1 Introduction

This chapter introduces the unique approach of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to the study of Theme and Information. It highlights the lack of attention given to spoken language in existing research on Theme, particularly the neglect of the prosodic articulation of Theme. The chapter also discusses the assumptions within SFL regarding the relationship between clauses and tone groups, and the expected patterns of Theme and Given information. It includes examples to illustrate the relationship between prosody and Theme. The chapter outlines the structure of the following sections, which will review literature on Theme and prosodic encoding, describe the data set and its coding, discuss the relationship between Theme and prosody, and summarize the main findings.

2 State of the art

The chapter discusses the definition of Theme, highlighting the different elements of Themes and their functions. It also explores the realizations of unmarked Themes and marked Themes, providing examples to illustrate these concepts. The chapter also delves into the concept of tone groups and information units, explaining the role of tonic elements and the distribution of salient and non-salient elements within tone groups. Additionally, it examines the relationship between tone groups and grammatical units, and discusses the arguments for and against equating tone groups with clause units. Finally, the chapter presents expectations regarding the occurrence of marked Themes and modal adjuncts within their own tone groups, as well as the potential interaction between marked Themes and high key signals.

3 The data set

The chapter describes the data set where volunteers watched videos of flooding and discussed their personal experiences. The recordings were transcribed into tone groups using PRAAT software to analyze the Theme and Rheme. The results show that there is no one-to-one relation between clauses and tone groups and that speakers articulate Themes in as many tone groups as appropriate to their message. Additionally, the chapter discusses how speakers' tonality decisions seem affected by the presence of a textual Theme, and provides examples to illustrate this. The chapter also examines the disambiguation of modal metaphors and explores the prosodic prominence on the pronoun I to indicate a mental projecting process. Overall, the results indicate that the majority of key choices for all types of Theme was mid.

4 Discussion

The paper discusses the interplay of prosodic choices and lexico-grammar in realizing interpersonal meaning. It presents several examples to illustrate how the salience or lack of salience of the interpersonal Theme within tone groups affects the communicative value. It also examines the prosodic patterns found in the data set, particularly in relation to modal metaphors. The paper notes that high key was more commonly found with metaphors of modality than with adjuncts, and discusses the potential reasons for this. Finally, it discusses the issue of marked Theme and its key choices, showing that the literature's prediction of a correspondence between marked Theme and high key was not supported by the data.

5 Conclusions

The data suggests that there is no direct relation between lexico-grammatical resources and prosodic ones. There are noticeable tendencies in the data, such as the Theme not usually being found within its own tone group. Textual Themes have a higher tendency to appear within their own tone groups. The expectation that adjuncts and mood metaphors as more syntactically distant elements would tend to occur in their own tone groups was not met. Speakers manage their interactional and informational needs by producing prosodic and thematic choices, frequently mutually re-enforcing. They co-deploy lexico-grammatical and prosodic resources in simultaneously managing perceived informational needs and interactional expectations.