THEMATIC PROGRESSION PATTERNS OF SHORT STORY THE BLACK CAT

Dewi Fatmawati,Rohani Ganie,Muhammad Yusuf,Tengku Silvana Sinar

doi:10.30743/ll.v3i1.1082

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate thematic progression deployed in The Black Cat short story. The objectives of study are 1) To indicate the types of Thematic Progression in “The Black Cat” short story and 2) to describe the realization of Thematic Progression in “The Black Cat” short story. This study was conducted in descriptive qualitative design. The data were taken from the text of “The Black Cat” short story. The source of the data in this study was The Black Cat and Other Stories book written by Edgar Allan Poe. Systemic Functional Linguistics theory proposed by Halliday (1994) was used to analyzed thematic progression in “The Black Cat” short story regarded with Textual Function. In analyzing the thematic progression, there are three kinds of thematic progression: theme reiteration, the zig-zag pattern and the multiple- rheme pattern. The findings showed that the multiple- rheme pattern is the most dominant realized in 32 times (74%), theme reiteration is the second realized in 7 times (16,3%), and the zig-zag pattern is realized in 4 times (9,3%) and the least dominant pattern in “The Black Cat” short story.

Highlights

Theme is point departure of the message (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), or the starting point of the message: what the clause is going to be about (Halliday, 1985; Eggins, 1994)
If Theme is our point of departure, constancy of Theme would mean we are always leaving from the same spot, and that the new information introduced in the Rhemes would not be being followed up
The conclusion could be drawn there are three types of thematic progression from the text “ The Black Cat” short story which can be found in “ The Black Cat and Other Stories” Book they were: theme reiteration, the zig-zag pattern and the multiple—rheme pattern. They were realized with a different pattern of a paragraph as its function or in other words they found their thematic progression in a different form as it used to be

Summary

Introduction

Theme is point departure of the message (Halliday, 1994; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), or the starting point of the message: what the clause is going to be about (Halliday, 1985; Eggins, 1994). It is the element which comes first in the clause. That is rheme where the theme is developed and as the writer or speaker typically departs from the familiar to head towards the unfamiliar.”. The rheme typically contains unfamiliar or new information (Eggins, 2004).

Methods

Results

Conclusion