INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Background
of the Study
Language as a communication system is thought to be fundamentally
different from and of much higher
complexity than those of other species as it is based on a complex system of rules relating symbols to their meanings,
resulting in an indefinite number of possible innovative utterances from a finite number of
elements. Language is thought to have originated
when early hominids first started cooperating, adapting earlier systems of communication based on expressive signs to
include a theory of other minds and shared
intentionality.
All languages rely on the process
of semiotic to relate a sign with a particular
meaning. Spoken and signed languages contain a phonological system that governs
how sounds or visual symbols are used to
form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words
and morphemes are used to form phrases and utterances.
Written languages use visual
symbols to represent the sounds of the spoken languages, but they still require syntactic
rules that govern the production of meaning from sequences of words. Languages evolve and
diversify over time, and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing
modern languages to determine which traits their ancestral languages must have had for
the later stages to have occurred. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor
is known as a language.
Language is social phenomenon. It
has the tendency as means of doing than knowing.
Language consists of three levels
namely Phonology, Lexicogramatical, and Discourse Semantic. Moreover, language is a system of
communication, and most people will use it as practical skill. The main implication of this
that a good language user is one who manages to the communication. As we know that language is
metafunctional and one of metafunction of language is the function to organize which is
coded by known as clause. The clause organized as a message constituted by two parts i.e
Theme and Rheme.
A clause is a pair or a group of
words that consists of a subject and a predicate.
Although in some languages and
some types of clauses, the subject may not appear in details as a noun phrase. It may instead be marked on
the verb this is especially common in invalid subject languages; the most basic kind of
sentence consists of a single clause; The given information is the information which has
already been mentioned somewhere in the text, or it is shared or mutual knowledge from the
immediate context.
In other words, theme typically
contains familiar, old or given information. Theme provides the settings for the remainder of the
sentence. Rheme is the remainder of the message
in a clause in which theme is developed, that is to say, rheme typically
contains unfamiliar or new information.
New information is knowledge that a writer assumes the reader does not know, but needs to have in
order to follow the progression of the argument.
The boundary between theme and
rheme is simple: Theme is the first element occurring in a clause; the remainder clause is rheme.
The theoretical principles
underlying the study of theme and rheme are derived mainly from the theory of systemic functional
grammar, but these issues have been debated in linguistic research as early as the
eighteen century, called point of
departure and enunciation to refer to the structural
division within a clause in attempting to account for the certain aspects of the communicative function
of a sentence.
In some
case, one sentence may have more than one theme, which is called multiple themes. Halliday (1994: 52) says that the next
element in the clause and the part of theme is called a multiple theme.
Saragih (2010: 37) says that
multiple theme is comprised of topical, interpersonal theme and textual one. The theme is the
element which serves as the point of departure of the message; it is that with which the clause is
concerned. As a message structure, therefore, a clause consists of a theme accompanied by a
rheme; and the structure is expressed by the order whatever is chases as the theme is part
first.
We know that theme is very
important because it is the topic of the clause or what the clause is about and it is influential to
recipient’s interpretation of everything indicated in discourse. Exactly, theme and rheme always
together in connected text.
Since language may be analyzed
through its thematic function, this thesis applies systemic fuctional linguistic theory (SFLT) is
that this theory may easily help the writer to get practical way of understanding and
evaluating a written text in the main articles of Inside Sumatra Magazine.
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