Misinterpreting Theme And New

Martin (1992: 452):

The main contrast is in the range of meanings woven through Theme and New.  Only a few of the text's participants and processes are selected as unmarked topical Theme, with far greater variation in New.  The Themes focus on the major participants involved in the anecdote, while the News tell the story.  Putting this in more general terms, Themes angle in on a given field, reflecting a text's genre; News elaborate the field, developing it in experiential terms.  This contrast in functions operates across text types …

Blogger Comments:

[1] None of the text's processes are selected as topical Theme — unmarked or otherwise; see the Theme analysis below.  The reason for the greater variation in New information than unmarked topical Themes is that, in these declarative clauses, the unmarked topical Theme is restricted to the Subject, whereas any information at all can be highlighted as New, including the unmarked topical Theme/Subject.

[2] This unsupported assertion is manifestly untrue.  Both Themes and News textually highlight the major participants in the anecdote — and more besides; see the Theme analysis below, in which the focus of New information is highlighted as green when also thematic and blue otherwise.

[3] This unsupported assertion also is manifestly untrue. The speaker tells the story; the News are information that the speaker presents as non-recoverable to the listener. Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 118):

We can now see more clearly what the terms Given and New actually mean. The significant variable is: information that is presented by the speaker as recoverable (Given) or not recoverable (New) to the listener. … what is treated as non-recoverable may be something that has not been mentioned; but it may be something unexpected, whether previously mentioned or not. The meaning is: attend to this; this is news. One form of ‘newness’ that is frequent in dialogue is contrastive emphasis…

[4] Unmarked topical Themes present the experiential wording that is to be the point of departure for the clause as message.  In declarative clauses, as in the text under discussion, these also present the Subject, the carrier of modal responsibility, as the point of departure.

Field, in contrast, is the ideational dimension of context (the culture as a semiotic system that is realised in language).  Martin's misunderstanding of the SFL notion of field is twofold.  On the one hand, he misconstrues context as register, and so misconstrues field as a dimension of register.  On the other hand, he misconstrues some ideational semantics ('activity sequences') as field, and thus as context misconstrued as register.

Genre, in the sense of text type, is modelled in SFL as register: the sub-potential of language that realises a sub-potential of context (situation type).  Register is a point of variation on the cline of instantiation.  Martin, on the other hand, models genre as a more abstract level of context than his register.

[5] This assertion also is manifestly untrue. News do not "elaborate the field". Elaborating the meanings that realise field is effected through logical structures and conjunctive cohesion.  News present the speaker's take on what is unrecoverable to the listener.

[6] The contrast in functions of Theme and New does operate across text types, but not the functions Martin attributes to them.  Misleadingly, Martin presents Theme and New as if they always highlighted different portions of messages, whereas, in fact, the conflation of Theme with New is an important textual resource.  In the text under discussion, the conflation of Theme with New occurs 9 times (out of 44).

Theme			Rheme
textual	interpersonal	topical
		the only real accident that I’ve ever had	was in fog and ice
and		there	was a big truck parked on the side of the road about three feet away from the side of the road
and		it	was very thick fog
and		a mini	had gone into this truck
well		the mini	had just touched the offside of the truck with its nearside wing
and so		it	meant [[[when I came along || my side of the road was completely blocked]]]
and	unfortunately	I	went into a four wheel skid
			before coming up to this mini
and		at that time	I didn’t know
		how	to deal with a four wheel skid
and so		I	went into the mini
		you	hit it sideways on
		about twelve cars	went into me
and then		a friend of ours	came along
and		he	decided
			to try and overtake the lot
and so		he	went into each one
			sort of banging them sideways as it were
and oh		this	was in daylight
			because of the fog
	needless to say	I	treat fog with great respect now
yes		I	know
		they	keep happening these multiple collisions in fog
	were	you	all right though as a result of this
(oh yes)
(oh yes)
		there	was no-one injured

Misrepresenting Textual Analysis

Martin (1992: 451-2):

In order to simplify the interpretation of New presented here, only the minimal domain of the New will be considered; this will be taken as the highest ranking clause constituent (usually a ranking group or phrase) the tonic syllable falls on the final salient syllable of. This principle determines the following minimal News for [6:38], which can be contrasted with the selections of marked and unmarked Topical Theme in the right-hand column.

minimal new in [6:38]	unmarked topical theme in [6.38]
the only real accident	driver (6)
‘ve ever had	friend (3)
in fog and ice	mini (2)
a big truck…on the side of the road	accident (3)
about three feet	there (2)
away	fog
very thick	it [e]
a mini	about twelve cars
into this truck
the mini
the offside
with its nearside wing
I	marked topical theme in [6.38]
my	when I came along
completely blocked
unfortunately
a four wheel skid
up to this mini
that
to deal
into the mini
sideways on
into me
a friend of ours
along
the lot
into each one
sideways
in daylight
the fog
needless to say
fog
great…now
yes
know
keep happening…in fog
allright
yes
yes
no-one injured

Blogger Comment:

For comparison, presented below are the culminations of New information as given in Halliday (1985: 60), alongside the actual topical Themes — including the one genuine marked topical Theme (overlooked by Martin). Instances where the culmination of New coincides with the Theme are indicated by colour.

culmination of new in [6:38]	topical theme in [6.38]
accident	the only real accident I’ve ever had
had
ice
truck	there
road
feet
(a)way
thick	it
mini	a mini
truck
mini	the mini
offside
wing
	it
I
my
blocked
(un)fortunately	I
skid
mini
that	at that time (marked)
deal	how
mini	I
on	you
me	about twelve cars
ours	a friend of ours
(a)long
lot	he
one	he
sideways
daylight	this
fog
say	I
fog
great
now
yes
know	I
happening	they
fog
right	you
this
yes
yes
injured	there

Misrepresenting Phonology

Martin (1992: 450-1):

Where the tonic falls on the final salient syllable in a tone group, the domain of the structural function New is indeterminate; in principle it extend may [sic] leftwards from the tonic syllable until the initial salient syllable of the tone group is reached.  Where a tonic falls on other than the final salient syllable of the tone group, then all information following the tonic syllable is Given.  In order to simplify the interpretation of New presented here, only the minimal domain of the New will be considered; this will be taken as the highest ranking clause constituent (usually a ranking group or phrase) the tonic syllable falls on the final salient syllable of.

Blogger Comment:

[1] This is potentially misleading.  'New' is not a 'structural function' of the tone group.  Given (optional) and New (obligatory) are elements of the function structure of the information unit.  An information unit (lexicogrammatical stratum) is realised by a tone group (phonological stratum). Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 116):

Each information unit is realised as a pitch contour, or tone, which may be falling, rising or mixed (falling-rising, rising-falling). This pitch contour extends over the whole tone group. Within the tone group, one foot (and in particular its first syllable) carries the main pitch movement: the main fall, or rise, or the change of direction. This feature is known as tonic prominence, and the element having this prominence is the tonic element (tonic foot, tonic syllable). … The element having this prominence is said to be carrying information focus. 

The tonic foot defines the culmination of what is New: it marks where the New element ends. In the typical instance, this will be the last functional element of clause structure in the information unit. As this implies, the typical sequence of informational elements is thus Given followed by New. But whereas the end of the New element is marked by tonic prominence, there is nothing to mark where it begins; so there is indeterminacy in the structure. If we take an instance out of context, we can tell that it culminates with the New; but we cannot tell on phonological grounds whether there is a Given element first, or where the boundary between Given and New would be. (This is not always true….)

[2] It is the tonic foot that marks where the New element ends, not the tonic syllable.

[3] To be clear, in SFL theory, this is the focus of New information.