Theme-Rheme Theory and the Textual Coherence of College Students’ English Writing

DOI

10.2991/essaeme-15.2015.77How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Theme, Rheme, Thematic progression, Textual coherence, English writing.

Abstract

Studies on theme and rheme were sparked off from the concept of theme and rheme proposed by Mathesius in the year of 1939. Since then, many linguists, particularly those from the Prague School, have done many studies in such a field. In 1970, Danes a Czechoslovak linguist among them made analysis of the concept of coherence from the perspective of thematic structure and thematic progression. Thematic structure theory studies a text as a unit of transferring information. It doesn,t focus on these sentences but on those patterns and principles among these sentences. Therefore, it can be introduced in English learning and teaching. Since English writing is one of the most important skills in English learning, which can well evaluate a student’s English level. Students who have no idea about theme and rheme just write what they have thought and imagined in the process of English writing. As a result, abundant passages and paragraphs appear unnatural and loose. It is suggested that in our teaching of English writing, such a research product should be adopted and new thinking approaches should be introduced. We should develop the connotation and denotation of coherence and make it helpful in English writing. This methodology which regards a text as a study object can make students think more about the design of arrangement, inter-textual cohesion as well as logical relations in a text. With the help of thematic progression patterns, essays can be more coherent semantically and structurally.

Copyright

© 2015, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Jian Guan
PY  - 2015/10
DA  - 2015/10
TI  - Theme-Rheme Theory and the Textual Coherence of College Students’ English Writing
BT  - Proceedings of the 2015 International Conference on Economics, Social Science, Arts, Education and Management Engineering
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 344
EP  - 346
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/essaeme-15.2015.77
DO  - 10.2991/essaeme-15.2015.77
ID  - Guan2015/10
ER  -