A PRAGMA- LINGUISTIC STUDY OF THEME IN STANDARD ARABIC AND ENGLISH

Abstract

The present study aims at studying the use of theme as one of Dik's pragmatic functions. The study uses the term theme as a certain universe of discourse about which the ensuing predication is going to predicate something relevant. The importance of this study stems from the fact that it draws attention to the existent linguistic differences between English and Arabic regarding the theme function of sentences. In this study, the use of theme is taken beyond and away from the traditional view of the function of theme altogether to an innovative syntactic–pragmatic framework in which the semantic indeterminacies can be explained. The study in hand is divided into six chapters. Chapter one is an introductory chapter, as such it is confined to theoretical preliminaries that include the definition of theme and its function. It also explores the related terms in order to distinguish theme (as one of the pragmatic functions) from other functions. Chapter two provides a critical review of the previous literature on the use of theme. This chapter surveys some traditional views of theme in structural grammar and transformational grammar. In addition, it surveys some recent views of theme.