The role of Theme and Rheme in contrasting methods of organization in texts
Michael J. Cummings · Pragmatics & beyond. New series · 2005
The Theme/Rheme distinction in Systemic-Functional linguistics connects the content of successive Themes with the method of development of the text, that is, its framing, and the content of successive Rhemes with the point of the text. that is, its informational goals. Theme accordingly shows a potential for language features appropriate to the method of development, e.g., reference chains. Rheme has a complementary potential for lexical richness and variety. A quantitative method produces measurements of both of these potentials. For example, successive Themes in a text usually have higher proportions and much higher densities of reference chain elements than do their Rhemes. Text segments which reverse these proportions in favour of the Rhemes for some stylistic purpose are markedly contrastive.