274 Julia Lavid, Jorge Arús and Lara Moratón
be twice as long as in Spanish and therefore more prone to the mixing of sub-
functions for the sake of dynamicity, as in the sequence shown in Table 2, which
also includes a backward movement from recommendation to evaluation.Table 2. Back-and-forth movement between moves in an English commentary
(English Com. 1)
Move 2a. Exposition of facts – providing background information:
(1) The CPA ended Africa’s longest civil war, which had left behind over two million dead.
(2) That agreement not only contains benchmarks that should lead to self-determination for
Sudan’s South; (3) it also spells out a democratization process in Sudan itself.
Move 2b. Evaluation:
(4) After all, the oppressive nature of the regime in Khartoum is at the root of the many con-
flicts that have torn the country apart.
(5) If the government in Khartoum persists in undermining the reform process and derailing
the referendum on self-determination promised for the South in January 2011, a return to
full-scale civil war, with calamitous consequences for the peoples of Sudan and the entire
region, is a real possibility. (6) The commitment of Sudan’s government to the CPA has
always been equivocal.
(Back to) Move 2a. Exposition of facts – providing background information:
(7) Indeed, since the civil war’s end in 2005, the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in
the South has frequently had to confront militias that operate as government proxies.
(8) Moreover, Sudanese security forces continue to arm Arab tribes straddling the North-
South border with the aim of destabilizing the mostly Christian South.
Move 3a. Recommendation – closure of argumentation:
(9) The arrest warrant for al-Bashir should not be allowed to spur further attempts by his
government to sabotage the CPA and the fragile process leading to the 2011 referendum.
(10) Nor should the international neglect that has for too long allowed the Darfur genocide
to go unpunished recur when it comes to sustaining the quest for peace in Sudan.
(Back to) Move 2b. Evaluation:
(11) The South’s drive for independence has gained momentum because of the North’s failure
to make unity attractive through reform and elections, as stipulated by the CPA.From a thematic point of view, what we can see in Table 2 is that each of these
moves is introduced by a clause that arguably acts as a sort of hyper-Theme for
that move.^3 This is the case of clauses numbered (1), (4), (7), and (9), which have
been separated in a different cell from the other clauses in the same move. Thus,
clause (1) presents the CPA agreement expounded in clauses (2) and (3), while
clause (4), the next hyper-Theme, contains a textual Theme (‘after all’) which helps- See Martin and Rose (2004: 181) for a description of hyper-Themes as higher order Themes
orienting the reader to what is to come.