A Focus on Purpose - Article Example

Thematic Analysis [Please input your desired This paper is concerned with the analysis of the themes found in Myskows- and Gordons article entitled, "A Focus on Purpose: Using a Genre Approach in an EFL Writing Class (2009)". Halliday refers to the theme as the psychological subject of a clause (1994, p 32). In practical terms, the theme gives the reader or listener an idea of what the clause is going to be about (Jochimsen 2008, p 6). The article is mainly an expository text. It is also secondarily a persuasive one as it tells about the advantages of genre-based approach in writing as compared to the product-based approach. In particular it details the authors experience in training an EFL writing class to employ the genre-based approach in writing. The article at hand used a mixture of marked and unmarked themes, most of which are experiential themes. Many of the experiential themes refer to circumstances and processes rather than to participants. If participants were used as themes, most likely, the clause is a citation of a related literature and the author is used as theme. The circumstances and processes used as themes mainly imply the relation between the clauses in a paragraph especially that of adjacent ones. More so, most of the themes are simple themes of more than one group or phrase (clausal themes), which are either nominal, adverbial or prepositional groups . The utilisation of marked and unmarked themes as well as the thematic progression in each of the articles four major parts vary. There are also no readily conspicuous pattern in their usage, even despite the fact that each of the parts has distinct expository function. Still, an individual inspection of the themes and thematic progression used in each of the parts reveals that their usage is beneficial in organising and structuring the flow of information in the article. The article dominantly employed progression with derived themes. In this progression, the passage as a whole concerns a single general notion, and the themes of various constituent clauses all derive from that general notion but are not identical to one another (Fries 1997, p 320). Themes in the Introductory Part The introductory part mostly used unmarked experiential themes and progression with derived themes. Most of the themes were clausal themes, comprised of three or more words. The dominant use of unmarked and clausal themes worked well in clearly illustrating the problem derived from the dominant writing approach (product-based approach). The exposition of a conflict was also achieved with the use of thematic cues, such as "however". Themes in the Part, "Product and Genre approaches" This part also employed a mixture of marked and unmarked experiential themes. The themes were also dominantly clausal. In the first section which explains the differences between the product- and genre writing approaches, marked themes which mainly contain chronological and participant information were used. The themes worked together in giving the reader an ideational map of the chronological and processual development of the various writing approaches, just like how Michaud and Kimmel (cited in Caffarel 2006), created an ideational geographic map of France. The themes lead to questions like, " When did the approaches emerge?"and "Who were the proponents behind such techniques?". Meanwhile, the second section also mostly used marked experiential themes, which placed emphasis on the comparative advantages of the writing approaches. Themes in the Part, "Using Genre Approach to Teach University Application Letters" The function of this part for the overall article was 1.) to contextualize the need for- and the importance of writing university application letters for the students college application and as an exercise; and 2.) to detail out the process the authors undertook in teaching the genre-based approach to students. Like the other parts of the article, this part dominantly employed marked experiential themes. Similarly, themes were mainly long clausal ones referring to circumstances or processes. The use of themes, such as Though this writing task is not part of the admissions process for all students in class, [rheme: the process of writing]... (p 285), mainly served to highlight the context of trying out the genre-based approach in writing university application letters. As part of the context, themes in this part also gave chronological time indicators, such as In the 2007-2008 school year... (p 286). Other thematic temporal cues such as Finally... (p 288) and Prior to this contextual analysis... (p 287) gives the reader clues on the location of particular thoughts on the overall exposition. Meanwhile, the rationale of the teaching process employed by the writers was highlighted by themes such as To avoid reverting to an overly prescriptive ...during this textual analysis stage, [rheme: it is essential]... (p 289). This part used progression with derived themes for its thematic progression. Themes in the Conclusion Lastly, the conclusion of the article applied an equal combination of marked and unmarked themes. Once again, the themes were mostly clausal experiential themes and the thematic progression used was progression with derived themes. Overall Comparison and Analysis Francis (cited in Fries 1997) investigated the percentage use of four thematic subjects, namely: 1.) people; 2.) concrete things; 3.) abstractions; 4.) expressions of time; and 5.) others, in three genres in the newspaper, namely: 1.) news; 2.) editorial comments and 3.) letters to the editor. In it, she found out that the news largely used people as theme, while the editorial mainly used abstractions as theme. The abstraction includes nominalized processes like inquiry, proposal, refusal, etc and other domesticated abstract nouns (p 327). Francis basically implies that, at least in practice, particular thematic choices serve particular genres more than others. Taking off from this point, the article, as one belonging to a particular genre i.e. the genre of academic article, must probably benefit from particular thematic choices to maximize its effectiveness and structure. As someone who first read the article without paying attention to the themes, I could say that I was able to understand the article well. Thus, the article could be deemed sufficiently effective. However, the question of how the themes contributed to this is a different matter to be answered. The article consistently used clausal experiential themes in a predominant fashion. The reference to participants or people were less as compared to references to circumstances and processes. Somehow, this trend of mainly using abstractions as themes is quite similar to the thematic choices for editorial, especially in contrast to news articles. Interestingly, the article as a genre shares the characteristic of persuasiveness with the editorial, again in contrast to news. I think that the use of circumstances, processes and other abstractions as clausal themes in the article aided in the development of the argument. First they served to clarify the historical and relational context of the article --- the time line, the processes, characteristics of the writing approach and the genre, etc. Usually, the use of circumstantial themes in marked themes automatically states the context of the rheme. More so, the use of circumstances and processes as themes, brings clarity to the logical flow of the text and to the logic the writers use in their actual EFL teaching. The relatively few uses of participants or people as themes helped in a sense that the process and circumstances were more highlighted. This is desirable because the authors seem to persuade the reader towards the usage of genre-based writing approach based on logic and reasoning regardless of the people who will use it. Definitely, the article did not focus on the problem of how particular groups of people can apply the writing approach. Maybe in such a case, a thematic focus on the participants would be helpful. Participant roles were indeed downplayed in terms of the theme in the article. This exercise reiterates the role thematic choice play in the effectiveness and structure of particular genres. Reference List: Caffarel, A. 2006, A Systemic Functional Grammar of French: From Grammar to Discourse, Continuum, London. Fries, H.P. 1997, On Subject and Theme: A Discourse Functional Perspective, John Benjamins Publishing Co., Amsterdam. Halliday, M.A.K. 1994, An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 2nd edn, Arnold, London. Jochimsen, M. 2008, Coherence and the Textual Function in "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time", GRIN Verlag, Norderstedt. Myskow, G. & Gordon, K. 2009, A focus on purpose: using a genre approach in an EFL writing class, ELT Journal, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 283-292. Read More