Peculiarities of the theme-rhematic structure of scientific-technical texts

The Federal State Budget Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

The National Research University (MPEI)

Department of Applied Linguistics and Translating Techniques

 

TERM PAPER

Specialty “Stylistics”

SUBJECT: “THE ACTUAL DIVISION OF THE SENTENCE IN THE SCIENTIFIC-TECHNICAL TEXTS”

 

 

Performed by student: Kovalenok S.N.

Supervisor: Rodionova L. U.

 

 

 

 

 

Moscow 2012

 

 

 

 

 

Contents 

Introduction………………………………………………………………..……3-7

Chapter I. The actual division of the sentence in scientific-technical texts.

1. .  The actual division of the sentence………………………………8-12
2. . The scientific-technical text………………………………………13-15
3. . The relevance of the translation of scientific-technical texts..15-17

Chapter II. Peculiarities of the theme-rhematic structure of scientific-technical texts

2.1. The characteristics of scientific-technical texts……………......18-21

2.2. Analysis of terminology in scientific-technical style the characteristics of scientific-technical texts ...........………….….……21-25

 

Conclusion………………………………………………………………….26-29

Bibliography………………………………………………………………..….30

Supplement…………………………………………………………………31-32

 

 

 

 

 

 

Introduction.

               The purpose of this end-of-term paper is a thorough examination of actual division of the sentence as it is found in the scientific-technical texts. To achieve this aim, we need to do the following tasks:

1. To give a definition of the notion of “the actual division of a sentence”.
2. To define the notion of “scientific-technical text”.
3. Analyze the peculiarities of the actual division of the sentence.
4. To investigate the peculiarities of the actual division of the sentence as used in scientific-technical texts.

Actual Division of the sentence is the concept that was developed in the writings of the Prague Linguistic Circle in the 1930s to describe the functional components of the narrative sentences – the rheme, or the reported side, and the theme, the starting point of the message.

The issue of the actual division is being actively developed nowadays in various theories of linguistic pragmatics. In the theory of communicative dynamism the division into theme and rheme is assumed to be scalar: the degree of communicative dynamism in the initial theme is minimal, and communicative dynamism increases by the moment the sentence ends. The verb is attributed to the average degree of communicative dynamism, that is, it is understood as a transition between the theme and rheme. This description applies only to those sentences, in which rheme follow theme and the verb is in the center.

According to the theory of actual division, in the sentence

First year students are good («Студенты на первом курсе хорошие»)

the theme “first years students” is emphasized and the rheme “are good” explains us that students are reported to be good, thus, we obtain information. In some theories, the functional division of the sentence theme and rheme are called, respectively, topic and focus.

The theory of actual division of the sentence is connected with the logical analysis of the proposition. The principal parts of the proposition are the logical subject and the logical predicate; these two parts correlate with the theme and the rheme of the sentence respectively. Logical analysis deals with the process of thinking and the actual division reveals the corresponding lingual means of rendering the informative content in the process of communication. actual division of the sentence finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech, but this does not mean that the context should be treated as the factor which makes the speaker arrange the informative perspective of the sentence in a particular way. On the contrary, the actual division is an active means of expressing functional meanings and it is not so much context-governed as it is context-governing: it builds up concrete contexts out of constructional sentence models chosen to reflect different situations and events (see Unit 29). Contextual relevance of actual division is manifested, in particular, in cases of contextual ellipsis; the elliptical sentence normally contains the most important part of the information, the rheme, while the theme is omitted, e.g.: Who is late today? – Charlie (Charlie is late today).

         The nominative aspect of the semantics of the sentence reflects the situation named with its various components, the sentence expresses predicative semantics, which reflects various relations between the nominative content of the sentence and reality. One of the first attempts to analyze linguistically the contextually relevant communicative semantics of the sentence was undertaken by the scholars of the Prague Linguistic Circle at the beginning of the 20th century. The Czech linguist Vilém Mathesius was the first to describe the informative value of different parts of the sentence in the actual process of communication, making the informative perspective of an utterance and showing which component of the denoted situation is informationally more important from the point of view of the speaker. By analogy with the grammatical or nominative division of the sentence the idea of the so-called “actual division” of the sentence was put forward. This linguistic theory is known as the functional analysis of the sentence, the communicative analysis, the actual division analysis, or the informative perspective analysis. Actual division of a sentence or functional perspective of a sentence, a linguistic term meaning the division of a sentence based on its expression of a concrete meaning in the context of a given situation. Actual division breaks up a sentence into that which is considered to be known or easily understood (the theme, or point of departure), that which is told about the theme (the rheme, or kernel), and the elements of transition. For example:

                “He (theme) | proved to be (transition) | a splendid teacher (rheme).”

                  Он (тема) | оказался (переход) великолепным | учителем (рема).

                   Actual division of a sentence is presented as an alternative to the formal division of a sentence into grammatical elements. If the theme precedes the rheme, the order of words in the sentence is called objective; if the opposite is true, the order is subjective. For example:

                      “Father (theme) | is coming (rheme)” if the father is expected, but “Father (rheme) | is coming (theme)” if footsteps have been heard.

                     Идёт (рема) | отец (тема), если его ждут, но идёт (тема) | отец (рема), если слышатся его шаги.

                     The actual division of a sentence is expressed by word order, intonation, and other means [4]. In oral speech the rheme is identified by the logical stress we can make rhematic any member of the sentence. The actual division of the sentence may also be called contextual. In written speech the context may help us to identify the rheme.

                     Mary has planted the flowers. I hope mother has already planted the flowers.

                   I am sure Mary has already planted the flowers.

                   Мэри посадила цветы. Я надеюсь, что мама уже посадила цветы.

                   Я уверен, что Мэри уже посадила  цветы.

                    The sentence at the newspaper article immediately expresses a certain proposition, and the actual division of the sentence in the newspaper article presents itself in the most developed and complete form: the rheme of the sentence provides the immediate information that constitutes the informative center of the sentence in opposition with its thematic part, e.g.:

               Britain’s biggest teaching unions (theme) have set a collision course with the Government (rheme) after voting for further industrial action including strikes which could hit schools this summer.

                Английские преподавательские союзы после голосования предприняли ряд действий, направленные на оказание влияния на правительство, включая забастовки, последствия которых могут отразиться на школах этим летом.

                 Among the formal means of expressing the distinction between the theme and the rheme investigators name such structural elements of language as word-order patterns, intonation contours, constructions with introducers, syntactic patterns of contrastive complexes, constructions with articles and other determiners, constructions with intensifying particles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I. The actual division of the sentence in scientific-technical texts.

1.1 The actual division of the sentence.

   It is well known fact that the notional parts of the sentence form together the nominative meaning of the sentence. The division of the sentence into notional parts can be called the nominative division a long side of nominative division. The idea of the actual division has been put forward in theoretical linguistics. Its purpose is to reveal the correlative significance of the sentence parts from the point of view of their actual informative role in an utterance.

The main components of the actual division are the “theme” and the “rheme”.

Theme expresses the starting point of the communication.

Rheme expresses the basic informative part of the communication.

Between the theme and the rheme are positioned intermediary parts of the actual division. The theme may or may not coincide with the subject of the sentence. The rheme with a predicate. The actual division finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech. If it is stylistically neutral construction the theme is the subject and the rheme is the predicate and this kind of actual division is direct. The actual division in which the rheme is expressed by the subject is inverted.

The means of expressing the rheme :

Lexical meanings – particles  (only,even)

Logical stress-

Change of syntactic structure (It was he who did it)

Passive voice.

Means of expressing theme

Definite article.

Word order.

• The actual division is an active means of expressing functional meaning.

И.Ф.Вардуаль: Division which presents the ‘basic item’ and the ‘nucleus of the message’, ‘theme’ and ‘rheme’, ‘given’ and ‘new’ was called by V.Mathesius “the actual division of the sentence” as distinguished from its “formal division”. Actual division is the result of the influence of context and situation.

• Intonation is a very important means of actual division.

К.Г.Крушельницкая/А.В. де Грот: actual division is the reflection of the speaker’s attitude towards what is said. This point of view is less acceptable.

The theory of actual division of the sentence is connected with the logical analysis of the proposition. The principal parts of the proposition are the logical subject and the logical predicate; these two parts correlate with the theme and the rheme of the sentence respectively. Logical analysis deals with the process of thinking and the actual division reveals the corresponding lingual means of rendering the informative content in the process of communication[1].

The logical subject and the logical predicate, like the theme and the rheme, may or may not coincide, respectively, with the subject and the predicate of the sentence. When the actual division of the sentence reflects the natural flow of thinking directed from the starting point of communication to its semantic core, from the logical subject to the logical predicate, the theme precedes the rheme and this type of actual division is called “direct”, “unspecialized”, or “unmarked”. In English, with its fixed word order,  direct actual division means that the theme coincides with the subject (or the subject group) in the syntactic structure of the sentence, while the rheme coincides with the predicate (the predicate group) of the sentence, as in Charlie is late. - Charlie (theme) is late (rheme). In some sentences, the rheme may be expressed by the subject and it may precede the theme, which is expressed by the predicate, e.g.: Who is late today? – Charlie (rheme) is late (theme). This type of actual division is called “inverted”, “reverse”, “specialized”, or “marked”. The last example shows that actual division of the sentence finds its full expression only in a concrete context of speech (therefore it is sometimes referred to as the “contextual” division of the sentence).

The close connection of the actual division of the sentence with the context, which makes it possible to divide the informative parts of the communication into those “already known” by the listener and those “not yet known”, does not mean that the actual division is a purely semantic factor. There are special formal lingual means of expressing the distinction between the meaningful center of the utterance, the rheme, and the starting point of its content, the theme. They are as follows: word order patterns, constructions with introducers, syntactic patterns of contrastive complexes, constructions with articles and other determiners, constructions with intensifying particles, and intonation contours.

The connection between word order and actual division has been described above: direct actual division usually means that the theme coincides with the subject in the syntactic structure of the sentence, while the rheme coincides with the predicate. Inverted word order can indicate inverted actual division, though the correlation is not obligatory. For example: (There was a box.) Inside the box was a microphone; the adverbial modifier of place at the beginning of the sentence expresses the theme, while the subject at the end of the utterance is the rheme; the word order in this sentence is inverted, though its actual division is direct. Reversed order of actual division, i.e. the positioning of the rheme at the beginning of the sentence, is connected with emphatic speech, e.g.: Off you go! What a nice little girl she is!

Constructions with the introducer ‘there’  identify the subject of the sentence as the rheme, while the theme (usually it is an adverbial modifier of place) is shifted to the end of the utterance, e.g.: There is a book on the table. The actual division of such sentences is reverse without any emotive connotations expressed. Cf.: The book is on the table; in this sentence both the word order and the actual division are direct: the subject is the theme of the sentence.

Emphatic identification of the rheme expressed by various nominative parts of the sentence (except for the predicate) is achieved by constructions with the anticipatory ‘it’, e.g.: It is Charlie who is late; It was back in 1895 that Popov invented radio.

The opposed nominative parts of the sentence are marked as rhematic in sentences with contrastive complexes, e.g.: Charlie, not John, is absent today.

Articles and other determiners, in accord with their either identifying or generalizing semantics, are used to identify the informative part “already known“, the theme (definite determiners) or the “not yet known” information, the rheme (indefinite determiners). E.g.: The man (theme) appeared unexpectedly. – A man (rheme) appeared. But this correlation is not obligatory, because the theme is not always the information already known; it may be something about which certain information is given, so, the indefinite article may be used with the theme too, e.g.: A voice called Mary.

Various intensifying particles, such as only, just, merely, namely, at least, rather than, even, precisely, etc., identify the nominative part of the sentence before which they are used as the rheme, e.g.: Only Charlie is late today. Similar is the function of the intensifying auxiliary verb ‘do’, which turns the predicate into the rheme of the sentence, while the rest of the predicate group is turned into the transition or even the theme, e.g.: I did help your sister (cf.: I helped your sister).

  The major lingual means of actual division of the sentence is intonation, especially the stress which identifies the rheme; it is traditionally defined as “logical accent” or “rhematic accent”. Intonation is universal and inseparable from the other means of actual division described above, especially from word-order patterns: in cases of direct actual division (which make up the majority of sentences) the logical stress is focused on the last notional word in the sentence in the predicate group, identifying it as the informative center of the sentence; in cases of reverse actual division, the logical stress may indicate the rheme at the beginning of the utterance, e.g.: Charlie (theme) is late (logical accent, rheme). - Charlie (logical accent, rheme) is late (theme). In written speech the logical accent is represented by all the other rheme-identifying lingual means, which indicate its position directly or indirectly. They can be technically supported by special graphical means of rheme-identification, such as italics, bold type, underlinings, etc.

                          1.2. The scientific-technical text

  The purpose of science as a branch of human activity is to disclose by research the inner substance of things and phenomena of objective reality and find out the laws regulating them, thus enabling man to predict, control and direct their future development in order to improve the material and social life of mankind. The style of scientific prose is therefore mainly characterized by an arrangement of language means which will bring proofs to clinch a theory. The main function of scientific prose is proof. The selection of language means must therefore meet this principle requirement.

The genre of scientific works is mostly characteristic of the written form of language (scientific articles, monographs or textbooks), but it may also be found in its oral form (in scientific reports, lectures, discussions at conferences, etc); in the latter case this style has some features of colloquial speech.

The language of science is governed by the aim of the functional style of scientific prose, which is to prove a hypothesis, to create new concepts, to disclose the internal laws of existence, development, relations between different phenomena, etc. The language means used, therefore, tend to be objective, precise, unemotional, and devoid of any individuality; there is a striving for the most generalized form of expression.

The first and most noticeable feature of this style is the logical sequence of utterances with clear indication of their interrelations and interdependence, that is why in no other functional style there is such a developed and varied system of connectives as in scientific prose. The most frequently words used in scientific text are functional words; conjunctions and prepositions.

The first 100 most frequent words of this style comprises the following units:

a) prepositions: of, to, in, for, with, on, at, by, from, out, about, down;

b) prepositional phrases: in terms of; in view of, in spite of, in common with, on behalf of, as a result of; by means of, on the ground of, in case of;

c) conjunctional phrases: in order that, in case that, in spite of the fact that, on the ground that, for fear that;

d) pronouns: one, it, we, they;

e) notional words: people, time, two, like, man, made, years.

As scientific text is restricted to formal situations and, consequently, to formal style, it employs a special vocabulary which consists of two main groups: words associated with professional communication and a less exclusive group of so-called learned words. Here one can find numerous words that are used in scientific text and can be identified by their dry, matter-of-fact flavour, for example, comprise, compile, experimental, heterogeneous, homogeneous, conclusive, divergent, etc. Another group of learned word comprises mostly polysyllabic words drawn from the Romance languages and, though fully adapted to the English phonetic system, some of them continue to sound singularly foreign. Their very sound seems to create complex associations: deleterious, emollient, incommodious, meditation, illusionary.

A particularly important aspect of scientific and technological language is the subject-neutral vocabulary which cuts across different specialized domains. In particular, a great deal of scientific work involves giving instructions to act in a certain way, or reporting on the consequences of having so acted.

Several lexical categories can be identified within the language of scientific instruction and narrative:

Verbs of exposition: ascertain, assume, compare, construct, describe, determine, estimate, examine, explain, label, plot, record, test, verify.

Verbs of warning and advising: avoid, check, ensure, notice, prevent, remember, take care; also several negative items: not drop, not spill.

Verbs of manipulation: adjust, align, assemble, begin, boil, clamp, connect, cover, decrease, dilute, extract, fill, immerse, mix, prepare, release, rotate, switch on, take, weigh.

Adjectival modifiers and their related adverbs: careful (y), clockwise, continuous (ly), final (ly), gradual (ly), moderate (ly), periodic (ally), secure (ly), subsequent (ly), vertical (ly) (see Appendix 1).

The general vocabulary employed in scientific text bears its direct referential meaning, that is, words used in scientific text will always tend to be used in their primary logical meaning. Hardly a single word will be found here which is used in more than one meaning. Nor will there be any words with contextual meaning. Even the possibility of ambiguity is avoided.

Likewise neutral and common literary words used in scientific text will be explained, even if their meaning is slightly modified, either in the context or in a foot-note by a parenthesis, or an attributive phrase.

A second and no less important feature and, probably, the most conspicuous, is the use of terms specific to each given branch of science. Due to the rapid dissemination of scientific and technical ideas, particularly in the exact sciences, some scientific and technical terms begin to circulate outside the narrow field they belong to and eventually begin to develop new meanings. But the overwhelming majority of terms do not undergo this process of de-terminization and remain the property of scientific text. There they are born, develop new terminological meanings and there they die. No other field of human activity is so prolific in coining new words as science is. The necessity to penetrate deeper into the essence of things and phenomena gives rise to new concepts, which require new words to name them. A term will make more direct reference to something than a descriptive explanation, non-term. Furthermore, terms are coined so as to be self-explanatory to the greatest possible degree.