Theme and Rheme
Why does a paragraph of correct sentences still not flow?
In Halliday’s grammar, the Theme is a clause’s starting point, up to and including its first piece of content, and the Rheme is the rest of the clause, where the message develops.
A student in Hanoi writes four grammatical sentences about air pollution, each starting somewhere new: Pollution…, People…, The government…, Motorbikes…. Yet the paragraph reads like a pile of facts, and the trouble lies in those starting points.
The idea comes from Czech linguists of the Prague School. Vilém Mathesius split the sentence into the part the speaker starts from, usually known or obvious from the situation, and what the speaker says about it. Halliday (1967) recast this for English: the Theme is the clause’s point of departure, recognised by coming first, and the Rheme is everything that follows. He kept Theme apart from Given information, which is what the speaker assumes the listener already knows; the two often coincide, but need not. Scholars still debate where Theme ends. Halliday stops at the first piece of content (a person or thing, an action, or a time or place), while some extend it to the Subject.
František Daneš showed that Themes across a text form patterns, called thematic progression. In linear progression, one sentence’s Rheme becomes the next Theme; in constant progression, the same Theme recurs; in derived progression, Themes branch off one overall topic. Our student’s Themes jump about, so the reader cannot follow the argument. The fix is to make each Theme pick up earlier material, often by packing the previous Rheme into a noun (nominalisation). Theme is part of how a text organises itself, the kind of meaning Halliday tied to mode.
In actionRepairing thematic progression
Hanoi’s air is badly polluted, mainly by motorbike exhaust. This smog forces many residents to wear masks. Masks, however, treat only the symptom. The real solution is cleaner transport, such as electric buses.
This smog and Masks each pick up the previous Rheme (linear progression), and The real solution answers the symptom, so the reader can follow the argument.
In the classroom
- 1
Have learners underline the Theme of every main clause in their own paragraph, then read the Themes alone, top to bottom. If the Themes do not sketch the argument, revise them.
- 2
Model linear progression on the board: turn Motorbikes emit fumes into a Theme for the next sentence (These emissions…). Then give pairs a jumbled paragraph to reorder and repair.
- 3
Collect Theme choices from model essays, such as linking Themes (However, In contrast) and marked Themes, where something other than the Subject comes first (By 2030, In rural areas). Discuss how each signals a new step in the genre.
Myth and reality
Theme is just another name for the grammatical Subject.
Theme is defined by position, not grammatical role: in Yesterday the price rose, Yesterday is a marked Theme and the price is Subject. In declaratives, Theme and Subject coincide only when the Theme is unmarked.
Reflect
When you write “doesn’t flow” on an essay, could you point to the exact clauses where the Themes lose track of what came before?
Worth a minute before your next lesson, or a conversation in the staffroom.
SourcesChecked against Crossref and library records
Vilém Mathesius and the Prague School first split the sentence into a starting point and what is said about it, an approach Jan Firbas developed as functional sentence perspective. Halliday (1967) redefined Theme by position and kept it separate from Given information.
Halliday, M. A. K. (1967). Notes on transitivity and theme in English: Part 2. Journal of Linguistics, 3(2), 199–244.
Daneš, F. (1974). Functional sentence perspective and the organization of the text. In F. Daneš (Ed.), Papers on Functional Sentence Perspective (pp. 106–128). Academia; Mouton.
The classic statement of thematic progression and its main types, still the basis for most classroom work on paragraph flow.
Fries, P. H. (1995). Themes, methods of development, and texts. In R. Hasan & P. H. Fries (Eds.), On Subject and Theme: A Discourse Functional Perspective (pp. 317–360). John Benjamins.
Argues that a text’s Themes together create its method of development, linking clause grammar to whole-text organisation.
Halliday, M. A. K., & Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. (2014). Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar (4th ed.). Routledge.
The standard reference: the chapter on clause as message sets out topical, textual, interpersonal and marked Themes.
North, S. (2005). Disciplinary variation in the use of theme in undergraduate essays. Applied Linguistics, 26(3), 431–452.
In Open University history of science essays, students with arts backgrounds got higher grades, partly through Themes that presented knowledge as interpretation rather than fact.
ConnectionsSee it in the graph
- Genre Pedagogynot yet writtenGenre teaching uses Theme to show how texts move through their stages.
- The Teaching–Learning CycleDeconstruction and joint construction are natural moments to teach thematic progression.
- Grammatical Metaphornot yet writtenNominalisation lets writers turn a previous Rheme into the next Theme.
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