Thematic and Informational Structure in English Journalistic Discourse

Abstract

Theme is the point of departure of a clause. The organization of sentence has two parts theme and rheme. The theme typically contains familiar known or given information , and frequently serves to present given information. Rheme is the rest of the message , so rheme contains new information. The present study investigates thematic and informational structure in journalistic discourse headline and text in nominalization , nominal group, and passivation. The journalistic discourse consists mainly of declarative sentences to avoid breaks. The word order of thematic element patterns and their organization occur according to the term of markedness , unmarked and marked themes. The sentence elements in thematic position attract the readers' attention as noted by Halliday (2014). The data of the study have been taken from varied English newspaper, magazine and journals. The models are Halliday's (1985,2014) functional grammar and Paltridge's thematic progressions ( Zig-Zag , Continuous reiteration , C gap , C type and multiple theme /split rheme).