The Textual Functions Of Anastrophe From The Perspective Of The Thematic Structure

In the course of English teaching, we have long noticed the following phenomenon: Our students can generally recognize a variety of anastrophe while reading, whereas they seldom consciously put into practice the construction while writing. We attribute this to the fact that they only know the construction grammatically rather than functionally in different-styled texts. Mainly grounded upon Halliday's Theme-Rheme theory and Halliday & Hasan's cohesion theory, the present thesis analyzes in the second chapter the themes and rhemes of anastrophe, probes in the third and fourth chapters into its six textual functions, namely, foregrounding, contrast, structural balance, gradual strengthening in mood euphony, and especially in the case of cohesion. The thesis makes a tentative attempt to exhaust the research on the functions of cohesion of anastrophe with a wide range of supportive examples and appropriate analyses. It discusses minutely the textual cohesion of anastrophe via structural & non-structural cohesion, the varied devices whereby the anastrophe achieves the function, and lastly the force of anastrophe in textual cohesion. We make the exhaustive study of the textual functions of anastrophe, especially that of cohesion, in the hope that the discussion will be helpful to English learners in China, contributing to their appreciation, interpretation and conscious application of anastrophe in their English writing.