Misidentifying New Information

Martin (1992: 454-5): 

The next paragraph is not pulled together in this way; instead, [6:23r] functions as a macro-New, summarising the text as a whole. … macro-New [is …] underlined in the following representation of [6:23]; the minimal News of remaining clauses appear in bold-face.

[6:23]	(illustrating New … and macro-New)
	m	The war had also revealed inadequacies in Australia’s scientific and research capabilities.
	n	After the war strenuous efforts were made to improve these.
	o	The Australian National University was established with an emphasis on research.
	p	The government gave its support to the advancement of science in many areas, including agricultural production.
	q	Though it is difficult to disentangle the effects of war from other influences,
	r	it is clear that future generations not only enjoyed the security and peace won by their forefathers but also the benefits of war-time economic expansion.

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is the first mention of the security and peace won by their forefathers in the text, and so it does not satisfy Martin's definition of macro-New as 'summarising the text as a whole'.

[2] This does not satisfy Martin's definition of minimal New — the "highest ranking" clause constituent (p451) — because [6:23p] is a clause complex, rather than a single clause, with including agricultural production as a possessive attributive clause hypotactically elaborating the clause that precedes it.  Based on a spoken reading, there are likely to be information foci on many and agricultural.

Problems With The Complementarity Of Hyper-Theme & Hyper-New

Martin (1992: 454):

This complementarity of hyper-Theme predicting a text's method of development and hyper-New accumulating its point is outlined in Fig. 6.11.

 

Fig. 6.11. Complementarity of hyper-Theme & hyper-New

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is potentially misleading, to the extent that it represents Theme and New as always distinct.

[2] As previously explained, a hyper-Theme — Martin's rebranding of Topic Sentence, using a term coined for other purposes by Daneš (1974) — does not "predict" what experiential content will be highlighted in subsequent Themes.

Any relations between the experiential content of Topic Sentences and the experiential content of subsequent Themes are those of lexical cohesion and grammatical reference, two non-structural resources of the textual metafunction.

Misrepresenting New Information

Martin (1992: 453-4):

The pattern of hyper- and macro-Themes recognised in 6.3.2 above raises the question of whether a similar symbolic pattern arises based on New.  Reviewing text [6:23] it can be seen that hyper- and macro-New are also important aspects of texture, particularly in abstract writing.  The function of hyper-New is illustrated in [6:23l] below; this clause pulls together and summarises the information build up in the rest of the paragraph. … 

Hyper-New [is] single underlined … in the following representation of [6:23]; the minimal News of remaining clauses appear in bold-face.

[6:23]	(illustrating New, hyper-New …)
	a	Wars are costly exercises.
	b	They cause death and destruction
	c	and put resources to non-productive uses
	d	but they also promote industrial and economic change.
	e	This benefit does not mean that war is a good thing, but that it sometimes brings useful developments.
	f	The Second World War further encouraged the restructuring of the Australian economy towards a manufacturing basis.
	g	Between 1937 and 1945 the value of industrial production almost doubled.
	h	This increase was faster than otherwise would have occurred.
	i	The momentum was maintained in the post-war years
	j	and by 1954-5 the value of manufacturing output was three times that of 1944-5.
	k	The enlargement of Australia’s steel-making capacity, and of chemicals, rubber, metal goods and motor vehicles all owed something to the demands of war.
	l	The war had acted as something of a hothouse for technological progress and economic change.

Blogger Comments:

[1] The field here is again writing pedagogy, rather than linguistic theory.

[2] The paragraph is a unit of graphology, the expression plane of language realising written mode.  It is not a unit of linguistic content.

[3] New is not a functional component of the clause.  It is the obligatory element of the information unit, which is parallel with the clause.  The distribution of information units in a text is indicated by the phonological system of tonality, which specifies the distribution of tone groups, because an information unit is realised by a tone group.  The culmination of New information, the information focus, is indicated by the phonological system of tonicity, which specifies the location of tonic prominence, because the information focus is realised by tonic prominence.

In contrast, in the analysis of text [6:23], the New is arbitrarily assigned to the last functional element of the Rheme of the clause, regardless of intonation, graphological indications of tone group boundaries, lexical density, and so on.  The possibility of New information in the Theme, a very frequent feature of discourse, is ruled out by such a rigid, arbitrary approach.

Some of the likely foci of New information in text [6:23], based on a spoken reading, and overlooked by the arbitrary approach, are highlighted above in dark red.

Not Accounting For A Distinctive Mode Of Development

Martin (1992: 453):

Theme selection in [6:36] is mainly restricted to the two World Wars alongside an army/navy/airforce string (assault troops, airpower, she, Battle Line).  The text's method of development in other words narrowly circumscribes its selection of Themes.  Choices for New are not restricted in this way; they open up the field of naval history, a small portion of which is being constructed in this text.

minimal news in [6:36]	topical themes in [6:36]
in World War I	World War I (4)
in World War II	World War II (5)
for the Army	both wars
for the Army	participation
escort-of-convoy and anti-submarine work	assault troops
on the surface	airpower
with the Japanese Navy	battleship
in transports	Battle Line
on docks or in protected harbours	new tactics
had to be revived and developed
ashore
inchoate and almost negligible
a determining factor
queen of the sea
since the age of Drake
with tactics inherited from the age of sail
had to be devised

Blogger Comments:

[1] The actual topical Themes in [6:36] are as follows, with likely foci of (largely contrastive) New highlighted:

topical Theme
marked	unmarked
	the United States
	the nature of that participation
	the earlier conflict
	the latter
in both wars
in the 1917-18 conflict
between 1941 and 1945
	American soldiers who engaged in World War I
in World War II
	assault troops
	airpower
in the latter
in World War I
	she
	Battle Line
in World War II
	for which

[2] Text [6:36] contrasts the participation of the U.S. armed forces in WWI with their participation in WWII. To this end, each war-time is thematised, by turns, to provide the point of the departure that contextualises what is to follow in each clause, as the contrasts are accumulated through the text.

In contrast, merely to say that the text's method of development 'narrowly circumscribes its selection of Themes' does not begin to account for the use of theme selection in this text.

[3] Arbitrarily restricting the choices of New to the last functional element of clause structure seriously misrepresents the packaging of information in text [6:36].  The more likely foci of New information, based on reading the text aloud, are the thematic New highlighted in green, above, and the rhematic New highlighted in blue, below.

Rheme

participated heavily in World War I

participation was fundamentally different from what it became in World War II

was a one-ocean war for the Navy

a one-theatre war for the Army

was a two-ocean war for the Navy

one of five major theatres for the Army

a vital responsibility of the Navy was escort-of-convoy and anti-submarine work

it never clashed with the enemy on the surface

it fought some twenty major and countless minor engagements with the Japanese Navy

were taken overseas in transports

landed on docks or in protected harbours

the art of amphibious warfare had to be revived and developed

were forced to fight their way ashore

in the earlier conflict, was still inchoate

almost negligible

it was a determining factor

the battleship still reigned queen of the sea

had in changing forms, since the age of Drake

fought with tactics inherited from the age of sail

the capital naval force was the air-craft carrier taskgroup

completely new tactics had to be devised

[4] It is all the content of the text that construes the field; New merely highlights textually what the author deems unrecoverable to the reader.  Martin here confuses the textual highlighting (New) with the experiential content being highlighted.