Under the guidance of the theory of theme and rheme as well as thematic progression patterns, two significant components in Systemic Functional Linguistics, this paper discusses the thematic structure and thematic progression patterns of the Queen’s national speech “We will meet again!” which was delivered on April 5, 2020, when both England and the rest of the world were in the throes of the growing pandemic. With the use of quantitative and qualitative research methods, their distributions and the reasons are explored to figure out the thematic features, the effects, or the functions that have been achieved in Queen’s speech.
Discourse and Genre (the relationship between discourse and genre) Aticka Dewi
We provide some questions to make the discussion clearer
1. What is discourse?
Discourse is the use of language in text and context
2. What is genre?
Genre in linguistics refers to the type and structure of language typically used for a particular purpose in a particular context.
3. What is relationship between discourse and genre?
Discourse analysis is genre analysis. When we analyze discourses, of course we will specify them into more specific types from the characteristics of each discourse. For exampleThe specific type of discourses is called as genre.
4. Why should we use genre to analyze discourse?
Discourse is language in use. It is huge and almost unlimited. So, when we want to analyze discourses, we need a limitation to limit the unlimited things. Here, we use an analogy for this statement. (slide 11,12)
Genre provides limit in discourse.
That is why genre is used to help us divining and analyzing the discourses.
5. How do we analyze discourse through genre?
Example: text “Forklift fatty Improving”.
----------
The text is taken from the newspaper report. As we see in the language features and structures, we can divine it into recount text. It is non fiction, because it is based on real event. And it is written. So, we can say that this discourse has written non-fiction recount genre.
But, we cannot make sure that a type of discourse always has the same characteristics, because discourse is neither absolutely homogenous nor absolutely heterogeneous. Discourse is sometimes heterogeneous. Here, we provide two videos which have the same genre, but quite different in terms of language features and structures.
---------VIDEO
From the videos, we can feel that the first and the second videos are quite different. The structure in the first video is introduction (addressing, personal value), content (some important issues, e.g: financial issues, goals of America, ), closing (hope for American future, blessing). The language features used in the first video is more formal, present tense. The atmosphere created is formal.
From the second video, the structure is introduction (personal value without addressing), content (some goals), closing (. The language features used in the video is mixing, unclear and needs more understanding. The atmosphere created is a bit humorous.
Although they have different characteristics, they have the same genre in term of purpose, that is political genre.
From those videos, we can conclude that we cannot stick to an idea that a genre of discourse always has the same characteristics. AGAIN, discourse is neither absolutely homogenous nor absolutely heterogeneous.
Discourse and Genre (the relationship between discourse and genre) Aticka Dewi
We provide some questions to make the discussion clearer
1. What is discourse?
Discourse is the use of language in text and context
2. What is genre?
Genre in linguistics refers to the type and structure of language typically used for a particular purpose in a particular context.
3. What is relationship between discourse and genre?
Discourse analysis is genre analysis. When we analyze discourses, of course we will specify them into more specific types from the characteristics of each discourse. For exampleThe specific type of discourses is called as genre.
4. Why should we use genre to analyze discourse?
Discourse is language in use. It is huge and almost unlimited. So, when we want to analyze discourses, we need a limitation to limit the unlimited things. Here, we use an analogy for this statement. (slide 11,12)
Genre provides limit in discourse.
That is why genre is used to help us divining and analyzing the discourses.
5. How do we analyze discourse through genre?
Example: text “Forklift fatty Improving”.
----------
The text is taken from the newspaper report. As we see in the language features and structures, we can divine it into recount text. It is non fiction, because it is based on real event. And it is written. So, we can say that this discourse has written non-fiction recount genre.
But, we cannot make sure that a type of discourse always has the same characteristics, because discourse is neither absolutely homogenous nor absolutely heterogeneous. Discourse is sometimes heterogeneous. Here, we provide two videos which have the same genre, but quite different in terms of language features and structures.
---------VIDEO
From the videos, we can feel that the first and the second videos are quite different. The structure in the first video is introduction (addressing, personal value), content (some important issues, e.g: financial issues, goals of America, ), closing (hope for American future, blessing). The language features used in the first video is more formal, present tense. The atmosphere created is formal.
From the second video, the structure is introduction (personal value without addressing), content (some goals), closing (. The language features used in the video is mixing, unclear and needs more understanding. The atmosphere created is a bit humorous.
Although they have different characteristics, they have the same genre in term of purpose, that is political genre.
From those videos, we can conclude that we cannot stick to an idea that a genre of discourse always has the same characteristics. AGAIN, discourse is neither absolutely homogenous nor absolutely heterogeneous.
The goal of this presentation is to make postgraduates and young researchers aware of certain elements in academic research writing such as the use of tenses throughout the whole research project and sentence types. This presentation also highlights some needful linguistic structures to consider, and some common errors to avoid. It provides some helpful guidelines as well.
We present a framework that combines machine learnt classifiers and taxonomies of topics to enable a more conceptual analysis of a corpus than can be accomplished using Vector Space Models and Latent Dirichlet Allocation based topic models which represent documents purely
in terms of words. Given a corpus and a taxonomy of topics, we learn a classifier per topic and annotate each document with the topics covered by it. The distribution of topics in the corpus can then be visualized as a function of the attributes of the documents. We apply this framework to the US State of the Union and presidential election speeches to observe how topics such as jobs and employment have evolved from being relatively unimportant to being the most discussed topic. We show that our framework is better than Vector Space Models and an Latent Dirichlet Allocation based topic model for performing certain kinds of analysis.
The major thrust of this research has been a psycholinguistic analysis of effectiveness of topic familiarity and two types of translation tasks (from L1 to L2 and L2 to L1) on retention of incidental vocabulary learning for a longer duration. The effects of translation tasks and topic familiarity have been studied individually .However, the relative effect of topic familiarity conditions and translation in two directions have not been attended to in longer period of time. In doing so, thirty intermediate EFL students were asked to translate a few texts in two directions with two conditions of topic (un)familiarity .Each text contains some unknown words .The students were tested on these unknown words and the responses were examined in immediate and delayed post tests. The delayed post test session held after 2 weeks. The results show that, unlike the revised hierarchical model (RHM), translation task directions did not have significant effect on incidental vocabulary learning while retention was more effective with topic familiar texts in the both tests .In addition, topic familiarity of the texts play an important part in the process of incidental vocabulary learning. The article concludes with some suggestions for task designing and vocabulary teaching.
UNIVERSALITY IN TRANSLATION: AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSLATION INTERFERENCE IN MULTI...John1Lorcan
Universality in translation has been a research focus in translation studies since the publication of Mona
Baker’s seminal paper in 1990s. The relevant studies mainly explore the various universality rules
governing translation in written texts, however, little attention has been devoted to translation universality
in translating multi-modal texts. This study, with Systemic Functional Grammar and Visual Grammar as
theoretical framework, verifies the validity of Law of Interference, one of the universal translation rules, in
multimodal texts. By statistically comparing transitivity, theme choice, thematic progression and
information value of two magazine articles and their translations, the paper finds that most make-up of the
source text is transferred into the target text or rendered into existing patterns, and that more negative
transfers are observed in transitivity, split theme TP and information value when translating from a major
language. The paper concludes that the Law of Interference is stronger in visual mode while weaker in
verbal mode. The present study shows that the law of interference can be observed in translating
multimodal texts. It also implies that the translation of multimodal texts makes more visible the power of
English, and it helps to perpetuate the hegemony of English in the global world.
Engaging in Critical Language and Cultural Studies Approaches for an Examination of Racism and Migration in the British Public Space
Rasha Ali Dheyab,
Ph.D. Student, Department of English, Faculty of Letters, Ovidius University of Constanța, Constanța, Romania
This article focuses on the relevance of Critical Discourse Analysis and of cultural studies approaches to an examination of racism and migration in the British public space. Critical Discourse Analysis as an active engagement with discourse in the social space is one of these critical approaches. The article is based on Halliday’s systematic functional grammar in terms of transitivity and modality. The main goal of this study is to investigate transitivity and modality about migration as it appears in a number of British tabloids. The focus is on aspects of racism in western countries, where there is a majority of white people and on issues related to patterns of access to the public and issues of inequality, racism and discrimination in the public space. Racism's reproduction and promotion by certain segments of the media is not a simple or straightforward process. It is important to see how the media plays a role in the reproduction of racism.
Keywords: Cultural Studies, Critical Language, Media, Migration, Racism
The Sixth International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature
9-10 October 2021 , Ahwaz
For more information, please visit the conference website:
WWW.LLLD.IR
Similar to Analysis of the Thematic Structure and Thematic Progression Patterns of the Queen’s 2020 National Speech (20)
This study focuses on the listening anxiety experienced by teacher candidates (TCs) in Iran and Turkey. Using different data collection methods, including two questionnaires, listening test, and semi-structured interviews, this study tried to investigate the factors behind Foreign Language Listening Anxiety (FLLA) among Iranian teacher candidates (TCs). The participants of the study in Iran context were 29 teacher candidates studying at BA level in English Language Teaching. All of the participants were asked to complete these two questionnaires with the background information regarding their age, gender, years of language study. The participants’ answers to FLLAS and FLCAS were analyzed with spss to obtain frequencies and percentages. The results were compared to the same study by Bekleyen. The findings revealed that Iranian TCs experienced a high level of FLLA compared to Turkish TCs and showed a significant positive correlation between FLLA and FLCA, which means that teacher candidates with higher levels of language anxiety tended to have higher levels of listening anxiety. In addition, interview data suggested that Iranian and Turkish participants’ FLLA mostly originated from the same source: inadequacy of past education in listening skill. Furthermore, practice was the most frequent strategy used by participants in these two countries to overcome this kind of anxiety.
The main thrust of this paper is to examine the issue of racial segregation in Maya Angelou’s “Caged Bird” via exploring the poem in relation to the circumstances that typify life and existence in the African American context. An attempt is made to situate this poem within the heat of racism, oppression, and class discrimination as well as the search for black identity. The paper relies on New Historicism as the scope of exploration owing to the chunk of influence that history and society bears on African American writing. Then literary critical analysis is made to verify the different aspects of racism and social segregation as represented in the poem.
This article provides an overview of existing instruments measuring self-efficacy for English language learning in both first and second language acquisition fields and their reliability and validity evidence. It also describes the development and use of the Questionnaire of English Language Self-Efficacy (QESE) scale, designed specifically for English language learners (ELLs), and presents an overview of the research findings from empirical studies related to its psychometric properties. A growing body of literature has begun to document encouraging evidence of ELL students’ self-efficacy belief measures and the utility of the QESE in particular. The information pertaining to the QESE is quite encouraging from measurement perspectives and fills the gap in the literature by providing a reliable and valid instrument to measure ELLs’ self-efficacy in various cultures. This paper concludes with evidence for internal consistency, test-retest reliability, structural, generalizability, and external aspects of the construct validity of the QESE. This paper contributes to the growing interest in these skills by reviewing the measures of self-efficacy in the field of second-language acquisition and the findings of empirical research on the development and use of a self-efficacy scale for ELLs.
This study examines written errors in a corpus of 30 compositions produced by 15 students of English as a second language (L2), whose first language (L1) is Spanish. Their ages range from 10 to 11. This paper identifies grammar errors as the most frequent due to L1’s interference in L2 learning. Positive, focused, indirect written feedback is proven to be the most effective, and the L1 seems to help the students to understand the teacher’s metalinguistic explanation to correct errors and avoid mistakes. These results provide insight into language learning given that they offer information regarding the teaching practice.
Reading without proper guidance from the perspective of discourse analysis will be a challenge and torture for English readers. However, most college students are suffering from this sort of tedious reading dilemma due to a sense of failure and anxiety as a result of an inefficient teaching approach. In this paper, the author tries to combine discourse analysis with reading coaching so as to arouse and promote readers’ sense of discourse, with the hope of helping them to read effectively.
In her cross-border debate with Chinese anchor Liu Xin, Trish Regan, an American anchor, behaved differently than what she had done in her previous commentaries. This paper explores the attitudinal differences evinced by Trish Regan on different occasions from a linguistic perspective. Based on the Appraisal System, especially the Attitude subsystem (Martin and White, 2005), this paper examines the attitudinal resources utilized by Trish Regan in her two news commentaries and her online debate with her counterpart Liu Xin—a set of texts which provides a longitudinal account of how Trish has changed her attitude. By annotating the attitude resources used by Trish, positive and negative evaluations are expected to be clarified, with detailed analyses of subsystems in the Attitude System to be given. The results suggest that Trish’s attitude towards China has changed a lot in her commentaries and the debate with Liu Xin—from negative to partly positive. It also appears that Trish maintained a positive attitude towards the United States while she changed her positive attitude towards the trade war into a negative one in her debate with Liu Xin.
The present study examines the role that feedback plays on the development of second language (L2) English learners’ writing accuracy over time. Earlier formal accounts and empirical works have focused on the relevance of corrective feedback (CF) in L2 writing learning (Ellis et al., 2008; Sheen, 2007), and what kind of CF (i.e. direct or indirect) has proved to be the most effective one, especially at low L2 levels (García Mayo and Labandibar, 2017; Ismail et al., 2008). We have analyzed 3 pieces of writing produced by 8 L2 English participants (aged 11 to 12). The participants were randomly divided into two groups, one of them received direct CF on their written tasks and the other group was exposed to indirect CF. Results revealed that both groups seemed to improve their mean scores from the pre-task to the post-task, regardless of the type of CF implemented. However, the direct CF group has proven to benefit more from teacher’s written CF, when compared to the indirect CF group. This is especially the case in the development of grammar accuracy.
Politics is a genre of language, and language is the manifestation of politics (Mazrui, 2008). Political discourse not only plays an important role in the process of national external communication but also conveys certain ideology and political intentions. Based on interpersonal function in Systemic Functional Grammar and using President Xi’s speech at the Extraordinary G20 Leaders’ Summit as the original data, this paper analyzes and explores how this speech can achieve discourse function through personal pronouns, mood, and modality. In addition, this paper reveals how various linguistic resources are used to realize interpersonal meaning in political discourse.
There is an obvious tendency and ample evidence to show Sylvia Plath’s representation of the gendered body throughout her poetry. However, inadequate attention has been paid to the evolution of her such kind of representation. Taking one of her early poems “Pursuit” and a later one “Daddy” as examples, this essay aims to explicate this evolution of representation. In her early poetry, her representation of gendered body centers on Freudian interest as seen in “Pursuit,” but in her later poems this representation changes to her political consciousness as is the case in “Daddy.” Therefore, this evolution embodies both her change of poetic subject matter and her concern with gender politics under the influence of the social culture.
Pragmatic presupposition focuses on the study of the relationship between the speaker and the hearer at the time of communication and the language they used. It can effectively serve advertising language from the linguistic field. In other words, pragmatic presupposition can meet some of the requirements of the advertisements. Nowadays people confront a variety of commercial advertisements, such as food advertisements, drink advertisements, digital product and cosmetic advertisements, etc. In fact, advertising language is the core factor which determines the success or failure of one commercial advertisement. Most domestic and overseas scholars have studied advertising language through cooperative principles,rhetoric and systemic-functional grammar, etc. However, they do not pay enough attention to the pragmatic presupposition manifested in both Chinese and English cosmetic advertisements. Therefore, this paper conducts a comparative study based on previous studies of pragmatic presupposition with new data. The data analyzed in this study are taken from some major fashion magazines in America, United Kingdom and China, such as VOGUE, Cosmopolitan,Trends health,etc. These cosmetic advertisements were advertised in the recent 20 years. Through the analysis, it is found that there is no significant difference between Chinese and English cosmetic advertisements in terms of types of pragmatic presupposition manifested. Both Chinese and English advertisers mainly adopt four types of pragmatic presupposition: existential presupposition, factive presupposition, state presupposition and behavior presupposition, and state presupposition takes up the largest proportion. The present study provides a more comprehensive analysis of pragmatic presupposition and classification of it. In addition, the results of this study also could help advertisers and consumers increase their mutual understanding.
This paper analyses the structure patterns of code-switching quantitatively and qualitatively based on EFL classroom discourse. Through the detailed analysis, the paper finds that there are different structure patterns in which teachers often switch their codes in English classroom. These structure patterns are reflected in different language levels: words and phrases level, clausal and sentence level. The functions of code-switching are determined by those structure patterns that teachers will choose for different purposes in the process of teaching.
As an open social recourse and special language text, linguistic landscape, visibility and salience of languages on public and commercial signs in a given territory or region Landry and Bourhis (1997), and presented on various signs or billboards publicly, can be used as a useful recourse in language learning. Shenzhen, the first Chinese special economic zone, has developed into a fast-growing innovative city. Compared to other cities, Shenzhen has more frequent communications with worldwide visitors. Therefore, its education should be more international and advanced, especially English learning, since English, the most widely used language, is being used in linguistic landscapes increasingly. However, nowadays tedious English learning content and learning methods are unable to meet training requirements of students’ English level in society. Therefore, considering the significance of linguistic landscape in humanities construction and English learning, the government and schools give great importance to the construction of campus linguistic landscape. Through reference to representative research literatures and comparative analysis, this study intends to explore the importance of linguistic landscape in English learning by analyzing differences in campus linguistic landscape between middle schools and universities within Shenzhen from the form and content by introducing the way in which linguistic landscape is presented. And different purposes of its application are introduced in order to understand the application and design of linguistic landscape in different campuses more comprehensively. The research also explores the influence of campus linguistic landscape on students’ English learning, from the perspective of informal environmental penetration, learning material, stirring interest, broadening vocabulary and knowledge and its close relationship with life. This paper adopts the Constructivist learning theory of Piaget (1970). Students establish knowledge about the external world in the process of interaction with the surrounding environment to develop their cognitive structure. This paper concludes that the integration of linguistic landscape can benefit from its educational function to conduct a practice-oriented, teacher-led and student-centered pattern of English learning and improve students’ English learning ability.
Given Folding Beijing’s great importance to Chinese science fictions after winning the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Novelette and Ken Liu’s active engagement in promoting modern Chinese literary works to go global, this paper endeavors to explain how the influences of ideology, poetics and patronage are displayed in Folding Beijing’s English translation from the perspective of Lefevere’s Rewriting Theory. Instead of focusing on the linguistic elements of the translation, the current study attempts to reveal the cultural, social, ideological, and poetical effects on the translator’s decision-making process and tries to explore the reasons for the novelette’s success. It is believed that this paper can, to a certain extent, not only provide beneficial guidance for future practitioners in this translation field, but also offer some reference for the study of translation of Chinese contemporary science fictions.
Speaking in English confidently is a challenging task but very crucial for university students. Graduates with good communication efficiency especially in the engineering field are greatly demanded in the current work industry. Performing confidently is not only important for scoring academic tasks but also to help expand the revenue of the companies at workplace. Thus, a pilot study was conducted to investigate the perceptions of a public technical university engineering undergraduates’ confidence level in speaking English. A mixed method design was employed where a survey and semi-structured interview were conducted for data collection. The participants were selected using purposive sampling method where a total number of 50 undergraduates provided valid responses to the online questionnaire and 5 undergraduates participated in the semi-structured interview. Descriptive statistics using Statistical Package for the Social Science Version 25.0 (SPSS version 25.0) and thematic analysis were adopted for data analyses. The results revealed three main areas that were identified as important to build the students’ confidence in speaking: applying manual skills, familiarization of vocabulary and correct usage of grammar. The findings also highlighted that the participants felt that more public speaking practices should be provided to them to improve their confidence level further in speaking English fluently.
This article is mainly focused on the protagonist Savitri of the novel The Dark Room and how she is alienated from herself, from the society and from the world and about her quest for marital identity. Savitri also goes through the crisis of discontent to the quest for happiness. Savitri of the ancient legend is a paragon of virtue and courage who confronts even Death to save her husband is finally victorious. Ironically unlike the legendary Savitri, Narayan’s Savitri chooses to leave home, husband and children once she comes to know of her husband’s infidelity. Contrary to the legend, Savitri is just an ordinary, amiable, housewife. She abandons her gambler and drunkard husband and her family. But her independence proves detrimental to Savitri’s familial peace. Narayan skillfully portrays her every action and in his ironic subtle fashion puts across the artificiality behind it. As a qualitative research, this researcher has taken the text as a ptimary source and interpreted it from existential point of view.
This study aims at stylistically analyzing Men in the Sun in terms of the use of rhetorical questions and polyphony. The main objective is to show the contribution of these stylistic features (rhetorical questions and use of polyphony) in construing meaning and heightening the aesthetic values of novella and show how focus on specific stylistic features helps in analyzing a literary text. The researchers used the analytical approach to examine how the use of rhetorical questions and polyphony helps in constructing the meaning of the novella and highlighting its main themes. This study will be helpful to students of literature who want to better understand stylistic analysis and how writers use stylistic devices to enhance the meaning they want to convey. The study could also serve as a springboard for further studies in this area and could promote academic discourse on stylistic analysis of various Arabic literary works in English translation.
Genesis claims that ancient languages were divinely diversified as the linguistic origin. In consistence, this article presents systematic evidence for biblical etymology related to all major body parts and organs. For instance, heart is to heat, brain is to burn, kidney is to kindle burnt offering, and muscle is to slice to the multiple. Sandal is sacred land, scared is sacred scarf, and tragedy is to tear garment. Both objective and abstract words exhibit biblical match, such as random and ransom as escaping scapegoat randomly chosen. Biblical etymology of morals 德, love 愛, real真, eternity 永, memory, necessity 必, secret 秘, accident, pardon 恕 and mister is also presented. Novel interpretation in biblical etymology is also presented for several affixes such as 辰, 者, per, and m/l+vowel+n. In definitive etymology, numerous words such as generation, espionage, pregnancy and agriculture are presented to bilingually match bible, especially the scripture of Moses, reflecting divine creation.
In a consumer society, "discourse" has become a way of creation. The narrative of object sets a new perspective, showing the non-material components of the material as much as possible, and people’s positive attitude towards the narrative mode also changes the focus of fashion design work. It is intended to analyze clothing narrative from the three aspects of fashion narrative suggestion, discourse structure and how fashion narrative is consumed.
Regarding the origin of language, Genesis claims that ancient languages were divinely diversified. This testimony presents systematic evidence for biblical etymology related to prophet and priest. Priesthood was pivotal in ancient culture, and religious worship is central to civilization. This testimony presents systematic and surprising evidence for relationship of prophet and priest to biblical etymology, indicating that the old testament culture and method of worship are extensively reflected by etymology of words.
Seraph on the Suwanee, the last novel of Zora Neale Hurston, criticized for deviating from resolving oppression, class, race and gender, shapes a white woman protagonist instead of a black woman protagonist. But actually, it depicts the story of Arvay’s attempts to reject both oppression and the mental submission to oppression just as the oppression and resistance of class and gender are greatly concerned in Hurston’s previous works. Arvay Henson, an oppressed and repressed white woman, motivated by a tenacious belief in her own intrinsic worth and in her rights to individual freedom and social respect, attempts to preserve her integrity through withdrawal, resistance in order to seek her love and her independence as well as her self-discovery. This thesis applies Need Hierarchy Theory proposed by an American psychologist Abraham Maslow to study Arvay’s strategies for meeting her deficiency needs and to analyze her persistent efforts for love as well as the satisfactions of her needs at different levels.
More from English Literature and Language Review ELLR (20)
The Roman Empire A Historical Colossus.pdfkaushalkr1407
The Roman Empire, a vast and enduring power, stands as one of history's most remarkable civilizations, leaving an indelible imprint on the world. It emerged from the Roman Republic, transitioning into an imperial powerhouse under the leadership of Augustus Caesar in 27 BCE. This transformation marked the beginning of an era defined by unprecedented territorial expansion, architectural marvels, and profound cultural influence.
The empire's roots lie in the city of Rome, founded, according to legend, by Romulus in 753 BCE. Over centuries, Rome evolved from a small settlement to a formidable republic, characterized by a complex political system with elected officials and checks on power. However, internal strife, class conflicts, and military ambitions paved the way for the end of the Republic. Julius Caesar’s dictatorship and subsequent assassination in 44 BCE created a power vacuum, leading to a civil war. Octavian, later Augustus, emerged victorious, heralding the Roman Empire’s birth.
Under Augustus, the empire experienced the Pax Romana, a 200-year period of relative peace and stability. Augustus reformed the military, established efficient administrative systems, and initiated grand construction projects. The empire's borders expanded, encompassing territories from Britain to Egypt and from Spain to the Euphrates. Roman legions, renowned for their discipline and engineering prowess, secured and maintained these vast territories, building roads, fortifications, and cities that facilitated control and integration.
The Roman Empire’s society was hierarchical, with a rigid class system. At the top were the patricians, wealthy elites who held significant political power. Below them were the plebeians, free citizens with limited political influence, and the vast numbers of slaves who formed the backbone of the economy. The family unit was central, governed by the paterfamilias, the male head who held absolute authority.
Culturally, the Romans were eclectic, absorbing and adapting elements from the civilizations they encountered, particularly the Greeks. Roman art, literature, and philosophy reflected this synthesis, creating a rich cultural tapestry. Latin, the Roman language, became the lingua franca of the Western world, influencing numerous modern languages.
Roman architecture and engineering achievements were monumental. They perfected the arch, vault, and dome, constructing enduring structures like the Colosseum, Pantheon, and aqueducts. These engineering marvels not only showcased Roman ingenuity but also served practical purposes, from public entertainment to water supply.
Model Attribute Check Company Auto PropertyCeline George
In Odoo, the multi-company feature allows you to manage multiple companies within a single Odoo database instance. Each company can have its own configurations while still sharing common resources such as products, customers, and suppliers.
Instructions for Submissions thorugh G- Classroom.pptxJheel Barad
This presentation provides a briefing on how to upload submissions and documents in Google Classroom. It was prepared as part of an orientation for new Sainik School in-service teacher trainees. As a training officer, my goal is to ensure that you are comfortable and proficient with this essential tool for managing assignments and fostering student engagement.
Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology:
Ethnobotany in herbal drug evaluation,
Impact of Ethnobotany in traditional medicine,
New development in herbals,
Bio-prospecting tools for drug discovery,
Role of Ethnopharmacology in drug evaluation,
Reverse Pharmacology.
Students, digital devices and success - Andreas Schleicher - 27 May 2024..pptxEduSkills OECD
Andreas Schleicher presents at the OECD webinar ‘Digital devices in schools: detrimental distraction or secret to success?’ on 27 May 2024. The presentation was based on findings from PISA 2022 results and the webinar helped launch the PISA in Focus ‘Managing screen time: How to protect and equip students against distraction’ https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/managing-screen-time_7c225af4-en and the OECD Education Policy Perspective ‘Students, digital devices and success’ can be found here - https://oe.cd/il/5yV
How to Split Bills in the Odoo 17 POS ModuleCeline George
Bills have a main role in point of sale procedure. It will help to track sales, handling payments and giving receipts to customers. Bill splitting also has an important role in POS. For example, If some friends come together for dinner and if they want to divide the bill then it is possible by POS bill splitting. This slide will show how to split bills in odoo 17 POS.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
How to Make a Field invisible in Odoo 17Celine George
It is possible to hide or invisible some fields in odoo. Commonly using “invisible” attribute in the field definition to invisible the fields. This slide will show how to make a field invisible in odoo 17.
Operation “Blue Star” is the only event in the history of Independent India where the state went into war with its own people. Even after about 40 years it is not clear if it was culmination of states anger over people of the region, a political game of power or start of dictatorial chapter in the democratic setup.
The people of Punjab felt alienated from main stream due to denial of their just demands during a long democratic struggle since independence. As it happen all over the word, it led to militant struggle with great loss of lives of military, police and civilian personnel. Killing of Indira Gandhi and massacre of innocent Sikhs in Delhi and other India cities was also associated with this movement.
2. English Literature and Language Review
148
More importantly, theme shares the feature of markedness and unmarkedness according to grammatical view
(Halliday, 2000). Thus, it can be divided into marked theme and unmarked theme, and the difference between the
two is their relation with subject. When the theme is equal to the position of the subject, it is then called unmarked
theme, the most frequent sort of theme in discourse. And when the subject does not serve as a theme, it is referred to
as marked theme, which is more prominent and can contain such circumstantial elements as places and times.
2.2. Thematic Progression Pattern
Each sentence has its own thematic structure. When a sentence exists alone, its theme and rheme are definite,
yet when the sentences constitute a text, there will be some connection and change between the theme and the
rheme. This connection and change are called progression, and the basic pattern of theme change summarized from
the seemingly disorder sentences is the thematic progression pattern (Zhu and Yan, 2005).
In terms of thematic progression patterns, linguists have put forward disparate ways of classification. For
instance, Danes proposed five types of thematic progression pattern in continuous discourse Huang (1988); Huang
(1985), put forward seven models of thematic progression in English discourse on the basis of previous studies; and
Zhu (1995), raised four kinds of progression patterns with an integration of different ideas. This paper will adopt the
classification summarized by Zhu (1995) in that it represents quite a basic model with luminous and concise nature.
The four major patterns of thematic progression are parallel, extended, centralized, and crossed patterns
3. Methodology
3.1. Data Collection
The corpus of this study was the Queen’s 2020 national speech taken from the magazine English World.
Founded in 1981, English World is hosted by The Commercial Press and won the title of “the influential journal of
New China for 60 years” in 2009. Furthermore, with certain popularity, it is known for its accuracy and timeliness.
Therefore, it was selected as the source of data collection.
In selecting the Queen’s speech, this study took typicality and timeliness into consideration. On the one hand, as
a form of public speech, national speech presents certain nature with appeal, persuasion as well as agitation, and for
British people, Queen Elizabeth II is undoubtedly regarded as a symbol of this whole nation. Therefore, her speech is
quite typical and of good value. On the other hand, this speech was timely for it was addressed on April 5th
, 2020
when the COVID-19 pandemic showed a rampant tendency in England with a total number of nearly 50,000
confirmed cases.
3.2. Procedures of Analysis
The research data analysis procedures are summarized as follows. First, the material was collected from the
Internet. Then, a relevant theory was employed to analyze the material. Actually, this national speech will be
analyzed by two layouts: thematic structure and thematic progression patterns.
When analyzing the thematic structure, this study identified the theme of the clauses with the purpose of
distinguishing which of them belong to marked themes and which are unmarked themes, and found out the functions
for this manipulation. When analyzing the thematic progression patterns, the speech’s thematic progression patterns
were first marked, and then their different frequencies were calculated and analyzed.
4. Findings and Discussion
4.1. Thematic Structure
As was mentioned above, the theme can be divided into marked theme and unmarked theme from grammatical
view according to Halliday (2000). In this part, the markedness of the themes in the Queen’s national speech was
analyzed. The thematic structure of each clause was explored, and complex one was analyzed as a whole in thematic
structure analysis. Totally, of the more than 500 words in the speech, there are twenty-nine clauses, as is shown in
the Appendix 1 and Appendix 2 at the end of this paper. The Table 1 below depicts the number and percentage of
marked theme and unmarked theme:
3. English Literature and Language Review
149
Table-1. Distribution of Unmarked and Marked Themes
Themes Unmarked Theme Marked Theme
Number 22 7
Percentage 75.9% 24.1%
As can be seen in this table, of the total twenty-nine clauses, there are twenty-two unmarked themes and seven
marked themes, accounting for nearly 76% and 24% respectively. It is suggested, in this speech, that unmarked
themes occupy the majority of the text. In terms of public speeches, it is reasonable for speakers to utilize unmarked
theme more frequently for it is easier for listener to follow and grasp the main idea, and it is the reason why
unmarked theme takes up the most part of this national speech.
4.1.1. Unmarked Themes
While unmarked theme conspicuously dominates this speech discourse, it can actually be presented in a way of
pronoun, nominal, nominal group and so on Chen et al. (2004). Specific statistics are presented in the following
table:
Table-2. Distribution of Unmarked Themes
Unmarked Themes Pronoun Nominal Nominal Group
Number 16 4 2
Percentage 72.7% 18.2% 9.1%
It can be seen that compared with other constituents of unmarked themes, the pronoun appears the most
frequently (72.7%), and the nominal and nominal group account for 18.2% and 9.1% respectively. The reason why
pronouns are the most widely used in this speech is that pronouns are mostly simple for listeners to catch, yet
nominal group like “every hour of your hard work” and “the attributes of self-discipline, of quiet good-humored
resolve and of fellow-feeling” in this speech is less used compared with pronoun and nominal since it is more
difficult to understand, and more efforts are needed to be paid.
Moreover, most of pronouns used are first person pronouns. Specifically, among the sixteen pronouns, the first
pronoun including I and we repeatedly appear thirteen times, taking up more than half of the total unmarked themes.
It is shown in the Table 3 below:
Table-3. Distribution of Pronouns in Unmarked Themes
Pronouns I We It Those
Number 6 7 2 1
Percentage 37.5% 43.8% 12.5% 6.2%
Singular first person pronoun I refers to Queen herself and she used I as a subject 6 times in the speech, strongly
expressing her firm position, attitude and authority as a Queen of Britain. In the meantime, it also demonstrates her
willingness to take the responsibility of uniting the British people to fight against the pandemic. For example:
(1) “I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time”.
(2) “I am sure the nation will join me in assuring you that what you do is appreciated”.
Although first person pronoun in plural form we is slightly complicated with several meanings, in this speech,
six of them refer to both the Queen and the British people. Only one time of we referring to Queen and her sister
appears when the Queen recalled her first broadcast in childhood. Therefore, in general, the use of a large number of
we indicates that the speaker wants to maintain an equal and trustworthy relationship with the audience, and at the
same time, it renders the audience feel that they are standing abreast and carrying a common mission together with
the Queen. For example:
(3) “Together we are tackling this disease”.
(4) “We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return”:
Other pronouns like it and those are directly or indirectly concerned with the British people, trying to confirm
the efforts that they have made and encourage them to confront with the COVID-19 epidemic more bravely.
4.1.2. Marked Themes
The marked themes account less than one third of the total 29 themes in the speech, but it does not mean we can
ignore the essential role of them. In previous studies, some scholars have discussed the functions of marked theme,
such as textual coherence, connection between the preceding and the following and so on (Wang, 2003; Zhang,
2010; Zhao, 2013). Liu and Li (2010), hold that, according to the characteristics of the text, the marked theme can be
divided into two categories: time marked theme and person marked theme. However, due to the particularity of this
text, it is more appropriate to divide marked themes into three types, namely time marked theme, person marked
theme and environment marked theme. And since there’s no person marked one in this speech, the following Table 4
only shows the marked themes of time concerned and of environment related.
4. English Literature and Language Review
150
Table-4. Distribution of Marked Themes
Marked Themes Time Concerned Environment Concerned
Number 6 1
Percentage 85.7% 14.3%
As is show in the table above, for the seven marked themes, six of them are time related, taking up nearly 86%.
Furthermore, among the six marked themes of time concerned, four are such typical ones as “But for now”, “This
time”, “But now”, and “Today”. However, as the other two including “though self-isolating may at times be hard”
and “While we have faced challenges before” are time related as well, we group them into time marked themes.
Unlike the unmarked themes, the marked themes provide the time background, which make the speech clearer and
more coherent on the one hand. And the speaker mentions the past and the present consecutively so as to emphasize
that she has much confidence towards the fight against the epidemic in that British people have overcome so many
difficulties together. Thus, on the other, it is easier to get the audience in the mood by using time marked themes. For
example, she says:
(5) “Today, once again, many will feel a painful sense of separation from their loved ones”.
(6) “But now, as then, we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do”.
However, when the Queen encourages and reassures her people, she also warns them of the seriousness of this
pandemic and urges them to take it seriously, as the following sentence describes:
(7) “While we have faced challenges before, this one is different”.
When it comes to the mere one marked theme of environment concerned, namely “Across the Commonwealth
and around the world”, the speaker attempts to highlight that not only England but also the rest of the world are
making endeavors to help each other through different ways. It can also be seen as a way of encouraging the
audience that they are not fighting alone, but collectively.
4.2. Thematic Progression Patterns
Thematic progression is considered as a kind of text coherence method. As is mentioned above, this paper
adopts the classification by Zhu (1995), and therefore, there are four major types of thematic progression pattern:
constant theme pattern, linear theme pattern, constant rheme pattern, and cross rheme pattern. The thematic
progression patterns of this speech are analyzed so as to figure out how the thematic structures in this text move
forward. Based on the segmentation of the thematic structure of each clause, the thematic progression of the whole
text follows the patterns below:
T1--R1
T2(=T1)--R2
T3(=T1)--R3
T4(=R3)--R4
T5(=T1)--R5
T6(=R4)--R6
T7(=T1)--R7
T8(=T1)--R8
T9(=R8)--R9
T10--R10
T11--R11(R10)
T12--R12(R10)
T13--R13
T14(R13)--R14
T15--R15
T16--R16
T17(=R16)--R17
T18(R17)--R18
T19--R19(R18)
T20--R20(R18)
T21--R21(=R6)
T22--R22(R13)
T23(T6)--R23
T24(R23)--R24
T25(T23)--R25
T26(T23)--R26
T27(T23)--R27
T28(T23)--R28
T29--R29(R2+R5)
As the patterns show, three of the four major thematic progression patters are actually used in Queen’s 2020
national speech with differing occurrences, and more details are shown in Table 5 below:
5. English Literature and Language Review
151
Table-5. Distribution of Thematic Progression Patterns
Patterns Parallel Extended Centralized Crossed Others
Number 10 7 7 0 4
Percentage 36% 25% 25% 0% 14%
From observation, we can see that the parallel patterns normally occur in this speech, accounting for 36%. The
extended pattern and the centralized pattern are tied for the second, each taking up 25%. However, the crossed
pattern is not utilized in this speech partly for it is so complicated that it does not fit in public speech. In fact, the
similar findings are also drawn in previous studies (Jiang, 2017; Li and Cui, 2018). Finally, in the speech, Queen is
found to shift the topics at times, which therefore makes 14% happening of unclear or no thematic progression.
Specifically, the speaker uses a large number of parallel patterns, in which all clauses in this pattern start with
the same theme, and each of the following rheme illustrates the mere theme in an effort to promote the development
of new information. For instance,
(8) I (T1) // am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time......(R1) I (T2=T1) // want to
thank everyone on the NHS front line, as well as care workers......(R2)
(9) We (T1) // should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure......(R1) We (T2=T1) will be with
our friends again; (R2) we (T3=T1) // will be with our families again; (R3) we (T4=T1) // will meet again. (R4)
In example (8), Queen used I repeatedly in the beginning part of the speech not only to succeed in drawing the
audiences’ attention and making the speech simpler, but also to show her authority as a leader of the country. In the
ninth example, she used the pronoun we four times of we in a row, showing that she always stand in the same line
with the people. More importantly, by using the same theme we to connect different rheme, the speaker resonates
with the audiences in an easy manner and clearly presents her strong desire and firm attitudes towards the victory.
As for extended pattern and centralized pattern, they are frequently used in this speech as well. In order to avoid
monotony of the form, and to enhance the coherence, the former is used in which the rheme or part of it in the first
sentence becomes the theme of the second sentence. For the latter, it means two clauses share the same rheme. For
example:
(10) I (T1) // am sure the nation will join me in assuring you that what you do is appreciated, (R1) and every hour of
your hard work (T2=R1) // brings us closer to a return to more normal times. (R2)
(11) We, as children, (T1) // spoke from here at Windsor to children who had been evacuated from their homes and
sent away for their own safety. (R1) Today, once again, (T2) // many will feel a painful sense of separation from
their loved ones. (R2=R1) But now, as then, (T3) // we know, deep down, that it is the right thing to do (R3=R1).
In example (10), although the R1 and T2 are seemingly different in form, what they mean is fundamentally
approximate, that is, to tell the audience that their hard work is truly appreciated and commendable. Therefore, it can
be concluded that the thematic progression pattern between the two sentences is the extended one, which make
Queen’s speech more precise, terse and well-knit. Similarly, in the final example, the R1, R2 and R3 are differing at
the first glance, but with a closer look, we may find that all of them have to do with separation or self-isolation. By
using the same rheme to link the sentences, Queen highlights the important role of separation and attempts to appeal
everyone to take it seriously and actively.
To sum up, of the four major thematic progression patterns, parallel, extended and centralized ones are used
frequently in Queen’s speech. furthermore, it is found that Queen chose a certain pattern in an attempt to guide the
audience and achieve her speech purposes.
5. Conclusion
It is shown that the use of both certain themes and thematic patterns is determined by the purposes that Queen
aims to achieve. With regard to thematic structure, it is found that unmarked themes occupy a dominant role in
Queen’s national speech, among which pronouns including I and we are most frequently utilized, succeeding in
showing her firm attitude and authority as well as willingness to take the responsibility, and in shortening the
distance between her and the audience. While for the minority of marked themes, almost all of them are time related,
which help the Queen to present the speech in a more coherent and clearer manner. When it comes to the thematic
progression patterns, of the four major thematic progression patterns, three of which appear in this speech. Parallel
type holds the largest proportion which is followed by extended and centralized types.
References
Chen, X., Mao, M. W. and Zhou, Y. X. (2004). Discourse analysis of English speeches based on theme and rheme
theory. Journal of Guangdong Ocean University, 34(5): 91-95.
Halliday, M. A. K. (2000). An introduction to functional grammar. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press:
Beijing.
Halliday, M. A. K. and Hasan, R. (1990). Language, context and text. Deakin University Press: Victoria.
Han, K.-H. (2010). Theme-rheme repetition enhances the persuasiveness of speech. Journal of Xinjiang University,
Philosophy, Humanities and Social Sciences Edition, 38(5): 152-56.
Hu, X.-Q. (2013). Thematic structure of News discourse and its ideological significance. Language Planning, (30):
69-70.
Huang, Y. (1985). On theme and rheme in English. Journal of Shanghai International Studies University, 18(5): 32-
36.
6. English Literature and Language Review
152
Huang, (1988). An introduction to discourse analysis. Hunan Education Press: Changsha. 80.
Jiang, X.-X. (2017). The three meta-functions and the construction of national image--a case study of the speech of
the 70th president of Sri Lanka. Foreign Language Research, 34(1): 11-15.
Jiang and Liu, W. (2009). On political speech from the meta-function of language--a case study of Obama’s 2012
election victory speech. Journal of Dongbei University, Social Sciences Edition, 11(4): 360-65.
Li, J. and Cui, X.-H. (2018). A systemic functional approach to political speeches. Literature Education, (11): 24-26.
Liu, H. (2016). Thematic structure analysis of the method part of academic journal papers. Foreign Language
Research, (6): 61-65.
Liu, X.-Y. and Li, L. (2010). An analysis of thematic progression patterns in speeches--a case study of sarah palin’s
acceptance speech. Times Literary, (5): 21-22.
Wang, X. (2003). A functional grammar analysis of gettysburg address. Journal of the Xi’an International Studies
University, 2003(1): 6-10.
Zhang, C.-L. (2010). An analysis of the linguistic features of obama’s victory speech: A systemic functional
perspective. Foreign Language Teaching in Shandong Province, 31(3): 36-40.
Zhao, M. (2013). An analysis of the tendentiousness of four pieces of news from the perspective of systemic
functional grammar. Modern Chinese, (6): 142-44.
Zhu, Y.-S. (1995). Thematic progression patterns and discourse analysis. Foreign Language Teaching and Research,
1995(3): 6-12.
Zhu, X.-S. (2016). A contrastive study of thematic structure in English and Chinese and its application in translation.
Language Planning, (30): 81-82.
Zhu , Y.-S. and Yan, S.-Q. (2005). Multidimensional thinking of systemic functional linguistics. Shanghai Foreign
Language Education Press: Shanghai.