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2.2 Textual Function
Halliday contends three metafunctions of language, that is, ideational function,interpersonal function and textual function, which provides semantic choices forcommunication. Therefore, choosing different structures in a discourse will bringdifferent meanings. This thesis takes one of the three metafunctions — textual functionas the theoretical framework. Textual function mainly refers to using language toorganize the information of a discourse so as to express the information systematically.Halliday (1994) maintains that textual function includes three sub-systems, i.e.thematic structure, information structure and cohesion. In terms of the information of sentence level, many scholars make greatcontribution. Among them, functional linguists stand the leading position.It is generally acknowledged that Henri Weil is the pioneer of the PragueSchool. Mathesius points out that Weil is considered the first scholar to notice that asentence can be divided into two parts, that is, the basis of the utterance and thenucleus of the utterance.In 1939, the founder of the school, the famous Czech linguist V. Mathesiussuggests the theory of actual division. The objective of the research is the distributionof information structure in the sentence. At first, Mathesius (1939) divides a sentenceinto three sections, i.e. theme, transition and rheme. Later, the three parts tend to becombined into two sections. Although he didn’t use the terms of theme and rheme, hefirst defines theme as the starting point of the utterance which is known or obvious inthe given situation and rheme as what the speaker states about the theme of theutterance, which are called Functional Sentence Perspective. Later, one of theoutstanding linguists of the Prague School Danes follows Mathesius’s theory andmakes breakthrough as well. He puts forward the notion of Thematic Progression andexplains three kinds of Thematic Progression Patterns.
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Chapter 3 Research Methodology .......... 26
3.1 Research Questions.......... 26
3.2 Data Collection ......... 27
3.3 Data Presentation ...... 29
Chapter 4 Passive Sentences in EST from thePerspective of Textual Function.......... 30
4.1 Passive Sentences in EST Based onThematic Structure..... 31
4.2 Passive Sentences in EST Based onInformation Structure........ 39
4.3 Passive Sentences in EST Based onCohesion ..........47
Chapter 5 Conclusion ......... 54
5.1 Major Findings of the Study .......... 54
5.2 Limitations of the Study.......... 55
5.3 Suggestions for Further Study ....... 55
Chapter 4 A Study of the Functions of Passive Sentences in EST from the Perspective of Textual Function
Systemic-functional scholars consider that language as the tool of humancommunication undertakes various kinds of functions. The three meta-functions oflanguage provide semantic choices for verbal communication. Hence choosingdifferent sentence patterns or different sentence stru
