Asking for help

Sat May 10 22:22:08 UTC 2003

To Zaki,

(i) The answer to your first and second questions depends on a clear view of
theme/rheme. According to Halliday (1973), the textual function of language
depends on two types of organizing structures: the thematic and the
information structure. In English, the clause is organised as a message
including a theme and a rheme. The theme is WHAT THE SENTENCE IS ABOUT; the
rheme is THE INFORMATION THE SPEAKER INTENDS TO CONVEY TO THE HEARER ABOUT
THE THEME. I hope this answers both questions.

(ii) The third question has arisen because two different levels are
confused: the paradigmatic level in the clause system corresponding to the
thematic and the information structure and the level of processing. There is
no problem in having new information of an implicit kind in the rheme,
because this is in line with the inferential view of communication. NEW does
not contradict with implicit as our inferential system takes care of
whatever implicit meanings arise anywhere in the clause/discourse structure
(presupposition, implicature, general inferences, etc.). It is new, but
requiring more elaborate inferencing: what's wrong with this?

(iii) Your fourth question needs to capture the said/unsaid in discourse as
is the practice in CDA. But again there are two levels here: It is
understood that the employers are the implicit recipients of the demands,
and that's why it is too obvious to mention. This implicitness is
effortlessly recovered in calculating meaning. Even because this implicit
part is not spelled out, we cannot classify it technically as absence.
Absence of important information strikes the discourse analyst as really
being made missing (e.g., the attribution of agency to inanimates versus the
hiding out of the real animate agent as is "A missile struck a residential
area in Baghdad"), which is a deliberate strategy of
manipulation/mystification/backgrounding, especially in the news reporting
in the media.

I hope this will be of some help.
Best

***************************
Dr Zouhair Maalej
Senior Fulbright Scholar
University of New Mexico
Department of Linguistics
Humanities Building 112
Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196

E-mails: zmaalej at unm.edu / zmaalej at gnet.tn / zmaalej at mail.fulbrightweb.org
URL: http://simsim.rug.ac.be/ZMaalej

Home phone: 505 / 764-6693
Office phone: 505 / 277-0928
Office fax: 505 / 277-1754
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Mohamad Zaki Hussein" <zaki at CENTRIN.NET.ID>
To: <DISCOURS at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 1:02 PM
Subject: Asking for help

> Dear friends,
>
> I have some questions regarding the difficulties I found on my thesis.
> As I have already stated in my introduction letter, my thesis is about
> workers' action representation in the Indonesian mass media: case study
> on news about workers' action regarding the minimum wages regulation in
> daily Kompas 2002. I'm working on my thesis with the analytical
> framework of critical discourse analysis, especially the one which was
> formulated by Norman Fairclough. Here are my questions:
>
> 1. In Fairclough book, Media Discourse, he said that "information focus"
> is in the final position in a clause. What I want to ask is in the case
> that there are words/phrases with brackets in the final position of a
> clause, like in this example: "they are demanding wages increase (from
> US$50 to US$100)," which one is the "information focus"? Is it only the
> words in the brackets or the words "wages increase" without the words in
> the brackets, or the words "wages increase (from US$50 to US$100)" (the
> words "wages increase" + the words in the brackets)?
>
> 2. The second question is almost similar with the first question, but
> this time the case is aposition. So in the case that there is an
> aposition in the final position of a clause, like in this example: "They
> conduct demonstration in the Ahmad Yani street, Bogor" (Bogor is the
> region where Ahmad Yani street exists), which one is the "information
> focus"? Is it only "Bogor" or "Ahmad Yani street, Bogor"? Or maybe it is
> only "Ahmad Yani street" without "Bogor"?
>
> 3. The third questions are about implicitness and its relations with
> theme and 'information focus' (in the Hallidayan terms). In Norman's
> book, Discourse and Social Change, he touched on the existence of
> 'implicit theme.' When he explained these examples: "Tell the midwife
> anything that you feel is important. Write down in advance the things
> you want to ask or say," he said that the theme of those sentences are
> "you", which is an implicit theme. He said like this: "'You' is the agen
> of 'want'....We might say it is also an implicit theme in the
> imperatives 'tell' and 'write down'. (pp. 178). I just wonder since
> according to Matthiessen and Halliday the
> function of theme is to "sets up a local environment, providing a point
> of departure by references to which the listener interprets the
> message," then is it possible that 'the point of departure' is something
> which is implicit (not explicit) in the text, a 'presupposition'? And
> how is it in the case of 'information focus'? Since 'information focus'
> is the place of the 'new information', then is it possible that the
> 'information focus' is something which is not explicit in text,
> something which is implicit, a 'presupposition'? If the answer is 'yes'
> then how could a 'new information' be presupposed (I think this seems to
> be a bit illogical, since 'new information' is not a commonsensical
> thing, it is the opposition of the 'given information', but maybe I'm
> wrong)?
>
> 4. The fourth question is about transitivity and its relation to
> implicitness. If we could said that in the actional processes (material
> processes) "there is always an Actor" (Matthiessen and Halliday, 1997),
> then in an elliptical sentence such as "Tell the midwife anything that
> you feel is important (the example from Norman's Discourse and Social
> Change, pp. 178), there is always an "implicit actor." So in the above
> example the sentence should be like this: "(You) Tell the midwife
> anything that you feel is important." Now what I want to ask is whether
> the same logic also applied to "Goal", "Recipient" (for the case of
> "benefactive processes"), "Verbiage" (in the case of verbal processes)
> and "Phenomenon" (in the case of mental processes)? For instance, in the
> sentence "they demanded wages increase in
> the mass strike yesterday." Must we said that there is an 'implicit
> recipient' there in the sentence, which is 'the employer'? Must we said
> that the complete sentence is: "they demanded wages increase (to the
> employer) in the mass strike yesterday"? Must we consider "the employer"
> as an "implicit recipient" and not as the "absence of recipient"
> (Fairclough in Media Discourse differentiated the degrees of presence,
> in which a 'presupposition', an 'implicit meaning' is different from the
> 'absence from text')?
>
> I think that's all for now. Thank you very much.
>
> Best regards,
> Zaki
>