Theme and rheme
المؤلف:
Bronwen Martin and Felizitas Ringham
المصدر:
Dictionary of Semiotics
الجزء والصفحة:
P133
2025-07-08
495
Theme and rheme
Used widely in discourse analysis, these terms concern the arrangement of information in a sentence or utterance and the importance that the speaker/writer wishes to accord to a particular item.
Theme is a formal grammatical category which refers to the initial element in a clause serving as the point of departure for the message. It is the element around which the sentence is organized and to which the writer/speaker wishes to give prominence. Everything that follows the theme, i.e. the remainder of the message or part in which the theme is developed, is known as the rheme. A message, therefore, consists of a theme combined with a rheme. Compare the following sentences:
(A) The boys mugged the old woman. (B) The old woman was mugged by the boys.
In the first sentence the theme is 'the boys': it is the boys and what the boys did that is of primary interest. Information about who was mugged is secondary, i.e. the rheme. In the second sentence, on the other hand, it is the fate of the victim, the old woman and what happened to her, that is of primary interest (theme).
In semiotic theory, theme is opposed to figure. In other words, where figurative elements in discourse are essential ingredients in the construction of a reality effect, themes relate to concepts, to the signified that cannot be perceived by the senses. Thus themes such as 'love', 'hate' and 'evil' are not perceptible in themselves, while their expression in gestures of 'love' or 'hate', for instance, is figurativized and perceived by the senses.
See also thematization.
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