Periodicity

Martin & Rose (2007: 187):

Periodicity is concerned with information flow — with the way in which meanings are packaged to make it easier to take them in.

Following a general introduction, section 6.2 looks at information flow in clauses, introducing the concepts of Theme and New. Section 6.3 pushes this up a level to paragraphs, considering how information can be predicted by a hyperTheme (aka topic sentence) and summarised as hyperNew. Then in section 6.4 extensions of this patterning in longer carefully edited texts are explored (macroTheme and macroNew).

Blogger Comments:

[1] To be clear, in Martin (1992: 392-3), the concepts described in this chapter are modelled as types of interaction pattern, described as a 'systematic interaction between discoursal, grammatical and phonological structures'. For a thorough examination of that model, see the clarifying critiques here. In the present work, Martin & Rose have totally re-theorised these interaction patterns as textual systems of Martin's discourse semantic stratum, and named the systems, not 'from above', in terms of the meanings that are expressed, but 'from below' in terms of the type of structure that expresses the meaning. In a functional theory, such as SFL Theory, the view 'from above' takes priority.

[2] To be clear, the systems of theme and information assign different textual statuses to grammatical elements as a means of relating a text to its environment. Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 528): 

The “textual” metafunction is the name we give to the systematic resources a language must have for creating discourse: for ensuring that each instance of text makes contact with its environment. The “environment” includes both the context of situation and other instances of text.

[3] To be clear, Theme is an element of clause structure, but New is an element of information unit structure, not clause structure. Clause and information unit are grammatical systems, not (discourse) semantic systems. In Martin (1992: 384, 393, 401), information is misunderstood as a phonological system.

[4] To be clear, 'paragraph' is a graphological unit, and thus only applies to the written mode of language. Because spontaneous speech is not organised in paragraphs, the model does not apply to language as a whole. As will be seen, much of what is presented in this chapter is not linguistic theory, but writing pedagogy rebranded and misrepresented as linguistic theory.

[5] These are rebranded terms from writing pedagogy, misrepresented as linguistic theory:

• 'hyperTheme' is Martin's rebranding of 'topic sentence' (as acknowledged above);
• 'hyperNew' is Martin's rebranding of 'paragraph summary';
• 'macroTheme' is Martin's rebranding of 'introductory paragraph'; and
• 'macroNew' is Martin's rebranding of 'text summary'.

The inverted use of 'hyper-' and 'macro-' derives from Martin's misunderstanding of the source of the term 'hyperTheme' (Daneš 1974), where 'hyper-' means 'above', since it refers to the first instance of a repeated Theme; see Problems With The Argument For Hyper-Theme.