Theme and variations
There has been a great deal of interest recently in investigating the configurations
of linguistic choices which characterise different registers. This chapter
focuses on the particular area of patterns of thematic choice across registers.
We bring together two traditions in register analysis: Systemic Functional
Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics as implemented by Biber and colleagues.
We carry out a manual analysis of Theme, using SFL categories, in a small set
of texts designed to mirror the registers which appear at key points on Biber’s
Dimension 1 (“Involved versus Informational Production”). The goal is to see
to what extent variation in thematic patterning accords with the positioning
on Biber’s scale; and we attempt to account for any similarities and differences
that emerge.
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Cited by (3)
Cited by 3 other publications
Gómez González, María de los Ángeles & Ana Patricia García Varela
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