Chapter 2
Literature Review
This chapter reviews the literature that is most relevant in framing the present
research. This chapter is divided into six sections. Section 2.1 examines the definition
of coherence and explores how T/TP contributes to coherence in English writing.
Section 2.2 reviews the studies investigating how T/TP is used in learner English.
Section 2.3 is devoted to T/TP in research articles by non-native English-speaking
(NNES) scholars because these studies could provide insights into the use of T/TP in
EFL/ESL writing due to the fact that NNES scholars themselves were once English
learners and some English learners would one day become NNES scholars.
Section 2.4 goes through the literature investigating the factors influencing how
English learners make thematic choices and employ TP patterns. Section 2.5 reviews
the empirical studies that investigated the effects of instruction on English learners’
use of T/TP. Section 2.6 provides a summary to this chapter.
2.1
2.1.1
T/TP and Coherence in English Writing
Defining Coherence
Coherence is defined by Moore (1971) as the rhetorical quality by which all of the
parts are clearly and smoothly joined to each other (p. 115). It refers to the
understanding that the reader derives from the text, which may be more or less
coherent depending on a number of factors, such as prior knowledge and reading
skill (Crossley and McNamara 2011; McNamara et al. 1996; O’Reilly and
McNamara 2007). Coherence is sometimes contrasted with cohesion which means
the lexical and grammatical items in a text (Halliday and Hasan 1976), whereas
coherence refers to the less tangible ways of connecting discourse which are not
overt and which reside in how people interpret texts rather than in the texts
themselves (O’Halloran 2006; Watson Todd et al. 2004, 2007; Weigand 2009; Yule
1996).
Coherence could also be understood in a broader sense, where it is combined with
cohesion. Johns (1986), for example, proposes that coherence is both text-based and
reader-based. He claims that:
© Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016
J. Wei, Theme and Thematic Progression in Chinese College Students’
English Essays, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0254-0_2
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Coherence is text based and consists of the ordering and interlinking of propositions within
a text by use of appropriate information structure (including cohesion). At the same time,
coherence is reader based; the audience and the assignment must be consistently considered
as the discourse is produced and revised (p. 251).
In this study, coherence encompasses both surface structure of linguistic interrelatedness and underlying relations of proposition. The surface structure of linguistic interrelatedness refers to lexical and grammatical items in a text (for
example, reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, lexical cohesion) utilized by
the writer with the end view of producing a coherent text, which is the “foundation
upon which the edifice of coherence is built” (Halliday and Hasan 1985, p. 94) and
is “an essential feature of a text if it is judged to be coherent” (Parsons 1991,
p. 415). And the underlying relations hold between assertions (or propositions) and
how they contribute to the overall discourse and the relationships among propositions in the text (Flowerdew 1998; Johns 1986), leading to a consistent development of ideas, concepts, or arguments.
2.1.2
T/TP as Means to Achieve Coherence
By holding onto text-based coherence at the local level with lexical and grammatical devices and reader-based coherence at the global level by a requisite of
consistent ideas, T/TP functions as an important means of achieving coherence in
writing.
Text-based coherence at the local level, or the surface structure of linguistic
interrelatedness, allows the reader to make connections between the ideas in the
text. This linguistic interrelatedness is usually divided into 5 groups: conjunction,
reference, substitution, ellipsis, and lexical cohesion (Halliday and Hasan 1976).
Conjunctions are words such as “but,” “if,” and “therefore” which indicate logical
relations between two clauses or sentences; they help to show how ideas are
connected logically. Reference is a semantic relation which can be realized
exophorically or endophorically (within this class either as an anaphoric or cataphoric reference). English has a few words other than pronouns which can be
substituted for other words, phrases or clauses, which include “yes,” “no,” “such,”
“one,” and “so.” Ellipsis is the omission of words which can be recovered or
understood from the context. Lexical cohesion involves many types of lexical
replacements (repetition, synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms, etc.) which are exactly
what one looks for when determining the types of Theme and TP patterns. For
Halliday (1985), textual meaning “is relevance to the context: both the preceding
(and following) text and the context of situation” (p. 53). Here, the focus is particularly on the role played by the Theme in helping to provide texture. The role that
the Theme plays in the textual metafunction of language, which means “creating
relevance to context” (Halliday 2014, p. 85), is not all that straightforward,
although, indeed, Halliday (1994, 2004, 2014) centers his discussion of Theme on
this metafunction. The textual metafunction, which construes the clause as message,
2.1 T/TP and Coherence in English Writing
11
encompasses not only the thematic structure, but also the information structure.
These two structures together “constitute the internal resources for structuring the
clause as message” (Halliday 1994, p. 308).
Reader-based coherence at the global level helps the readers understand the
development of ideas, concepts, or arguments, which coincides with the information structure composed of the two functions: the given information and the new
information. The given information refers to information which is presented as
recoverable, either in the context of the situation or in the surrounding text, in what
has been mentioned previously. The new information refers to information that is
presented as non-recoverable, in that it has not been mentioned before, or it is
unexpected or surprising or in contrast to previous information and/or expectations.
According to Halliday (1994, 2004), the relationship to the textual metafunction of
thematic structure and information structure is that, while both are speaker-selected,
Theme–Rheme is speaker-oriented, in that it is what the speaker decides to take as
the point of departure of the message, while given-new is listener-oriented, in that it
is presented as what listeners already know or have at their disposal at any given
point in the discourse. It is pointed out by Bloor and Bloor (1992, p. 35) that other
things being equal, reading is easier when the new information is presented in the
Rheme position. Ventola and Mauranen (1991, p. 469) also made a similar point
with the statement that “thematic development is important for the readability and
clarity of a text. In a well-formed text, the thematic patterns should reflect the
organization of text-content and facilitate the reading process.” Vande Kopple
(1986) carried out experiments in reading by using texts which followed the “given
first” principle and others which did not, and found a significant difference in
increased readability with the former. For him, given information first “makes good
sense because it is easier to make a connection to what one knows and then add
some new information to it than to receive new information, store it, and then learn
what it connects to” (Vande Kopple 1991, p. 326). Richards (1993) offered thematic
progression as a means that writers could use in order to make their texts more
comprehensible to readers and in order to avoid a major problem of writing, which,
as expressed by Bloor and Bloor (1992), is “how to carry the reader along with the
writer’s assumptions about what is and what is not shared information in the
absence of the possibility of negotiation of meaning such as is available to participants in face to face interaction” (p. 34).
Kane (1988) claimed that coherence bound the sentences of a paragraph, which
could be done in two ways: by establishing a master plan at the beginning of the
paragraph and introducing each new idea with a word or phrase that marked its
place in the plan; and by linking sentences successively as the paragraph develops,
making sure that each statement connected with the one or ones preceding it. The
former can be mapped onto the use of appropriate Theme and the latter, the use of
proper TP patterns. Ultimately, coherence in writing is not only established in the
text but also created in the minds of the readers in their attempt to make sense of the
information flow.
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2.2
2 Literature Review
T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
As demonstrated in the last section, T/TP plays an important role in coherence in
writing by creating unity between ideas, sentences, paragraphs, and sections of a
piece of writing, on both linguistic level and discourse level. How English learners
make thematic choices and use TP patterns has been at the center of investigation as
it is the very first step to our knowledge of the problematic uses of T/TP in
EFL/ESL writing before we could explain these problematic uses and deal with
them. This section focuses on the use of T/TP in EFL/ESL writing.
2.2.1
T/TP and Coherence in EFL/ESL Writing
One line of research in T/TP in EFL/ESL writing demonstrated how appropriate use
of T/TP improves coherence in EFL/ESL writing, by analyzing and correcting their
inappropriate use of T/TP.
Ma (2001) and Wang (2010) illustrated how appropriate use of T/TP contributed
to coherence in Chinese college students’ English writing by comparing writings
that were graded with high, medium, and low scores. It was found that English
writings that were graded with high scores were more coherent, using different
types of thematic progression such as constant progression and linear progression
than writings that were graded with low score in a comparison study of three
writings taken from CET-4 and CET-61 writing sections (Ma 2001). Wang (2010)
concluded that the use of more multiple Themes, clausal Themes, and effective TP
patterns such as constant, linear, split Theme, and split-Rheme progressions could
make EFL/ESL English writing more coherent, based on a detailed analysis of three
writings that were graded with high, medium, and low scores from TEM-41 writing
sections.
Cheng (2002) and Zhang (2004) identified the problematic use of T/TP in
Chinese college students’ writing and showed how coherence in their writing could
be improved by revising the problems with their use of T/TP. Cheng (2002) contended that a major reason for the lack of coherence in Chinese students’ English
writing was inappropriate thematic choices and TP patterns: One third of the 58
student English essays he studied featured in frequent use of Themes that were not
connected either to preceding or succeeding Themes/Rhemes, and TP patterns that
had not been identified. Zhang (2004) examined a total of 50 English essays written
by second-year college English majors and found that almost half of the thematic
choices were confusing, which led to incoherence in writing. She also found similar
problems that Cheng (2002) identified in learner writing, i.e., Themes that were not
connected either to preceding Themes/Rhemes or succeeding Themes/Rhemes.
Other problems that were reported in Zhang (2004) included Themes that were not
key concepts of the writing or irrelevant to the writing topic, and Themes that did
not help develop the writing. Both Cheng (2002) and Zhang (2004) provided
2.2 T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
13
revised version of the English essays, demonstrating how coherence could be
enhanced by changing only thematic choices.
Mellos (2011) demonstrated that appropriate thematic choices and TP patterns
characterized coherence in writing by analyzing the T/TP in eight undergraduate
ESL essays, four of which were evaluated as being high in coherence and four of
which low in coherence. The study found that the more coherent essays employed
dense and complex nominal groups in topical Themes, a wide variety of textual
Themes, and different TP patterns to establish connections between different parts
of the text and comment on abstract ideas relevant to the topic. In contrast, the less
coherent writing frequently overused unmarked Themes of simple nominal groups
or pronouns and Theme reiteration in a way that rendered the writing lacking
development and therefore difficult to follow.
Ebrahimi and Ebrahimi (2012) compared TP patterns in 180 EFL compositions
by 60 Iranian students majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language with
different academic writing experiences, using McCabe’s (1999) model of thematic
progression. The results illustrated significant differences between the three groups:
Senior students used more linear and constant progressions than the other two
groups of students. They justified such a tendency in light of academic writing
experience being one of the factors which influenced producing a more cohesive
text by applying such cohesive devices.
The above studies suggest that T/TP is a very effective and valuable device to
enhance connectivity between ideas in English essays and demonstrated how T/TP
can improve coherence in EFL/ESL writing by making better thematic choices and
employing more appropriate TP patterns.
2.2.2
T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing as Compared to NS Writing
Another line of research focuses on comparing uses of T/TP in EFL/ESL writing
and NS English writing, which makes it possible to identify instances of English
learners’ underuse or overuse of certain features, as well as to investigate how far
and in what ways learners deviate from native-speaker norms. The English learners
that were investigated were from a number of different native language backgrounds including Chinese, Dutch, Finnish, German, Iranian, Norwegian, Polish,
and Swedish.
(a) Themes in EFL/ESL writing
Belmonte and McCabe-Hidalgo (1998), Chen (2010), Green et al. (2000), Hawes
and Thomas (2012), Herriman (2011), Hu (2008), Lu (2013), Qian et al. (2007),
and Wei (2013a, b) investigated Themes in EFL/ESL writing. All the studies show
that English learners deviated from English native speakers for they overused
certain Themes, mainly interpersonal, textual and marked Themes, and underused
Themes such as topical Themes. It was also reported that learners from different
language backgrounds displayed similar performances in their thematic choices.
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A positive finding, however, is the circumstantial evidence to the claim that English
learners did better in their thematic choices as they became more proficient with the
language.
Belmonte and McCabe-Hidalgo (1998) analyzed a sample of 25 Spanish English
learner essays in terms of their Themes, and uncovered common problems for
textual cohesion and coherence in Themes, including confusing selection of discoursal and topical Themes, overuse of “There,” brand new Themes, empty
Rhemes, and Themes with unclear reference.
Green et al. (2000) investigated sentence-initial position in terms of two
topic-fronting devices (beginning For and Concerning) and three logical connectors
(besides, furthermore, and moreover) in an EFL speaker corpus produced by
Chinese college students, with English native-speaker corpus as research baseline.
The findings demonstrated that Chinese college students did have a greater tendency than native speakers to place the connectors investigated in Theme position.
This empirical study was followed by an exercise in which texts containing marked
Themes were analyzed to determine the effects of the markedness on information
structure. It was found that inappropriate occupation of Theme position had a
deleterious effect on information structure, which, in turn, has negative effects on
both local and global text coherence.
Qian et al. (2007) analyzed thematic markedness in one Chinese college student’s expository essay written on a nationwide English examination in China.
These components were further explored through a parallel analysis of an expository essay written by a North American first-year college student. The findings
showed that the Chinese college student used circumstantial elements as marked
Themes repeatedly and favored more emergent modes of textual organization such
as conjunctive adverbs.
Hu (2008) made a comparative study between American college students’
English writing and Chinese college students’ English writing in terms of simple
Themes, multiple Themes, and clausal Themes. She found that Chinese college
students used less simple Themes but more multiple Themes and clausal Themes
than American college students. In multiple Themes, Chinese college students
overused textual Themes such as and, but, however, which was explained by an
overgeneralization of English grammar rules. They also put a lot of temporal
adjuncts and spatial adjuncts at the beginning of a clause, especially spatial terms
such as at the school or temporal terms such as last year, which was accounted for
by the interference of Chinese—their native language.
Chen (2010) investigated features of the Themes used in advanced Chinese
college students’ English speech in comparison with those in native-speaker
English. The findings confirmed that Chinese advanced English learners used
Themes for functions that were different from native speakers in mainly two
respects: temporal adjuncts and interpersonal Themes. Chinese college students had
a tendency to use marked-Theme structures, mainly in the form of temporal
adjuncts and they also used more interpersonal Themes. Chen (2010) pointed out
that fronted temporal adverbials were segmentation markers in native-speaker
speech while they were used as an unmarked device of discourse development and
2.2 T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
15
text structuring in learner speech. In addition, thematized adjuncts and interpersonal
Themes were presumed to serve as communicative strategies in learner English
speech.
Herriman (2011) investigated how Themes in a sample of advanced Swedish
English learner essays contributed to the method of development in their texts. With
a comparison to a sample of English essays by British university students, the
author found that Swedish English learner essays contained more interactional
Themes, which created a dialogic method of development similar to that found in
conversational language. Themes which were typical of expository writing such as
label Themes, on the other hand, were used less frequently.
Hawes and Thomas (2012) examined essays by pre-MA students of journalism,
predominantly from East Asia, and compared their use of thematization with that of
The Sun and The Times, two international newspapers sold in Britain. It was found
that the students were apparently not adequately familiar with English information
structure, based on students’ overuse of marked Themes which resulted in “breaks”
in information flow, placing new information in Theme which should be in Rheme
position and the inclusion of too many elements in Theme which obscured the
topic.
Lu (2013) compared thematic choices in English writing by Singaporean students from an English-speaking background (SE), Singaporean students from a
Chinese-speaking background (SC), and students from the People’s Republic of
China (PRC) at university level. The three groups of students make theme choices
differently from each other: SC and PRC students used less topical Themes than SE
students; PRC students used less textual Themes than both SC and SE students;
PRC students used less interpersonal Themes than both SE and SC students. The
author also found that the writing of Singaporean and Chinese students did produce
various interesting similarities and differences and attributed these similarities and
differences to their sociolinguistic and educational backgrounds. This study suggested that English learners of different background (in this case, English learners
of SC in mainland China and those from Singapore) exhibited closer performance
to each other as compared to native English speakers.
Wei (2013a) investigated how intermediate Chinese college students used
Themes differently from advanced Chinese college students in their English output.
The corpus consisted of comparable data of intermediate Chinese college students,
advanced Chinese college students and English native speakers. Halliday’s (2004)
model of thematic organization was used to analyze the gathered data for Theme
types and Theme markedness. The results of the study revealed that with the length
of time-learning English increasing, the learners become better at making thematic
choices: The advanced English learners displayed closer performance to native
speakers than their intermediate counterparts in terms of the proportion of topical
Themes, textual Themes, interpersonal Themes, and thematic markedness.
In another research, Wei (2013b) studied topical Themes in Chinese English
learner writing and Swedish English learner writing and aimed to find out how
topical Themes in Chinese English learner writing were different from those in
Swedish English learner writing with native-speaker writing as the research
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baseline. The corpus consisted of comparable written data of Chinese college
students, Swedish English learners, and native speakers of English. The results of
the study revealed that the two groups of English learners exhibited more similarities in topical Themes than differences. They displayed closer performance to
each other not only in all three types of topical Themes, but also in two of the five
elements in informational Themes, two of the three elements in interactional
Themes, and all three elements in discoursal Themes.
(b) Thematic progression in EFL/ESL writing
As pointed out by a number of scholars (for example, Belmonte and McCabeHidalgo1998; Qian et al. 2007; Jalilifar 2010a; Herriman 2011), inappropriate
thematic choices may influence TP patterns, which is why more and more scholars
studied thematic progression together with thematic choices in EFL/ESL writing.
Belmonte and McCabe-Hidalgo (1998), Qian et al. (2007), Jalilifar (2010a),
Herriman (2011), Rørvik (2012), and Medve and Takač (2013) studied TP patterns
in EFL/ESL writing and native-speaker writing. These studies found deviation of
TP patterns in EFL/ESL writing from native-speaker writing.
In their analysis of 25 Spanish English learner essays in terms of their TP
patterns, Belmonte and McCabe-Hidalgo (1998) found a number of problems
including overuse of constant progression, a large stretch of text between a concept
mentioned in a Rheme and its subsequent placement in Theme, and overuse of there
leading to inconsistency in discourse development, as well as brand new Themes
resulting in unmotivated Themes.
In the comparative analysis of two expository essays written by a Chinese
college student and a North American first-year college student (Qian et al. 2007), it
was found that the Chinese college student was restricted in her ability to use linear
progression as a cohesive strategy by the use of circumstantial elements as marked
Themes repeatedly. It was also reported that the Chinese student seemed to favor
more emergent modes of textual organization such as conjunctive adverbs that were
frequently overused by EFL/ESL students (Schleppegrell 2004), leading to Themes
without apparent textual cohesion and a lack of linear progression as this mode of
textual organization did not draw on the Rheme of a previous clause for the Theme
of the next clause.
Jalilifar (2010a) made a frequency and functional analysis of TP patterns of 90
Iranian college students’ English essays, based on Halliday (1985) and McCabe
(1999) models of TP patterns, with an educated native speaker as a criterion
measure. The results revealed a substantial proportion of Themes and miscellaneous
TP patterns in Iranian college students’ English essays, which means the participants used a lot of Themes for which the reader had to go back more than two
clauses to find a previously mentioned concept.
Herriman (2011) found in her research investigating thematic progressions in
Swedish advanced learners’ English essays as compared to native speakers of
English, Swedish English learners used less thematic progressions which were
typical of expository writing. These TP patterns include summative progressions
2.2 T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
17
that managed the buildup of information, and split progressions which signaled
hierarchical relations between parts of the informational content.
Rørvik (2012) examined the use of TP patterns in data from the Norwegian
component of the International Corpus of EFL/ESL writing (NICLE) to investigate
whether advanced Norwegian English learners used the same TP patterns as NS
professional writers, or whether they were influenced by Norwegian discourse
conventions, using the Integrated Contrastive Model. The influence of transfer was
also examined through comparison with Norwegian texts written by professional
writers. In addition, a comparison with non-professional writers of English and
Norwegian was included in order to identify potential similarities between novice
writers, regardless of whether or not they were writing in their L1 or L2. The results
indicated that there were differences in the use of TP patterns between the NICLE
writers and the professional writers of English, and that some of these differences
were most probably due to transfer from Norwegian. In addition, novice writers
seemed to share certain characteristics in the way they structured their texts which
were different from the strategies employed by professional writers.
Medve and Takač (2013) explored the ways in which foreign language learners
use cohesion and coherence in their written production, based on a sample comprising 90 assignments written by 30 learners of English as a foreign language, 30
learners of German as a foreign language, and 14 learners of both foreign languages,
in order to find out which progressions (constant progressions, linear progressions,
and back Themes)2 were used by participants in connecting ideas and thoughts
within the paragraphs. The findings showed that linear progression was the dominant
progression type in this corpus. The other two types of progressions—constant
progressions and back Themes—were used less frequently. An independent t-test
showed that there were no statistically significant differences in progression type
scores for learners of English and learners of German. It was also concluded that
successful learners tended to use linear progression more often than unsuccessful
learners.
2.3
T/TP in English Research Articles by NNES Scholars
This section reviews the literature on how NNES scholars apply T/TP in academic
writing in English. This is relevant to the present research because NNES scholars
themselves are once English learners and some English learners would one day
need to publish English research articles in international academic journals. What is
found in studies investigating T/TP in NNES scholars’ research articles could
contribute to our knowledge of disciplinary conventions. Over all, these studies
found not only deviation in the use of T/TP in the research articles by NNES
scholars from English native speaking (NES) scholars in general but also the
connection between NNES scholars’ use of T/TP and the type of writing and the
genre of studies.
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2 Literature Review
Ventola and Mauranen (1991) are a preliminary report of a comparison study on
Finnish EFL researchers’ academic articles from different fields and their revisions
by native speakers. The discourse systems chosen for their investigation were
connector use, thematic development, and reference, the latter two being of particular interest to this study. They discovered that there were problems in Finnish
writers’ texts in English with the use of connectors, which they attributed to the less
frequent use of connectors by Finnish writers as compared to native-speaker
writers. There were also differences from NES writers with respect to thematic
patterns: The Finnish writer texts in English showed less thematic pattern variation
than NES texts. Furthermore, Finnish writers employed fewer textual Themes and
provided less lexical cohesion between Themes. It was, however, pointed out in the
study that it was difficult to know whether the perceived differences stemmed from
L1 transfer or cultural differences.
Mauranen (1993) compared paragraphs taken from academic journal articles in
medical science and economics. She analyzed texts written in English by NESs and
texts written in English by native Finnish speakers. Her analysis of thematic
organization revealed that NES writers are more concerned with guiding and orienting the readers than Finnish writers, which reflected a more reader-oriented
attitude. The main conclusion was that the Finnish writers were not able to
manipulate Themes in English writing as skillfully as in Finnish writing, so they
were at a rhetorical disadvantage there.
Jalilifar (2010b) compared different thematic choices and TP patterns used in
different rhetorical sections of ELT, an international journal, and Roshd, a local,
peer-reviewed journal in Iran, based on Halliday’s (1985) categorization of Themes
and the revised model of TP patterns proposed by McCabe (1999). The analysis
showed overall similarities in both journals regarding different types of Theme and
TP patterns, which could be attributed to the shared genre. But the author also
found significant differences in the number and the context of the usage of different
TP patterns in the introduction and results and discussion sections of both journals,
indicating the descriptive nature of Roshd and argumentative nature of ELT journals. The results confirmed the need to inform EFL/ESL writers of the crucial role
of thematic organization in the writing of ELT articles.
Ebrahimi and Khedri (2011) investigated how thematic structures were tackled
by research article writers from different disciplines of different academic discourse
communities while contributing their new knowledge in the abstract section of
research articles. Following Halliday’s (1994) model of thematic organization and
the revised model of thematic progression patterns proposed by McCabe’s (1999),
they incorporated a corpus of ten academic research article abstracts from two
disciplines (five in Chemical Engineering and five in Applied Linguistics) so as to
clarify the possible similarities and variations between these two disciplines in
terms of thematic selection. The result supported the hypothesis that academic
research article abstracts were shaped by their disciplinary background.
Gao (2012) examined TP patterns in the discussion section of ten medical papers
by NESs and ten by Chinese academic writers drawn from very influential medical
journals, and found that linear progression and constant progression occurred
2.3 T/TP in English Research Articles by NNES Scholars
19
frequently in all discussion sections. Both native English writers and Chinese
writers had the tendency to use two of the TP patterns: linear progression and
constant progression. However, despite the fact that these two patterns appeared in
all texts, there were some differences: Linear progression, which tended to be used
to organize and develop information in paragraphs involving explanation or argumentation, occurred with greater frequency in the discussion sections written by
native English writers. This seemed to indicate that Chinese writers of English had
difficulty in this aspect and might not be able to identify the identical wording or
synonymous expression easily from the previous Theme.
What can be drawn from these studies is that deviation in the use of T/TP is not a
phenomenon found only in English learner writing, but also in NNES scholar
writing. This confirmed the importance of investigating T/TP in English learner
writing because what English learners learn during their writing lessons now could
have an impact on their academic career in the future. Another insight from these
studies is that the use of T/TP is connected to genre, as pointed out by the scholars
who investigated NES writing (for example, Lorés 2004 and Martínez 2003). This
has been more or less neglected in studies on T/TP in EFL/ESL writing, but is in no
way not important.
2.4
The Factors that Influence T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
So far, a number of factors have emerged from previous studies that seem to play a
role in how English learners use T/TP in their English output. These factors include
first language (L1) transfer, target language proficiency level, disciplinary background, communication strategies, and target language input.
L1 transfer has always been a focus of study when it comes to the deviation of
English learners’ use of T/TP. For example, Cai (1998) investigated the
topic-prominent errors in English essays written by Chinese college students in a
quantitative research and found that more than 20 % of the errors were results of L1
transfer. Bohnacker and Rosén (2008) reported that Swedish learners of German
over-applied the Swedish principle of Rheme later in their second-language
German, indicating L1 transfer at the interface of syntax and information structure,
especially for structures that were frequent in the L1 as a result of language-specific
patterns in Swedish: The frequencies of pre-field constituent types differed substantially between German and Swedish, postponed new (rhematic) information,
and instead filled the pre-field with given (thematic) elements and elements of no or
low informational value (e.g., expletives) to a far greater extent than German in a
study investigating information structure of verb-second declaratives in Swedish,
German, and non-native German. Hasselgård (2009a, b) found that Norwegian
English learners tended to thematize adverbials in writing, exhibiting features of the
Norwegian pattern because Scandinavian languages, such as Norwegian and
Swedish, were more flexible than English in terms of word order and allowed more
room for fronting adverbials. Rørvik (2012) pointed out that differences in the use
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of TP patterns between the Norwegian learners of English and the professional
writers of English were most probably due to transfer from Norwegian in a study
examining the use of TP in data from the Norwegian component of the International
Corpus of EFL/ESL writing as compared to Norwegian texts written by professional writers.
Target language proficiency level has also been examined as an influencing
factor in a number of studies. Bohnacker (2010) found a substantial increase in
clause-initial expletive subjects, clefts, and lightweight given elements in Swedish
EFL/ESL writing, which was thought to be indicative of development toward the
target language in a study investigating Theme/Rheme (old vs. new information) in
Swedish English writing. Wei (2013a) found that English learners became better at
making thematic choices with increased length of time-learning English: The
advanced Chinese college students exhibited closer performances to native speakers
in topical Themes, textual Themes, and thematic markedness than intermediate
Chinese college students in a study investigating the development of making thematic choices in Chinese college students’ English output from a lower English
proficiency level to a higher English proficiency level.
North (2005) examined whether the students’ use of Theme may vary according
to their disciplinary background, using a systemic functional approach for analysis
of essays written in an Open University course in the history of science. It was
found that students from an “arts” background achieved significantly higher grades
than those from a “science” background. This could be related to a greater tendency
to present knowledge as constructed, using Themes which framed the discussion as
a matter of interpretation rather than fact. The results supported the hypothesis that
students’ writing was shaped by their disciplinary background, suggesting that
success in writing for one course may be affected by writing experiences in previous courses. Similar results were reported in Ebrahimi and Khedri (2011) when
they investigated how thematic structures were tackled by research article writers
from different disciplines and academic discourse communities while contributing
their new knowledge in the abstract section of research article. Ebrahimi and
Ebrahimi (2012) tried to justify that previous academic experience could be one of
the factors in influencing English learners’ use of T/TP by examining 180 compositions by 60 students majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from
three different language proficiency levels. The results illustrated significant differences between the three groups regarding their use of linear and constant
progressions.
Chen (2010) discussed how communication strategies and target language input
could affect Chinese college students’ decision as to which information should be
placed in Theme position in her study investigating Chinese college students’
thematic choices in their English speech. She regarded thematized adjuncts and
interpersonal Themes as time-winning communicative strategies, which was also
found to be a common feature among Chinese advanced learners regardless of task
types and proficiency levels. She also provided examples of grammar exercises for
adverbial clauses of time and the past-perfect tense taken from English textbooks
used in senior middle schools in China as examples to show that by emphasizing
2.4 The Factors that Influence T/TP in EFL/ESL Writing
21
certain formal rules and semantic relationships at the expense of discourse principles, misleading input of certain aspects of the target language could affect how
foreign language students use T/TP.
2.5
Instruction in T/TP
There has been a consensus that instruction in T/TP should be included in teaching
of English. For example, Ventola (1994) advocated that courses for academic
writing in a foreign language should develop learners’ consciousness and linguistic
skills in organizing information in texts in a way which was referentially and
thematically cohesive. Cheng (2002) proposed that the theory of T/TP should be
included in English writing lessons to Chinese students in his study discussing how
the problems with thematic progression would compromise coherence in Chinese
college students’ writing. It was pointed out in Alonso and McCabe (2003) that
English learners often wrote essays that consisted of sentences which did not seem
to connect into a cohesive text and more attention should be paid to the progression
of information in texts in addition to the focus on cohesive devices. Wang (2007)
claimed that the theory of T/TP was a valuable tool for teachers to diagnose writing
difficulties and students should be taught how to arrange old and new information to
help improve cohesion and coherence in their writing. Christie and Dreyfus (2007)
advocated a genre-based approach to teaching deconstructing genre models for
T/TP. Bohnacker (2010) pointed out that “discourse-driven word order patterns
are … largely ignored in descriptive grammars, teacher training and language
teaching materials”(p. 133) while the learners were not likely to monitor for differences concerning the interaction of information structure and word order, as they
were probably not even aware that Swedish differed from German in this regard.
Hawes and Thomas (2012) proposed that “there is a need for coaching in thematisation… teaching at least rudimentary thematisation theory and giving students
practice with an assortment of thematic options…based on our students’ apparent
inadequate familiarity with English information structure” (p. 182).
In contrast, however, there have been very little investigations regarding how
teachers could draw on the theory of T/TP (Wang 2007), very few studies that have
developed and studied teaching materials informed by T/TP (Bonhnacker 2010) and
a very limited number of studies trying to investigate with empirical evidence how
instruction in T/TP could help with the use of T/TP in EFL/ESL writing.
Mellos (2011) presented classroom activities that introduced students to the
grammar of T/TP in order to improve the coherence of their writing, with a model
of Theme–Rheme analytical framework in academic writing curriculum. Comprised
of five parts, i.e., Introduction to Theme/Rheme, Analysis of authentic and model
texts, Introduction to thematic patterns, Analysis of T/TP in student texts, and
Application to the students’ writing, the lessons were intended for an undergraduate
ESL academic reading and writing course and with adaptation, could be used for
other levels and contexts.
22
2 Literature Review
Cheng (2008) investigated the effects of genre-based pedagogy on EFL students’
writing development by incorporating “analyzing thematic choices” as part of the
three-stage EFL composition course in Taiwan for college freshmen’s narrative
writing course. The results indicated that students’ essays exhibited pre- to post-test
gains in content development and textual coherence. This study also confirmed that
explicit knowledge of language functions could sharpen students’ awareness
regarding the content, organization, and language use. Ho (2009) investigated how
helping students analyze the macro- and microelements following analysis of T/TP
in a text helped them improve the overall structure and texture of their own writing
by comparing one ESL undergraduate’s pre-instruction and post-instruction writing. The comparison revealed that T/TP analysis helped to improve the structure
and texture of the student’s writing in terms of the schematic and clause structure.
And the variation between the two texts indicated that the student was attempting to
improve on the texture on her second writing. The writer pointed out that T/TP
analysis, like many other methods of instruction, required time for instruction
results to emerge and to expect positive changes overnight or instantly would be
quite unreasonable.
While Cheng (2008)’s research included instruction in thematic choice lasting
four sessions, which was of medium length (Norris and Ortega 2000), Ho’s study
was based on only two essays from one participant, thus low in its representativeness. Liu and Liu (2013) verified the validity of the application of T/TP in
teaching English writing in an experiment with 50 participants. They employed a
pretest and post-test in the study and compared how the experimental group and the
control group differed in T/TP before and after the 16-hour instruction which lasted
8 weeks in their use of six TP patterns. The findings suggested that writing
coherence relied on the success of thematic structure of texts and that the significant
progress on writing coherence contributed to the significant improvement on overall
writing proficiency. However, Liu and Liu (2013) included only TP patterns which
contributed to text development, i.e., linear progression, constant progression,
focused progression, derived-Theme progression, split-Rheme progression, and
summarized progression for both pretest analysis and post-test analysis. And in the
statistics provided in the study, these six TP patterns accounted for all the TP
patterns in EFL/ESL writing. It is, however, unlikely that anyone, English native
writer or EFL/ESL writer, could write in these TP patterns only. Exclusion from
their analytical model unmotivated Themes that did not promote text development
compromised the conclusion of their study.
2.6
Summary
This chapter provides a literature review of T/TP in EFL/ESL writing. It started
with a discussion of the definition of coherence, followed by explanations concerning how T/TP function as a means to achieve coherence. The studies
2.6 Summary
23
investigating T/TP in EFL/ESL writing focus on Theme and/or TP patterns. A more
complete picture of how English learners construct messages in English output is,
of course, provided by studies investigating both Theme and TP patterns in
EFL/ESL writing. Another focus is T/TP used in research articles written by NNES
scholars, which is relevant to this research because the NNES scholars are once
English learners and some English learners would one day need to publish academic articles in English. A recent trend in this research area is to examine how
instruction in T/TP can affect the way learners construct their message in English
output.
It is established in this chapter that coherence is both text-based and
reader-based. Text-based coherence could be ensured by thematic choices and
reader-based coherence could be accomplished by use of appropriate TP patterns. It
is therefore in general agreement that appropriate thematic choices and TP patterns
could help make EFL/ESL writing more coherent. However, English learners used
T/TP differently from native speakers which lead to incoherence in their writing. It
is also found that NNES scholars deviated in their use of T/TP in the research
articles and they failed to use T/TP in accordance with the genre of writing. English
learners’ deviant use of T/TP from native speakers could be the result of L1
transfer, inadequate target language proficiency, disciplinary background, communication strategies, and target language input. There was also limited empirical
evidence to support the claim that instruction in T/TP had positive effects on
English learners’ use of T/TP, thus improving coherence in writing.
In spite of what has been done, a number of issues remain to be addressed
concerning T/TP in Chinese English learner writing. To begin with, a more detailed
description of how Chinese English learners use both T/TP is needed, as compared
to native speakers of English. The past studies in T/TP in Chinese EFL/ESL writing
investigated mostly thematic choices. Another issue concerns the development of
instructional materials informing scholars of the specific content of instruction in
T/TP. What is also needed is the empirical evidence of whether and how instruction
in T/TP can affect the way English learners use Theme and TP patterns.
Notes
1. CET-4, CET-6, and TEM-4 are the short forms for “College English Test Band
4,” “College English Test Band 6,” and “Test for English Majors Band 4.” As
English as a foreign language tests in the PRC, the purpose of these tests is to
examine the English proficiency of undergraduate students and postgraduate
students in China.
2. The terms originally used in Medve and Takač (2013) were parallel, sequential,
extended parallel progression, and extended sequential progression, which are
replaced by constant progressions, linear progressions, and back Themes in this
dissertation to keep consistency in terminology. Parallel, sequential, extended
parallel progression, and extended sequential progression mean exactly the same
as constant progressions, linear progressions, and back Themes.
24
2 Literature Review
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