Patterns of sequencing of theme and rheme are tendencies rather than absolutes.

Very few texts (except perhaps highly ritualised ones such as religious litanies) repeat the same thematising patterns endlessly. We have suggested that low-level learners might be trapped in unnatural patterns owing to limited grammatical resources or lack of confidence in a new L2, but most advanced learners are likely to have a good feel for creating topic frameworks and orienting their audience. The grammatical structures that are underplayed in grammar books (e.g. left displacements, object-fronting) may be produced unconsciously by learners, but awareness and monitoring on the part of teachers is necessary to ensure that natural production using the wide resources of the grammar is indeed taking place. So far, we have concentrated on thematising in clauses, but it should not be forgotten that sequencing choices of clauses within sentences, and sentences within paragraphs are of the same, discourse-related type. For instance, it has been observed that first sentences often tell us what the whole paragraph is about, a macro-level front-placing of an element signalling the framework of the message. Such sentences are often called topic sentences, and are considered important for skills such as skimreading. It is often possible, just by reading the first sentence, to state what a paragraph is about (the paragraph theme), though it is not possible to state what the text is saying about its theme (the paragraph rheme). However, this does seem to be an oversimplification, and many paragraphs have initial sentences that do not tell us what the paragraph is about. Jones and Joness (1985) study of cleft and pseudo-cleft sentences in discourse shows that the presence of a cleft structure, even if not paragraph-initial, is often a more reliable signal of paragraph topic, and anyway, relatively little is known about why writers make paragraph divisions where they do. Finally, ideally, we should also consider sentences that contain more than one element other than the subject brought to front place, such as this very sentence you are reading. The first fronted element (finally) organises the text sequentially and tells you that the section is coming to a close (a textual function); ideally signals my attitude towards what 1 have to say, and has an interpersonal function. The next element, we, is part of the content or ideational meaning of the message, or, as Halliday (1985: 56) calls it, the topical theme. The unmarked (most frequent) order for complex themes can thus be stated as textual + interpersonal + ideational:
T hem es Exam ples Textual
moreover likewise for instance

Interpersonal
frankly obviously personally

Ideational
Jo e Smith . . . burglars . . . I . ..

(A d apted fro m H a llid a y 1 9 85: 5 3 4)

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A natural example of this ordering is seen in this sentence from a student essay on language and gender:
(2.53) Conversely, possibly, females felt more at ease responding to a non-specific female address.
(A u th o rs d ata 1989)

The notion of theme and how it is realised in English is an area where grammatical structure and discourse function seem most closely allied, and, if discourse analysis is to have an influence on how language is taught, then ways of presenting variations in clause structure in relation to discourse functions may be a good place to start. In the past, emphasis on invented sentences and on writing (in both theoretical and applied linguistics) has led to the relegation to the fringes of some structures found in natural talk. But natural data show that variations of standard SVOA order are much more frequent than might be thought. Furthermore, languages vary in how they deal with thematisation: Japanese has a particle wa, widely used to topicalise elements in clauses (Hinds 1986: 157), and Tagalog (the language of the Philippines) apparently topicalises at the end of clauses (Creider 1979). Other languages are similar to English; Duranti and Ochs (1979) give examples of left-displacement in Italian speech and discuss its functions in discourse management. Mixed nationality groups of learners may therefore present a variety of problems at various levels, just as is the case in conventional grammar teaching.

2.4

Tense and aspect

A great deal of attention has recently been paid to the relationship between tense-aspect choices and overall discourse constraints. By examining natural data, discourse analysts are able to observe regular correlations between discourse types and the predominance of certain tense and aspect choices in the clause. Equally, the emphasis in discourse analysis on interactive features of discourse such as speaker/writer perspective and standpoint, and the focusing or foregrounding of certain elements of the message, has led to reinterpretations of conventional statements about tense and aspect rules. An example of the first type of approach is Zydatiss (1986), who looked at a number of text types in English where present perfect is either dominant or in regular contrast with past simple. Zydatiss observed that three basic functions of the present perfect, all under the general heading of current relevance, frequently recur over a wide range o f text types. He names these functions: (1) conveying hot news, (2) expressing experiences, and (3) relating to present effects of changes and accomplishments. Hot news texts are mostly found in broadcast and written news reports,

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