Thematic Structure Analysis Of The Old Man And The Sea

As a school of linguistics, systemic functional grammar has been considered to be a focus of the linguists both at home and abroad for a long time. Systemic functional grammar insists on the importance of human and explores the functions of human communication by using language from the perspective of human themselves. One of the most worldwide influential figures in the field of systemic functional grammar is Halliday. His theories are widely applied to discourse analysis; meanwhile, as an important method in discourse analysis, the theory of thematic structure is becoming more and more prevalent. Considered to be of great importance in the development of message and the origination of structure, thematic structure theory and thematic progression theory also are regarded as an implicit cohesive device. However, it is uncommon that the study on the appliance of theme structure in literature works. And they are worthy of our learning.As a famous American writer, Hemingway’s works are favored by many readers for their outstanding writing styles and distinct point of views. The Old Man and the Sea, the masterpiece of Hemingway, is also obtained many attentions. Most scholars analyze the writing style of this work and its characteristics by using the method of literature theories. However, the researches on linguistics, especially in thematic structure theory and thematic progressive theory, are insufficient.This thesis tries to analyze The Old Man and the Sea from the perspective of systemic linguistic grammar. Based on the theory of Halliday’s thematic structure theory and Zhu Yongsheng’s thematic progressive theory, the thesis will analyze the type of theme, thematic markedness and thematic progression. This thesis will choose the whole novel as collect data to analyze. So a combination of qualitative and quantitative method is adopted in this thesis. The aim of the thesis is to analyze the structural feature of the novel, and then figure out the purpose of the writer.Through the analysis of the novel, main findings are as follows: on the basis of complexity, the novel mainly adopts simple theme, by the expression of noun and pronoun acting as subjects. The common subjects are nominal group “the old man” and pronoun “he”. The second common theme is multiple theme. Author mainly expresses by the combination of textual theme and experiential theme which describe the objective fact, while interpersonal theme that expresses subjective mentality is seldom used. In this novel, there is nearly no clausal theme. On the basis of markedness, the novel mainly adopts unmarked theme, giving the priority to the usage of simple nouns and nominal groups in declarative sentences, while marked theme which primarily appears as adjuncts and complements takes little percentage. In the perspective of thematic progression, the novel takes parallel progression as the principal one. Then, the second common is continuous progression. The third common is alternative progression. The seldom used progression is concentrated progression. Parallel progression takes the primary position for its simple and repeating theme. The study proves that the novel describes the whole novel by using simple and concise words, since the readers of the novel is common people, and the leading characters in the novel is fisherman who is down social status and poor education background, what’s more, this language feature also reflects the iceberg principle which is the unique characteristic of Hemingway’s writing skill properly.This thesis is a precedent that using the theories of theme and rheme analyzes the famous work of Hemingway The Old Man and the Sea. It is not only a new standpoint which can help readers understand this novel, but a case that give a brief analysis of theme and rheme theory of systemic grammar to learners. Because of personal ability and time limitation, there may be mistake made by collecting and analyzing data. The further study is to improve it.