Breaks in Thematic Progression

Abstract

This article examines Daneš’ (1974) thematic progression in editorial articles from the British newspapers The Sun and The Times. It outlines the need for a different type of progression category in cases where the choice of theme precludes the functioning of any of Daneš’ types. Whilst his threefold model (sometimes expanded to a four or five- fold model) is recognised as the normal or ‘unmarked’ means of progressing a written text, there appears to be a major theoretical lacuna, namely what happens when theme is not only something other than the subject, but something grammatically incapable of functioning as subject of a clause or sentence.

To remedy this situation a category of ‘breaks’ (in thematic progression) is proposed. Breaks are thematised elements that cannot be subjects or participants in a text and may include elements functioning as exclamatives, WH- and polar interrogatives, verb groups, it and there predicates and bound clauses, as well as elliptical ‘annex’ themes. Breaks appear to lend themselves well to changes in the rhetorical direction of a text and are typically employed for evaluative purposes. Examples from The Sun and The Times are discussed and tentative conclusions regarding the rhetorical strategies behind them are offered.