Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 267
b. The semantic nature of the noun group realizing the Thematic Head. We
recorded whether the head of the group consisted of a concrete or an abstract
entity. Concrete entities refer to human participants (e.g. Mr. Tiltman), titles (e.g.
the managing director), pronouns (e.g. she, he, they), groups of people or institu-
tions (e.g. the Government, Microsoft, etc.). Abstract entities refer to qualities or
mental concepts (e.g. expectations, results, etc.).
c. The internal complexity of the noun groups realizing the Thematic Head. Here
we looked at whether the noun group functioning as Thematic Head was short
or long, with varied and/or multiple heads or modifiers. Example (4) illustrates a
complex noun group functioning as Thematic Head. It consists of a determiner
(the), a head (agreement), and two postmodifiers: ‘by the American and Russian
presidents’ and ‘to renew strategic arms reductions’:
(4) The agreement by the American and Russian presidents to renew strategic
arms reductions has revived hope for the global abolition of nuclear arms.
(The Limits of Energy Innovation. Comment 3)
Within the Outer Thematic Field our analysis focused on Interpersonal Themes
and Textual Themes. Interpersonal Themes are those elements which express the
attitude and the evaluation of the speaker with respect to his/her message. These
include vocatives, comment adjuncts and modal adjuncts, as illustrated by the
elements in boldface in (5), (6) and (7) below:
(5) John, come over here
(6) Surprisingly, he didn’t mention anything
(7) Probably that’s the only lesson we learned
Textual Themes are those elements which are instrumental in the creation of the
logical connections in the text, such as linkers, binders and correlatives, as illus-
trated by the elements in boldface in (8), (9) and (10) below:
(8) And don’t tell me you didn’t know
(9) However, the situation now is different
(10) Either you’re with us or you’re against us
5.2 Discourse thematic features
There are a number of ways to look at Theme from a discourse perspective. One
of them is to consider the structure of the genres involved and how the differ-
ent Themes help introduce or recognize the different moves or stages character-
izing those genres. Alternatively, we can look at the method of development of