Macro-Theme And Hyper-Theme In Children’s Books And Their Evaluative Analysis

Systemic Functional Grammar has given a theoretical support for discourse analysis. Children’s books are the very kinds that people intend to ignore, not mention to do such research in the field of Systemic Functional Grammar. Thematic progression has been put into discourse analysis for a long time. Martin further develops the concept of theme into a higher layer and proposes macro-theme, hyper-theme, macro-new and hyper-new in the level of discourse semantics. He combines Appraisal with these higher-order themes, finding that higher-order themes predict the relative lower-order themes in a text, and Appraisal in them also can be predicted. This especially adapts to children’s books. In order to analyze macro-theme, hyper-theme and their Appraisal and this special adaptability to children’s books, this thesis focuses on materials of children’s books and analyzes them in the discourse semantics range. This thesis intends to find out how macro-theme and hyper-theme help construct meanings of a text; how Appraisal in them help in textual coherence and the feature of this evaluative words.This thesis probes into macro-theme, hyper-theme and Appraisal in them based on the discourse semantics. Firstly, the research background, purposes and significance of doing this study are stated. Secondly, this thesis reviews the previous research on Appraisal, macro-theme and hyper-theme. Thirdly, this thesis concludes the theoretical framework of Appraisal, macro-theme and hyper-theme, and combination of higher-order themes with Appraisal. Fourthly, the main part of this thesis comes, that is, a detailed analysis about macro-theme, hyper-theme and Appraisal in them in selected children’s books. Lastly, this thesis concerns with the major findings, implications both for the writers of children’s books and children readers, the limitations of the present study and prospects for further study.It is suggested that macro-theme and hyper-theme contribute to the textual coherence, and Appraisal in them also help much in textual coherence. This is very important to Children books, for macro-theme, hyper-theme and Appraisal in them construct relations which can help children better understand stories and build their emotions.