as those cited in Fries (1981)
in which there is a sustained use of a pattern-forming TP type cannot be
considered representative either of all texts or of texts likely to be perceived as
well-structured.
4.4 Enquiry 3: Global proportions of RP types

4.4.1 Method
The next enquiry was designed to focus on the sufficiency prediction: how
sufficient is TP as an account of the way texts can be structured? Fries’s claim
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240 Peter Crompton
about text structure and TP can be seen as a claim that cohesion and Theme
interact uniquely. The claim that text structure correlates with thematic
selections is a claim that text structure does not correlate with non-thematic
(i.e. rhematic) selections. One way to assess this claim is to investigate whether
there are similar kinds of cohesive patterning in Rheme, or RP (a line of
research suggested by Enkvist 1974, Francis 1990, Fries and Francis 1992). To
identify ‘similar kinds of patterning’ it seems appropriate to borrow the
Danešian TP typology and adapt it: Figure 3 represents such an adaptation.
Constant
T1 R1
T2 R1
T3 R1
(Linear) Mirror
T1 R1
T2 R2 ( = T1)
T3 R3 ( = T2)
Derived
[R]
T1 R1
T2 R2
T3 R3
Figure 3.Rhematic Progression Types ( T= Theme, R= Rheme)
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Each text sentence in the data was analysed for RP: the procedure for
interpreting links was basically the same as that adopted for TP. (A fourth type
— ‘Zero’ Rheme — was also required for sentences in which it was not possible
to identify a Rheme.)
4.4.2 Results and Discussion

Table 5 compares the proportions of contiguous and non-contiguous progres-
sions according to TP and RP analysis. If my previous argument that Derived
TP is essentially unpatterned is correct, and is extended to Derived RP as well,
Table 5 shows that the most noticeable patterned progression is Linear TP,
followed by Constant RP. Both types are displayed by a little over a third of all
text sentences.
RP has to my knowledge only been investigated hitherto as a default option
when no TP has been detected (Enkvist 1974; Mauranen 1996). The figures in
Table 5 suggest that this practice may have been misleading: there does appear
to be slightly more contiguity of reference and therefore more patterning in
Themes than in Rhemes but not to an overwhelmingly greater degree. There is
more empirical evidence for Constant RP than for Constant TP (37% and 20%
respectively). In general there is almost as much evidence for Constant RP as for
Linear TP (37% and 39% respectively).
One possibility worth exploring might be whether or not there is a comple-
mentary relation between TP and RP: might it be the case, as assumed in TP
research which measures RP as a fall-back progression, that contiguous RPs
Table 5.Proportions of TP and RP in the data compared (as %)

Contiguity/ TP RP
Progression type
Contiguous
Constant 20 37

Linear/Mirror 39 9
Total 59 46
Non-contiguous
Derived 41 52

Zero 0 2
Total 41 54
Total 100 100

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242 Peter Crompton
tend to occur when there is no contiguous TP? Table 6 shows that there is no
simple relation of complementarity between TP and RP. A quarter of text
sentences make no reference to either the Theme or the Rheme of their imme-
diate predecessor sentence, while 30% make reference to both Theme and
Rheme of their predecessor. To summarise, it does not seem justifiable to view
RP as a fall-back textual system which preserves textual connexity in cases
where there is no TP.
TP theory predicts that writers will place cohesive items in Theme (un-
marked or marked) rather than in Rheme, in other words that writers will front
or ‘thematise’ cohesive material. From Table 6, we can see that in fact in 16% of
all text sentences there is no contiguous TP but there is a contiguous RP. This
behaviour is not predicted by the literature on TP/MOD.
Overall, TP/MOD is claimed to be a meaningful interaction between
cohesion and Theme, the meaning being a text-structuring meaning, part of the
textual metafunction. Some of the introspection-based research on TP/MOD
can be seen as having been premissed on an assumption that the nature and
extent of cohesion noticed in successive Themes in particular text segments was
unique to Theme. Uniqueness may have been considered prima facie evidence
of meaningfulness. However, as we have seen, in the same dataset there are
interactions of a similar type and on a similar scale between (a) cohesion and
Theme and (b) cohesion and Rheme. Logically, the existence of similar patterns
outside Theme suggests either (a) that similar phenomena exist outside Theme
and also have a text-structuring function (as suggested by Cloran 1995) or (b)
that neither TP/MOD nor similar non-thematic phenomena are in fact text-
structuring. In either case, the particular link between Theme and text-structur-
ing hypothesised by Fries (1981) is not supported.
Table 6.Overlap of contiguous and non-contiguous RP and TP in the data (as %)

RP
Contiguous Non contiguous Total
Contiguous 30 29 59
TP Νon-contiguous 16 25 41
Total 46 54 100
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5. Conclusion
I would like to conclude by returning to the knotty issue of the relation between
TP and MOD. I have discussed mostly TP in this paper but it will be recalled
that there seem to be two positions on the relation between TP and MOD,
crudely paraphrasable as:
a. MOD correlates with patterns of homogeneous Constant TP or
b. MOD correlates with patterns of homogeneous TP of any type.
Fries’s (1981, 1995b) position would appear to be position (a). Martin’s account
of MOD appears to take this position, although metonymically Martin concept-
ualises MOD as a textual property rather than a reader perception:
of all the experiential meanings available in a given field, [MOD] will pick on
just a few, and weave them through Theme time and again to ground the text
(Martin 1992: 489)
Consistent with previous research on argumentative texts, in my data Constant

TPs form the smallest proportion of TP types; fewer than a quarter of TPs in
NES texts are Constant. Moreover, paragraphs with patterned Constant TP
account for only 10% of paragraphs in high quality texts. If MOD-perception
is held to correlate with Constant TP, the findings of this paper suggest that
most argumentative text could not be perceived as having an MOD.
The other, more catholic, position (b) seems to be Halliday’s position when
he writes of MOD’s “fundamental” role in discourse organisation (Halliday
1985: 62). The research described above into patterning suggests that most
argumentative text could not be described as patterned, and the extent of such
patterning as there is suggests that it is inversely proportional to writing quality.
If MOD-perception is held to correlate with TP patterning of any type, the
findings of this paper suggest that most argumentative text could not be
perceived as having an MOD. Note that psychological testing would resolve
little. If such research were carried out on reader responses to the Expert
argumentative texts (or segments therefrom) analysed above, for example,
necessarily the texts would be perceived either as (a) not having an MOD or (b)
having an MOD. In the case of (a), MOD is proven not to be associated with
judgements of textual quality. In the case of (b), MOD-perception is proven not
to be based on Thematic selections. In either case, the claim of correlation
between Theme and ideal text structure is not substantiated.
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244 Peter Crompton
To summarise, on the basis of the research described here, using either

interpretation of MOD, neither the descriptive claim that all or most texts have
a Theme-based MOD, nor the prescriptive claim that all or most high quality
texts have a Theme-based MOD seem to me to be tenable. In particular,
consideration of the four predictions discussed above (§§3.2–3.5) suggests that
TP/MOD is not sufficient to account for many actual Thematic selections in
argumentative genres, that TP/MOD patterning is present in only a small
minority of text-segments, that the levels of such patterning are not unique to
Thematic phenomena, and that perceptions of rhetorical competence or quality
are only seldom associated with conformity to the kind of TP/MOD patterning
proposed as ideal for argumentative text.
Let us return to Fries’s (1981) original hypotheses (§2.2): step 1, that TP
correlates with text structure; step 2, that thematic content correlates with MOD. The
term ‘correlation’ implies systematicity, complementarity, and completeness. Step
1 thus implies that all types of TP are systematically, and therefore predictably,
related to all types of text structure. The research described here suggests that this
is not the case. Constant TP may be related to narrative text structure but there is
little evidence of complementary relations between other TP types and the
structure of other text-types. Step 2 implies that all types of thematic content are
systematically related to all types of MOD. If there is basically a two-term system
for MOD — MOD texts and zero-MOD texts — then the correlation of MOD and
thematic content has nothing more to tell us about the content of Themes in zero-
MOD texts than that they do not favour the perception of an MOD. The finding
above that the majority of the texts sampled appear to be zero-MOD texts
means that even if the step 2 hypothesis is correct it is largely uninformative.
The research described here has considered only argumentative prose. It
seems clear that in such texts thematic content is more complex and dynamic
than in some other text-types (e.g. spoken news broadcasts — Gomez 1994;
obituaries, narratives for children — Fries 1995b). Regarding the episte-
mological problem discussed earlier, as to whether TP/MOD should be con-
ceived of as textual universal or a contingent property of texts, the evidence
from the data described here suggests that MOD is not a textual universal. From
the perspective of applying textlinguistic theory, given that much composition
instruction, certainly in the ESL domain, is instruction in argumentative or
expository prose the fact that MODs appear to be scarce in argumentative prose
severely qualifies the MOD concept’s usefulness to composition theory.
As an aside, it appears from other research that where MODs exist they are
associated with narratives. Narratives are generally monologues. I am not aware
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of any research claiming to find evidence of MOD in dialogic spoken texts. The
facts that in spoken dialogues thematic selections are made by at least two individ-
uals and that many spoken dialogues are relatively unplanned and unedited would
make such a claim prima facie implausible. Although the argumentative texts
analysed here are written monologues, it seems likely that the structure of such
texts will be modelled to some extent on spoken dialogues. Indeed, it is usually
suggested that it is natural to look for the principles of discourse organisation in
spoken rather than written discourse and in dialogue rather than monologue:
“interactive talk is seen as having a privileged position as a source of explanation
for language structure and change” (Cumming and Ono 1997: 114–115).
Sinclair (1994) argues that differing analytical practices, in particular the
tendency for written text analysis to emphasise retrospective cohesive pattern-
ing and for spoken text analysis to emphasise prospective interactive structure,
may have obscured the fundamental similarity of text structure in written and
spoken language. These considerations might help explain why there appears to
be little evidence of MOD in the argumentative texts considered in this paper.
Regarding future research, the TP research described here focused largely
on the two types which occupy the limelight in Fries (1981), Constant and
Linear. Derived TP, for reasons explained in (§4.1.4), was used as a default
category. For any future research on TP, it would be useful to attempt to
distinguish between Themes which could plausibly be regarded as derived from
previous text and those which could not, which we could perhaps for convenience
term unanticipated Themes. I would estimate, and this is partly supported by
Hawes and Thomas’s (1996) figures for ‘breaks’, that the proportion of the
unanticipated Themes is not negligible. Such findings might in part be explicable
by the phenomenon of RP as a possible parallel strategy of textual development.
The more general implications of the research discussed here for the
interested parties mentioned at the beginning of this article seem to me to be
the following. Syntacticians interested in the SFL claim that syntactic Theme has
a consistent textual meaning might want to look for different and more
universal textual evidence than that offered by TP/MOD. Meanwhile, it seems
to me that both discourse analysts and composition theorists would be correct
to look outside Theme, both linguistically and probably extra-linguistically, to
discover the principles by which discourse is developed and structured.
Received 10 August 2003
Revised version 1 May 2004
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246 Peter Crompton
Notes
*I should like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their comments
and suggestions.
1. The Louvain Corpus of Native English Speaker texts (LOCNES) was kindly supplied to me
by Professor Sylviane Granger, Centre for English Corpus Linguistics, Université Catholique
de Louvain.
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</TARGET "cro">
Appendix
An example of TP analysis. The extract is from the Apprentice subcorpus

(3NA).
Theme Rheme TP type
A lot of what has is the feminists. —
changed women’s
roles
These are groups of people that have defended Linear
women over the years
These people have shown the modern world what women Constant
in the work place can do.
The problem is that these feminists have not looked at all Derived
women.
Author’s address
Peter Crompton
Department of English and Applied Linguistics
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
Gadong BE 1410
Brunei Darussalam
pcrompto@fass.ubd.edu.bn

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Fries (1981) hypothesises that the textual phenomena of ‘thematic pro-

Functions of Language 11:2 (2004), 213–249.

214 Peter Crompton

TP/MOD may be of interest: syntacticians interested in the claim that there is

2. Fries (1981) reconsidered

2.1 The status of TP/MOD

A similar criticism of Hallidayan Theme appears in Givon (1995) the burden of

Theme in discourse 215

Models of discourse structure from scholars with a similar Firthian background

216 Peter Crompton

2.2 Problems in evaluating the core claims for TP/MOD

Evaluating these hypotheses is diﬃcult for a number of reasons. One of these is

Theme in discourse 217

A second epistemological diﬃculty in evaluating TP/MOD is that the more

218 Peter Crompton

2.3 Evidence for claims in discourse

Theme in discourse 219

studies. In discussing the lack of “robustness” ‘of previous empirical studies

220 Peter Crompton

hypotheses about form-function association explicit enough so that they

2.4 The core concepts of TP/MOD

Theme in discourse 221

Figure 1.Daneš’s Thematic Progression Types (Daneš 1974: 118–119) ( T= Theme, R=

For Daneš the (contextually-determined) Theme of [2] would be it (linked to the

222 Peter Crompton

One feature of this correlation is that it leaves out mention of a structural

Theme in discourse 223

Theme-independent analyses of text structure, Fries also makes the following

Such an account of the structure of argumentative texts is intuitively appealing.

2.4.2 Thematic content and MOD

224 Peter Crompton

many semantic elements in an MOD would be the equivalent of zero-MOD.

3. Previous text-counting research on TP/MOD

Theme in discourse 225

predictions concerning related issues: (a) correlation between TP-type and

226 Peter Crompton

Times editorials. Ventola and Mauranen (1991) found similar proportions of

Theme in discourse 227

228 Peter Crompton

characteristic of deviant, lower proﬁciency English. Hawes and Thomas (1996)

Theme in discourse 229

4. Further text-counting research on TP/MOD in argumentative texts

230 Peter Crompton

Theme in discourse 231

Table 1.Details of the data samples

Learner 1LL NNES EAP examina- author’s 20 378 7004

Learner 2LH NNES EAP examina- author’s 20 532 10036

NES 3NA NES US uni- English compo- LOCNES 20 539 10381

NES 4NE NES UK pro- editorials Guardian (6) 20 619 12469

To investigate the quality prediction, I posit a cline of perceived textual

4.1.2 Unit of analysis

232 Peter Crompton

Fries (1981; 1995b) used as a unit of analysis “an independent clause

4.1.3 Placement of Theme-Rheme boundary

Theme in discourse 233

4.1.4 Method of analysing TP

234 Peter Crompton

Theme in discourse 235

First Pass 1 Constant Theme refers to an item also referred to in the

2 Linear Theme EITHER

(a) refers to an item also referred to in the Rheme

OR (b) encapsulates (Sinclair 1993) the whole of