Clause as message

 Clause as message

The clause, Halliday argues (1994), is organized as a message by having a special status assigned to one part of it. In English clause, the initial position is meaningful in the construction of the clause as message (Halliday 1994). The structure is called the thematic structure. One element in the clause is enunciated as the theme; this then combines with the remainder so that the two parts together constitute a message (Halliday: 1994).

As a message, the clause comprises two parts: the Theme, which “serves as the point of departure of the message” (Halliday: 1994) and the Rheme, which “Non-Theme – where the presentation moves after the point of departure; what is presented in the local context set up by Theme” (Halliday: 1994). Based on the theory of Systemic Functional Grammar proposed by Halliday (1994), a message consists of a Theme combined with a Rheme. Theme is what the clause is going to be about (Gerot and Wignell: 1994: 103).

Look at the following example from Halliday (1994: 39): There is difference in meaning between a halfpenny is the smallest English coin, where a halfpenny is Theme (I’ll tell you about a halfpenny) and the smallest English coin is a halfpenny, where the smallest English coin is Theme (I’ll tell you about the smallest English coin’). As stated by Halliday that the difference may be characterized as ‘Thematic’; the two clauses differ in their choice of Theme. By glossing them in this way, as ‘I’ll tell you about ……’, we can feel that they are two different messages.