Thematic variation in English and Spanish newspaper genres 281
*deb/should are more frequent in thematic fields in commentaries than in reports.^6
Given the meanings of these lexical elements, it is no surprise that they should
be favoured in a more argumentative genre such as commentaries and that this
contrast is cross-linguistically stable.
Table 4. Some lexical differences between thematic realizations
in commentaries and reports (per thousand words)
Commentaries Reports
Pero 1.88 0.68
But 1.78 0.58
No 9.43 2.04
Not 3.90 0.72
*deb- 1.61 0
Should 1.95 0.29
At discourse level, the scrutiny of the texts in our corpus has revealed that it is hard
to identify specific patterns of thematic development with specific text types or
moves within these. Although it is also hard to identify changes in generic moves
or stages through particular Theme types, a pending task is to look at the role of
complex and marked Themes in sub-functions within moves. For instance, the use
of But in (41) – from move 2, Outlining the arguments, in commentary 1 – seems
to pave the ground for move 3, Articulating a position, as it is used to question
what came before and so to present a personal stance. Belonging to the same
move 2 is Example (4) above, renumbered here as (42), where the use of After all
nicely suits the writer’s evaluative purposes.
(41) But this global focus on Sudan’s Darfur region, though justified, has over-
shadowed an even more vital issue: sustaining the quest for a broader peace
in all of Sudan. (The Bigger Issue in Sudan. Comment 1)
(42) After all, the oppressive nature of the regime in Khartoum is at the root of
the many conflicts that have torn the country apart.
(The Bigger Issue in Sudan. Comment 1)
Some interesting insights have been gained from the consideration of the generic
structure of the two genres in each language. We have seen that both English and
Spanish share a similar structure for commentaries, with the difference that moves
and sub-moves in English commentaries follow a less clearly linear path than
their Spanish counterparts, i.e. there are frequent cases of moving back and forth
- *deb- refers to the different forms of the Spanish modal deber (‘should/must’).