Re: topic/focus or theme/rheme

At 5:29 pm +0100 14/2/99, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
....
>
>        I don't like the words "topic" and "focus". They are particularly
>ambiguous for those who are not natives in English.
They are not exactly precise for native English speakers, either.

>I prefer more
>"international" terms which are "theme" and "rheme". The theme is what we
>are talking about, the rheme is what we say of it. And they always go
>together (the theme is sometimes absent. It is because the theme is
>_already_ known and the new information is the rheme. So the theme may be
>known with the context). With what you say, I think the topic is the theme
>and the focus is the rheme. The difference is that you can always speak of
>theme and rheme, not always of topic and focus.
Well, no, not in my understanding of these terms.  I thought the contrast
with "topic" was _comment_ and that "focus" contrasts with
_presupposition_.  I find the opposition 'focus' ~ 'topic' as confusing as
Christophe does.

As I understand it:

TOPIC ~ COMMENT
- the topic of a sentence is the entity about which something is said;
- the comment is what is said about the topic.
This often corresponds to the traditional subject-predicate division, e.g.
A bird / is sitting in the tree.  But it need not, e.g. 'That's the answer
I'm giving you' - 'the answer' is the topic.

FOCUS ~ PRESUPPOSITION
- the focus is the new information which forms the center or "focus" of
interest;
- the presupposition is the information assumed or presupposed by the speaker.
E.g.
"It's Gareth who visited us last week" - we assume you know someone did
visit us last week, so we'd like to focus on "Gareth" and let you know it
was him.

RHEME ~ THEME
These terms were IIRC coined by the Prague School and if I've understood
correctly:
- the rheme adds the most extra meaning (i.e. has the highest degree of
'communicative dynamism');
- the theme adds the least new information, i.e. has the lowest degree of
'communicative dynamism').

It seems to me that 'rheme', 'focus' and 'topic' do overlap somewhat in
meaning, but I'm sure the linguists who use the particular terms will
readily point out the differences.

.........
>
>        What I mean with that discussion is that topic and focus are not
>really
>terms of an opposition, but the theme and the rheme are.
I agree entirely - see above.

>The topic is only
>the theme when it is focussed on, and the focus is the rheme when it is
>focussed on (you can see the ambiguity).
Yeah - I think that just about sums up the ambiguity that many of us native
English speakers also experience in the differing use of these terms :-)

Ray.