Thematic Development in Students’ Argumentative Essay

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24256/ideas.v10i1.2563

Keywords:

academic essay, argumentative essay, rheme, thematic development, theme

Abstract

In writing argumentative essay, the writer should mind complete parts of the essay and other linguistic elements. The two important linguistic elements are theme and rheme. Since theme and rheme are crucial in clause structure, thematic development is regarded important in the development of text. There are three patterns of thematic development proposed by Eggins, i.e., theme reiteration, zig-zag pattern, and multiple-theme pattern. This research states its objective as to analyze the thematic development occurred in students’ argumentative essay. The occurrence of thematic development is analyzed and elaborated into the finding and discussion. This research is a qualitative research. There are 13 essays written by students. The essays are chosen randomly to maintain the objectiveness of the analysis. Those essays consist of 323 clauses. They are analyzed based on the concept of thematic development proposed by Eggins. The analysis of thematic development of the clauses shows that theme reiteration emerges as the most preferable thematic development pattern. It can be seen that 217 clauses (67,2%) in students’ essay are in forms of theme reiteration. 84 clauses (26,0%) of the essay apply zig-zag pattern in thematic development. Multiple-theme pattern comes as the least preferred thematic development pattern. It only comes up in 22 clauses (6,8%) out of 323 clauses. It can be concluded that students understand the way to develop their essays by implementing combination of thematic development. It marks a successful phase of students’ writing skill. Nevertheless, students need writing practice intensively to make their writing skill grow better.

References

Butt, D., Fahey, R., Spinks, S., & Yallop, C. (2012). Using functional grammar: An explorer’s guide. National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research: Macquarie University.

Dian Ramadani. (2006). Sample in Research. Education Centre, 3–7.

Downing, A. (2001). Thematic progression as a functional resource in analysing texts. C’irculo de Ling"u’istica Aplicada a La Comunicación, 5, 1–12. http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=275829

Eggins, S. (2005). Introduction to Systemic Functional Linguistics: 2nd Edition. http://books.google.ae/books?id=sS7UXugIIg8C

Guan, J. (2015). Theme-rheme theory and the textual coherence of college students’ English writing. International Conference on Economics, Social Science, Arts, Education and Management Engineering (ESSAEME), Essaeme, 344–346.

Halliday, M. A. K., Matthiessen, C. M. I. M., Halliday, M., & Matthiessen, C. (2014). An Introduction to Functional Grammar. In An Introduction to Functional Grammar (2nd ed.). Edward Arnold. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203783771

McCabe, A., & Alonso Belmonte, I. (1998). Theme-Rheme patterns in L2 writing. In Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura (Vol. 10, Issue 10). https://doi.org/10.5209/DIDA.20673

Paltridge, B., & Burton, J. (2000). Making sense of discourse analysis. In Making sense of language series. GerdStabler. https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/370167

Qomariah, N. (2021). Theme and Rheme in Students’ Writing. KnE Social Sciences, 502–515. https://doi.org/10.18502/KSS.V5I4.8707

Rustipa, K. (2010). Theme-Rheme Organization of Learners’ Texts. 4(2), 1–17.

Sukawatie, L. E. (2018). THEMATIC PROGRESSION ON THIRD GRADE STUDENTS’ WRITING IN WWW.THEWRITESOURCE.COM. Edulangue, 1(1), 87–96.

Syharizal, T., Fitrian, L., & Anggraeni, N. (2018). Jurnal Siliwangi : Seri Pendidikan P- ISSN 2476-9312 Keywords : Thematic progression , Theme , Rheme , The constant theme pattern , The linier theme pattern , The split theme pattern , The derived theme pattern , Students writing . Jurnal Siliwangi : Seri. Jurnal Siliwangi: Seri Pendidikan, 4(1), 42–53.

What is Qualitative Research? - Quantitative and Qualitative Research - Subject and Course Guides at University of Texas at Arlington. (n.d.). Retrieved February 23, 2022, from https://libguides.uta.edu/quantitative_and_qualitative_research/qual

Williyan, A., & Sutopo, D. (2019). The Implementation of Thematic Development in Exposition Texts by EFL Learners. 9(2), 276–283.

Yunita, S. (2018). Theme and thematic progression in students’ recount texts. Indonesian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 7(3), 524–530. https://doi.org/10.17509/ijal.v7i3.9797

Downloads

Published

2022-06-10

Citation Check