Locating Graphological Units 'Above' A Grammatical Unit

Martin (1992: 443-4):

Clearly, in longer texts, this pattern of macro-Themes predicting hyper-Themes can be extended, with hyper-Themes themselves functioning as macro-Themes in their own right… .  Schematically, the thematic relationships being introduced here are outlined in Fig. 6.10, with the proviso that a text may be organised thematically around more than the three levels shown.  As noted above, the lowest level hyper-Themes in a text are referred to traditionally as Topic Sentences and the highest level "macro"-Themes as Introductions.

 

Fig. 6.10. Solidarity across levels of Theme

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field of Martin's discourse has again shifted from building a theory of language to prescribing the use of his model for the writing of coherent texts (pedagogy). Removing Martin's re-brandings, this sentence becomes:

Clearly, in longer texts, this pattern of Introductory Paragraphs predicting Topic Sentences can be extended, with Topic Sentences themselves functioning as Introductory Paragraphs in their own right.

[2] In SFL theory, these "predictions" correspond to non-structural cohesive relations — lexical and grammatical (reference) — between the wording realised in Introductory Paragraphs, the wording realised in Topic Sentences, and the wording of clause Themes.

[3] To be clear, removing Martin's re-brandings, this schema becomes:

[4] To be clear, in this model, the levels of "Theme" are the Introductory Paragraph, the Topic Sentence and the Theme of a clause.  The top two levels, the paragraph and the sentence, are rank units of the expression plane: the stratum of graphology, whereas the lowest level, the clause, is a rank unit of the content plane: the stratum of lexicogrammar.

The re-branding of Introductory Paragraph and Topic Sentence as macro-Theme and hyper-Theme helps to conceal this theoretical inconsistency.